The specific type of "experimental film " we will be specifically be applying to Tarantino and Pulp Fiction is the postmodern film.
We will be looking at the director , QuentinTarantino, as being a typically postmodern filmmaker and Pulp Fiction as being a postmodern work and debate how it uses some or any of the experimental techniques we have looked at previously , and those techniques that form postmodernism.....
What is Postmodernism?
Postmodernism is a literary, philosophical and visual concept which makes new assumptions about culture, identity and language. It is concerned with the uncertainty of contemporary life. It suggests that in a world driven by consumerism originality no longer exists, it rejects the ideologies of modernism and is typified by a sense of cynicism and irony.
Postmodernism is anti-theory : it opposes all of the traditional structural theories and claims that the nature of modern life is so complex and fragmented that no theory can address all of these elements. Culture and identity are either self-constructs or defined by a new and ever changing set of relationships.
SOME THEORY....
Jean Francois Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition (1979) argues that modern society has rejected ‘metanarratives’ (liberalism, Marxism, religion etc.) that we no longer believe in universalistic stories and overarching totalizing thought, rejecting not only theory but the cultural values of modernism.
Jean Baudrillard ,another influential postmodern thinker, proposed the notion of the simulacrum the replacement of reality with a mediated reality. He argues that we are no longer able to distinguish what is real and what is a representation and it is through culture and the media that this new reality is reproduced.
According to Hayward Post Modernism in general is ill defined which is possibly its strength and it can be seen not as a theory but as a historical period (late 60-90’s) where assumptions around traditional conventions are questioned therefore reflecting a sense of ‘anything goes’. It calls into question the notion of progress, science, high and low culture and of western intellectual supremacy and because it questions modernism it also questions traditional accepted systems of knowledge and therefore opens up debates around, gender, race and cultural identity.
While there isn’t a definitive agreement on what constitutes postmodernism we can for the purposes of this unit identify some central elements
1. Reflexivity : where a media or film text draws attention to itself as a constructed media text , for instance through breaking the fourth wall
2. Eclecticism; A wide range of influences, contributions and techniques,including both high and low culture.
3. Intertextuality; An author’s reference to ,borrowing and transformation of another media
text
4. Pastiche/ Parody; A humorous or satirical imitation of a media text . It can be an extended to a scene,episode or a whole film where not only the setting abd genre but key elements of film form and production is meant to be a pastiche or parody
5. Bricolage; A technique where works are constructed from various materials available :Meaning in media and film works come from how these elements are combined and mixed rather than any new element.
6. Hyperreality : As described by Baudrillard, the idea that we are all living in a "virtual" mediated world with little or no direct "real" experiences. It can also refer to the artificial constructed world of images we see in films which are not the same as the real world. Some postmodernist films also have narratives which refer to hyperrealities ( e.g The Matrix ) within the artificial world of the film.
PLUS
7. Acts against modernism; Postmodernism embodies scepticism towards the ideas and ideals of the modern era, especially the ideas of progress, objectivity, reason, certainty, personal identity and grand narrative.
Examples in your films of subversions, ambiguity and experimentation in narrative structure/ resolution, genre convention, audience expectation, the elements of film form and other experimental techniques can be described as acts against modernism in film.MORE HERE .
These elements may be shown in films by some of the following techniques :
The disruption/subversion of linear or clear narrative structure and resolution, subjective use of sound, unrealistic or artificial dialogue, extended pastiche , a wide range of high/low explicit cultural influences, breaking of the fourth wall, inconsistent or artificial mise-en-scene, ambiguous or unclear character motivation, missing elements and ellipses in narrative, and anything else that causes the disruption of the rules of cause and effect or the world of the film that most audiences depend on to create meaning.
Films described as postmodernist may also be ironic, dark or cynical in tone and deal with issues such as the breakdown or subversion of objective reality , the questioning of religion and morality and the nature of creativity and subjective experience.
