Experimental Film : exam question

STARTER QUIZ 

 

EXAM QUESTION : TO WHAT EXTENT AND IN WHAT WAYS CAN YOUR CHOSEN FILM BE DESCRIBED AS AN EXPERIMENTAL FILM   ( 20 marks )

Consider the following questions  and  techniques and include at least some of the following content .

You should be discussing  how and why the film uses some experimental or postmodern techniques and 

decide in a personal response how "experimental" the film actually is. 

 

EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES

Is Pulp Fiction an experimental film ?  

Is it non-narrative cinema ( like some purely experimental films ) or does it feature narratives and more traditional cinematic storytelling ?

 Does the film contain any experiments or subversions of the rules of film form, narrative structure or  enigmas ?  Did any previous films or film  movements inspire these ? e.g  French New Wave . or postmodernism ?

POSTMODERNIST TECHNIQUES

Is it a postmodernist film ? Which postmodernist techniques does it use ?

What do these techniques add in terms of content or meaning ?

 

Intertextuality : For example, intertextuality.  Pulp Fiction has a huge variety of explicit and more subtle intertextual references. Does it make the film more realistic or change the meaning of the text in any way ? What doe these references add ?

Does it have a classic postmodern dark and ironic mood , with a casual attitude to violence ? Does the film have a single and clear meaning and resolution or a more ambiguous and fractured resolution ?

Eclecticism : Does the film have a range of influences from both high  culture ( e.g literature, European art film ) and low culture ( e.g comic books, American TV , action films ) ?

Are any whole scenes or stories complete pastiches or parodies of other films or genres or does Tarantino just use  intertextual references and occasionally steal plot ideas  ?  For example

Reflexivity : Does the film ( or any scenes ) draw attention to itself as a media text in a self-concsious way  e.g breaking the fourth wall ? I couldn't think of anything apart from some of the more extreme uses of framing and camera movement that feel "self-concsious"

Is Tarantino's Jack Rabbit Slims an example of  bricologe ( a collage of intertextual references to other films and actors or even a  a comment on hyperreality , where the media is more real to use than reality?)

GENRE

Does the film just follow or does it play with or subvert any audience expectations or conventions of the crime genre ?

Consider ideas of stereotypical or familiar characters in crime movies, familiar stories and iconography  narrative structure and resolutions in crime movies  and how enigmas are usually resolved in the crime genre

FURTHER HELP

exemplar answer  : not same question and a bit brief but good points about cinematography, postmodernism and French New Wave

excellent examplar on how experimental the narrative is

A reddit discussion

video on some more "intertextual references" Tarantino makes in his films and general discussion of postmodernist originality

Opening scenes

Let's get into character : talking at work

Jack Rabbit Slims : 

 a place made of intertextual references

Ending ( ?)

POSTMODERNISM FILM AND TV

 Postmodernism and Film/TV

‘Ultimately post modernism is a vague term. However in its eclecticism lies its power to be none or anti-essentialist. It neither has nor provides a fixed meaning, in its pluralism lies its ability to be read either positively or negatively’ 
Susan Haywood, 

Cinema Studies the key concepts, 2013


Generally postmodernist can be not as extreme in their experimental use of film form or narrative as other types of experimental film  and generally date from 1990s onwards as that was when the term became widely used and applied.

They may be of standard length  and may be released and consumed within the mainstream of  rather than linked to visual art movements or philosophical movements. They may bend the rules of narrative and film form conventions within a fairly traditional structure or feature more consistent use of cause and effect or mise-en-scene while using one or more of the central elements of postmodernist techniques listed previously.

TASK :  Select three films/TV programmes you feel are postmodernist and explain why they are, focusing on the postmodernist techniques and features they contain. ( reflexivity,intertextuality, eclectism, use of parody/pastiche,experiments in film form and narrative, focus on subjective experience rather than objective reality ,dark and cynical tone etc) 

EXAMPLES

Deadpool  ( reflexive voiceover, dark ironic tone )

Adaptation   reflexive narrative and reflexive and ironic use of voiceover

Dogville   artificial mise-en-ecene

Donnie Darko  fractured and cyclical narrative

Memento   fractured and reversed narrative 

Grand Budapest Hotel       deliberately artificial mise-en-scene

also many intertextual references and pastiches

     

                                               Reservoir Dogs   intertextual references , parody/pastiche of other films/genres, dark ironic tone, mixed low/high cultural references , 

Far From Heaven    extended parody/pastiche of 1940s melodrama


Mulholland Drive / Lost Highway  ( David Lynch ) fractured unresolved narratives

The Simpsons   use of  intertextuality and pastiche/parody, breaking 4th wall = reflexive

Rick and Morty   intertextuality, dark ironic tone, pastiche and parody, reflexive