Children of Men is analyzed as a postmodern film. It borrows elements from multiple genres like action, drama and sci-fi but does not fully conform to any single genre. It features intertextual references to artworks, music and historical events to explore themes. While set in a futuristic world, the film does not provide explanations or resolutions through science and questions the idea of inevitable human progress.

1. Postmodern Media
Children of Men

2. • L.O
• To understand why Children of Men is a
post modern film and to what extent it is.
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3. Children of Men
• It’s a film set in 2027, in a futuristic fascist
state.
• Its futuristic world seems in some ways, not
too different to our own – and even appears
backward at times: the antiquated technology,
poverty and dirty transportation.
• But how is it post modern?
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4. Why can Children of Men be
described as a postmodern film?
• ‘Borrows’ or Appropriates from a range of
different genres.
• Action.
• Adventure.
• War.
• Documentary.
• Science-Fiction.
• Drama.
• Road Movie.

6. • It is not a conventional sci-fi film.
• Why?
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7. Not a typical Sci-fi film
• Children of Men doesn’t utilise many conventions that we
would associate with the Sci-fi genre. There is a futuristic
setting (2027), and a threat to humanity – infertility - but
beyond this it isn’t really typical of sci-fi at all.
• It doesn’t really explore any issues relating to science and/or
technology. Cuaron the director, didn’t want to make a typical
science-fiction film – he talks about having to rein in the design
team who wanted to make futuristic props and gadgets.
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8. Genres
• There are elements of lots of different genres
within the film. Visually, much of it is shot like a
documentary – HOW?
• The sequence in the camp at Bexhill is
reminiscent of the war genre - HOW?
• It is also similar to a road movie - HOW?
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9. GENRE
• Genre is about repetition and variation.
• It is conventional- the futuristic setting (repetition)
• But there is variation here too – in terms of Cuaron’s
vision of the future – it’s fairly recognisable to us.
• It is different to other sci-fi films which feature more
advanced technology.
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11. Why can Children of Men be
described as a postmodern film?
• Lots of intertextual references. I.e.
References to other texts from the worlds
of Art, Graffiti, Music, Photography.
• Which can you remember?

12. Postmodernism
• Postmodernism argues that popular culture such as grafitti (street
art)/pop music/TV etc. is equally as valid and important as High
culture such as Opera/Classical music/literature/fine art etc.
• It’s interesting when Theo visits his cousin who works close to the
government :
• The first work of art seen is a Banksy piece, there is the huge
Michaelangelo sculpture of David, Picasso’s Guernica and a
deliberate reference to a Pink Floyd album (Animals) in the
background.
• Thus, Cuaron seems to be deliberately suggesting that
boundaries between high and popular culture are pointless.
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14. Banksy
• The first piece we see is ‘British Cops
Kissing’, a piece of graffiti art stencilled by
infamous British satiricist and prankster
Banksy. His art bears ironic
representations of an oppressive
surveillance society, Banksy has been a
key figure in raising the status of graffiti to
art.
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15. 15

16. Picasso
• The next scene occurs in a decadent dining room,
Picasso’s immense Guernica filling the background
of the frame.
• Guernica was Picasso’s expression of horror at
the Nazi bombing of civilians in Guernica, Spain in
1937. Showed an intensely violent image of
disfigurement and suffering,
• Its apocalyptic sense reflects the film’s narrative.
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17. 17

18. Intertextual references
• In our postmodern age, we live in a world
where we are surrounded by the media to
such an extent that texts make frequent
references to other texts.
• Spotting these references rewards the
audience’s cultural capital – they feel that
they are in on the joke as it were.
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19. Inter textual refs
• A final nod to fascist-inspired imagery
occurs with the inclusion of Pink Floyd’s
pig balloon floating outside the Battersea
Power Station, as it did on the cover of
their Orwell- influenced 1977 concept
album Animals
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20. Pink Floyd’s Album
Animals. 1977.

21. 21

22. More pictures at the
prison:
http://www.antiwar.c
om/news/?
articleid=8560
Infamous picture from Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq

23. Cuarón explains how he uses this imagery to propagate the theme
by cross-referencing fictional and futuristic events with real,
contemporary, or historical incidents and beliefs:
They exit the Russian apartments, and the next shot you see is this
woman wailing, holding the body of her son in her arms. This was a
reference to a real photograph of a woman holding the body of her
son in the Balkans, crying with the corpse of her son. It's very
obvious that when the photographer captured that photograph, he
was referencing La Pietà, the Michelangelo sculpture of Mary holding
the corpse of Jesus.

24. Intertextualism
So: We have a reference to something that really happened,
in the Balkans, which is itself a reference to the
Michelangelo sculpture. At the same time, we use the
sculpture of David early on, which is also by
Michelangelo, and we have of course the whole reference
to the Nativity. And so everything was referencing and
cross-referencing, as much as we could.
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25. How our media world features in in the
film
•
It features television and the news media prominently; the film begins with fractured
audio clips exclaiming horrific news headlines, followed by onlookers glued to the
screen at a coffee shop.
•
Television screens can be seen everywhere in the public urban space,
•
The character of Jasper (Michael Caine, who modelled the role after his personal
friend John Lennon) is a former political cartoonist, lending credibility to his
understanding of the government’s manipulation of news media.
•
His catatonic wife is a former photo journalist, allegedly tortured by her own
government. (Both of these crucial character details must be ascertained with an
observant eye during a slow pan through news clippings and photographs.)
•
Also visible in this pan is the postcard artwork of Leon Kuhn featuring the iconic Abu
Graihb photograph of a hooded prisoner, arms stretched, cloaked in black, standing on
a box with wires connected to his body
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26. •
Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=M6THspwkrr8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
In addition to classical pieces, the unconventional soundscape of
v=M6THspwkrr8
Children of Men is littered with pop music.
• Jasper, the aging hippie, is identified by his classic rock: Deep
Purple’s “Hush” and the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday” echoes
the film’s conflicted multi-culturalism.
• Many contemporary British acts known for their socially conscious
lyrics are featured, including Radiohead, Aphex Twin, Roots
Manuva, and The Kills.
• Upon entrance to the refugee camp, the loudspeakers are heard
to be playing the Libertine’s “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work shall set
you free”), the Nazi slogan that was inscribed into the gates of
many of the concentration camps.
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27. A Sci-fi film without a resolution
• In Children of Men it is absolutely clear that
Governments around the world no longer
have control of the societies that they govern
– there is the sequence on the bus illustrating
the world’s problems.
• There is clearly the sense as the film
progresses that we are witnessing “escalating
disorder.”
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28. Why can Children of Men be
described as a postmodern film?
• Slightly unconventional narrative resolution.
Protagonist (Theo) dies and it isn’t clear that the
humans necessarily have much of a future despite
Kee’s pregnancy.
• For some audiences, undoubtedly unsatisfying.
• Polysemic readings.
• But - much of the narrative is conventional – it is in
most respects the conventional linear narrative
structure that is present in most Classic Realist
Texts.

29. Why can Children of Men be
described as a postmodern film?
• Because it challenges the distinction
between high and popular culture by
deliberately contrasting graffiti, sculpture,
Fine Art and Pop music in the Ark of the
Arts Scene.

30. Why can Children of Men be
described as a postmodern film?
• Because it is partly explores (or is about) the death of the
grand narrative.
• Grand narratives are concepts that explain progress, eg
Marxism, religion.
• Neither Science or Religion can provide an answer about
why women are infertile nor can a solution be found.
• The period of modernism saw huge faith being placed in
Science, technology and rational thought – people believed
that the human race would always continue to progress as
they came to better understand Science and so on.
• The argument is that in our postmodern society we no
longer believe this.

31. Conclusion
• Children of Men has some features that
are associated with Postmodern Cinema.
• Other films have other features that are
also considered postmodern that are not
present in Children of Men.