The term 'postmodernism' became vaguely used for a number of approaches to philosophy, literature and the arts, which have in common a rejection of an earlier 'modernist' view.1 Postmodernism is encouraged by the developments in technology, and is mostly associated with a post-industrial economy, which is more service-based, financially globalized and its society is typified by the rise of new information technologies. As the above description applies to our present days, it is commonly considered that we live in a postmodern world. However, many filmmakers, such as Quentin Tarantino, refuse to be categorized as ‘pomo’ artists. Some others, such as the Wachowski brothers (Matrix Trilogy) deliberately reference theorists such as Baudrillard. On the other hand, theorists constantly rewrite the list the returning aspects of films2, in which the most common elements are blurring of high and low art, mixing of cinematic styles, fragmented narrative, hyperreality, intertextuality, mini-narratives, subjectivity, self-reflexivity and open endings. As a consequence of the fast development of technology, we spend more and more hours per day looking at screens. Computers enable us to have several windows open simultaneously. According to Ien Ang we are ‘living in a world of schizophrenically fragmented instants’ in a ’bricolage’ of information 3.
Notes
1. Mel Thompson, Understand Philosophy, 1995
2. Edwin Page, Quintessential Tarantino, 2005
3. Ien Ang, Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World, 1996
4. The Prestige [DVD], 2006, dir. Christopher Nolan
5. Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 1981
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