Postmodernist Film - Overview of Postmodernism

Overview of Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a complex paradigm of thought, art, philosophy, method. It emerged, initially, as a reaction to high modernism. Modernism is a paradigm of thought and viewing the world characterized in specific ways that postmodernism reacted against. Modernism was interested in master and meta narratives of history of a teleological nature. Proponents of modernism suggested that social/political/cultural progress was inevitable and important for society and art. Ideas of cultural unity (i.e., the narrative of the West or something similar) and the hierarchies of values of class that go along with such a conception of the world is another marker of modernism. In particular, modernism insisted upon a divide between "low" forms of art and "high" forms of art (creating more value judgments and hierarchies). This dichotomy is particularly focused on the divide between official culture and popular culture. Lastly but, by no means comprehensively, there was a faith in the "real" and the future and knowledge and the competence of expertise that pervades modernism. At heart, it contained a confidence about the world and humankind's place in it.

Postmodernism attempts to subvert and resist and differ from the preoccupations of modernism across many fields (music, history, art, cinema, etc.). Postmodernism emerged in a time not defined by war or revolution but rather by media culture. Unlike modernism, postmodernism does not have faith in master narratives of history or culture or even the self as an autonomous subject. Rather postmodernism is interested in contradiction, fragmentation, and instability. Postmodernism is often focused on the destruction of hierarchies and boundaries. The mixing of different times and periods or styles of art that might be viewed as "high" or "low" is a common practice in postmodern work. This practice is referred to as pastiche. Postmodernism takes a deeply subjective view of the world and identity and art, positing that an endless process of signification and signs is where any "meaning" lies. Consequently, postmodernism demonstrates what it perceives as a fractured world, time, and art.