Postmodernism

Postmodernism is awesome, but extremely hard for me to define, mainly because the more you think about postmodernism the more postmodern everything seems to become.
Its easier to break down postmodernism into elements;

• Bricolage
• Parody
• Pastiche
• Homage
• Semiotic
• Intertextuality
• Realism
• Identity
• Economics

And many more words can be used to describe postmodernism.
Its easy to find Postmodernism in film (not just because our teachers choose Scream for us to watch on Monday) but also because quite often in postmodern films there are so many references and chances for the audience to pick up on postmodernism, such as most of Quentin Tarantino's films. You can tell by his movies that he was heavenly influenced by Italian director Sergio Leone, the music Tarantino uses and even the shot types, his long takes and wide shots, but why is this postmodern? When I watch Tarantino's films I think of Leone, I'm reminded that the film is a film and a homage at that.
In our lecture we looked at a scene from Pulp Fiction, the famous dance scene, where Travolta and Thurman dance. It was interesting to see that even though unintentionally Tarantino hadn't cast Travolta thinking that people would reference him back to one of his most recognisable character from Saturday night fever. Even though Tarantino had not put the message there the audience were still making what they will of it. What I think is even more postmodern is that now a days people dress up as Mia and Vincent so much that when I got around to watching the film (it came out when I was two) I thought that the characters in the film were dressed up in fancy dress, like in other films I had seen, taking an entirely different meaning from the scene.
Another way we could reference the scene was from Godard's 'Bande a parte' which is probably the most likely reference from Tarantino, especially as the name of his production company is called A Band Apart.
I was going to link the dance on here however every version I find on youtube has had music added to it, it seems like the dance scene has become a meme in the internet world.

We looked a little at Roland Barthes in class and his book "Death of the Author" and his theory that the meaning and messages are all picked up by an audience and that nothing is controlled by the author.

I'll leave you with "copy shop" as I can't get the "Bande a Parte" dance!