Postmodernism in Film

Postmodernist film attempts to articulate postmodernism (its ideas and themes and methods) through the medium of film. Postmodernist film attempts to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure, characterisation and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief.  Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and low art and often upend typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something different from traditional narrative expression.

Blade Runner Example (wiki)

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner might be the best known postmodernist film. Ridley Scott's 1982 film is about a future dystopia where "replicants" (human cyborgs) have been invented and are deemed dangerous enough to hunt down when they escape. There is tremendous effacement of boundaries between genres and cultures and styles that are generally more separate along with the fusion of disparate styles and times that is a common trope in postmodernist cinema. "The futuristic set and action mingle with drab 1940s clothes and offices, punk rock hairstyles, pop Egyptian style and oriental culture. The population is singularly multicultural and the language they speak is agglomeration of English, Japanese, German and Spanish. The film alludes to the private eye genre of Raymond Chandler and the characteristics of film noir as well as Biblical motifs and images."Here is a demonstration of the mixing of cultures and boundaries and styles of art. The film is playing with time (the various types of clothes) and culture and genre by mixing them all together to create the world of the film. The fusion of noir and science-fiction is another example of the film deconstructing cinema and genre. This is an embodiment of the postmodern tendency to destroy boundaries and genres into a self-reflexive product. "The postmodern aesthetic of Blade Runner is thus the result of recycling, fusion of levels, discontinuous signifiers, explosion of boundaries, and erosion. The disconnected temporality of the replicants and the pastiche of the city are all an effect of a postmodern, postindustrial condition: wearing out, waste.

Characteristics of Postmodern Film:

Temporal Distortion - Use of a nonlinear timeline in which the author will jump back and forth in time, or where cultural and historical references do not fit the story that is being told.

Paranoia - Many postmodern authors wriet under the assumption that modern society cannot be explained or understood from which any apparent connections or controlling influences on the chaos of society would be frightening which leads to the paranoia in some postmodern works.

Intertextuality - referencing or acknowledgement of previous works.

Pastiche - The combination or pasting together of elements of previous genres and styles to create a new 'narrative voice'

Black humour - The use of irony and playfulness within work. They often treat a very serious subject - Wars and Conspiracy theories - from a position of distance and disconnect, and will choose to depict their histories ironically and humourosly