This document discusses the history and key features of postmodern film. It provides examples of early postmodern films from the 1980s like Blade Runner that combined different time periods and genres. Films from the 1990s like Pulp Fiction used nonlinear narrative structures. More recent examples include horror films that parody the genre, like Scary Movie, as well as sci-fi films that experiment with time like Inception. Postmodern films often use pastiche, flatten emotion, create hyperreality, bend time, portray altered mental states, and question what it means to be human.

1. POSTMODERN FILM

2. HISTORY OF POSTMODERN FILM
• 80s - early examples of postmodern films include Blade Runner
(1982). It is a science fiction film with futuristic sets and action but
it combines 1940’s costumes, punk hairstyles and offices. It plays
with time, culture and genre by fusing them all together.
• Another example is Blue Velvet (1986) which features a lot of
intertextuality.
• In the 90s, Pulp Fiction (1994) is another good example of
postmodern film. This film consists of a lot of intertextuality and
uses non-linear narration as it breaks down chronological time.
The film is very much fragmented as it tells three interlocking
stories of gangsters, robbers and a boxer.
• 2000s - newer examples of postmodern film include: Scary Movie,
Scream and Inception. There has been quite a few examples of
postmodern films which are turning horror films into comedies. On
the other hand there has been an increase in sci-fi films which
focuses on a different aspect of postmodernism and plays with
time e.g. Inception, Source Code.

3. FEATURES OF POSTMODERN FILM
• Pastiche – an artistic work in a style that
imitates that of another work, artist or period.
Self-referential, tongue-in-cheek, rehashes of
classic pop culture.
• Flattening of affect – describes a person’s
detachment and lack of emotional reactivity.
This involves technology, drugs, violence and
the media which lead to detached, emotionless
and unauthentic lives.
• Hyperreality – the inability of consciousness to
distinguish reality from a simulation of reality.
Technology creates realities which are original
or more desirable than in the real world.
• Time bending – used to connote importance of
time travel as it shows how time travel provides
another way to shape reality.
• Altered states – involves mental illness, drugs
and technology which provide a dark gateway
to internal realities.
• More human than human – artificial
intelligence, robotics and cybernetics seek to
enhance or replace humanity.
Postmodern films goes
against the generic film
conventions in terms of
the narrative and roles
for example.
They may consist of
self-reflexivity which is
where the character
from the film stops and
looks directly at the
camera and talks to the
audience.

4. FAMOUS EXAMPLES OF POSTMODERN FILM
• Blade Runner
• Pulp Fiction
• Blue Velvet
• The Matrix
• Scream
• Scary Movie
• Inception
Films like Scream and Scary Movie take horror film
conventions and reverse them. For example, the
lighting is bright which is opposite to the
conventional dark lighting in horror movies. Also
the setting is in a house which is an ordinary
location and perhaps contrasts with the typical
location such as a graveyard.

5. AUDIENCE AND POSTMODERN FILM
• Where films make references to other media texts, it is
sometimes portrayed in a humorous way which entertains the
audience.
• On the other hand, hyperreality may lead the audience to get too
into the film and as a result create disappointment when the film
comes to an end as they return to the real world where things are
perhaps less exciting and entertaining as what they saw in the
film.
Anne Friedberg has argued that because we now have much control of how we
watch a film (through video/dvd), and we increasingly watch film in personal
spaces (the home) rather than exclusively in public places, ‘cinema and televison
become readable as symptoms of a “postmodern condition”, but as contributing
causes.’ In other words, we don’t just have films that are about postmodernism or
reflect postmodern thinking. Films have helped contribute to the postmodern
quality of life by manipulating and playing around with our conventional
understanding of time and space. ‘One can literally rent another space and time
when one borrows a videotape to watch on a VCR….the VCR allows man to
organize a time which is not his own…a time which is somewhere else – and to
capture it.’

6. CRITICISMS OF POSTMODERN FILM
• Norman Denzin describes postmodern film as a regressive
“masculinized culture … [in which] the oppressive structures of
racism and sexism are still firmly in place”
• Jane Shattuc criticises the sexual violence of ‘Blue Velvet’ and
argues postmodern film as a “patriarchal form” hostile to the
“conventions of affect, romance, melodrama and romantic
symbolism, all forms associated with women”.

7. MALEFICENT (2014)
Directed by Robert Stromberg
Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion
Pictures
Release date: 28th May 2013 (UK)
Box Office: $757.4 million
Summary
A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life
growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an
invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be
the land's fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless
betrayal - an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on
revenge, Maleficent faces a battle with the invading king's successor
and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the
child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in
the kingdom - and perhaps to Maleficent's true happiness as
well.Written by Walt Disney Pictures

8. MALEFICENT (2014)
The build up of the film is based on the story of Sleeping Beauty.
Maleficent places a curse on the kind’s daughter Aurora so that before the
sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, the girl will "prick her finger on a
spindle of a spinning wheel and die!" which she then weakens the curse so
that Aurora will fall into a deep sleep instead, with only a kiss from her
true love needed to awaken her.
This is re-telling the story of Sleeping Beauty in the villain’s perspective
where the main character is a fairy turned into a villain.
Intent on saving her, Maleficent abducts Phillip and goes to Stefan's
castle to have him kiss Aurora and break the curse. However, Phillip's
romantic kiss has no effect, as the two are not yet truly in love. Maleficent
apologizes to Aurora and swears no harm will come to her, kissing her
forehead. This breaks the curse and Aurora awakens as Maleficent's
motherly concern for Aurora constitutes "true love.“
Rather than the Philip awakening Aurora like in Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent
is the one who breaks the curse.