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Postmodern Culture Analysis

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While watching a movie, we often refer to the movie’s genre’s category when we browse the cinema titles. We pick and choose according to our likings, purchase a ticket and enjoy the movie. Simple. However, what comes to mind in this industry and the art of film making is the evolution of the existing film genres in today’s wide market of movies. The movie genres that we have seen over the years have constantly altered itself and improved - from the horror genre for example - Nosferatu (Murnau.F.W , 1922) to Insidious: Chapter 3 (Whannel. L, 2015) and then a blend of genres as seen in Zombieland (Fleischer. R, 2009). As Hayward. S (2006, p. 185) puts it “Clearly, genres are not static, they evolve with the times, even disappear.” In this essay, …show more content…

Both of these styles rely of either these four concepts “simulation (parody/pastiche), pre-fabrication, intertextuality and bricolage.” (Hayward. S, 2006, pp 286.) From looking at oppositional postmodern culture, it aims to experiments with the genre semantics and syntax by not submitting to their codes, creating a mockery of it. While the mainstream postmodern culture imitates it. Thus, the simulation concept of parody and pastiche was needed for both cultures respectively for the former and the latter. The concept of simulation overlaps in the other 3 concepts, let’s look at pre-fabrication. Pre-fabrication uses existing sequences or material lying around in the archives of films, and recycled into other films. Postmodern cinema may use any piece of art or film to be used as their own. Quotes, or music, or scenes maybe reused and recycled to create other original pieces of art, or film in this matter. The next concept is intertextuality, this concept refers to the usage of a text from one source to be utilised in another with alteration, be it in meaning or context. Note that this concept relates much to pre-fabrication and while the meaning of the text may be altered, it is considered parodical. An example of such a film is Pulp Fiction (Tarantino. Q, 1994), the character Jules Winnfield gives a signature quote from the Bible that is famous till this day, Ezekiel 25:17. While this quote was taken from the Bible, the text has been overly dramatised in description of the LORD’s wrath for the film’s purpose. In actuality, the original verse is nothing of that length and milder, but Tarantino exaggerated the lines to make God looked scarier and convincing Jule’s victims that he was going to get serious. The last concept of this set of reading is bricolage, the mimicry and

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