Unfinished Postmodern media manipulates time and space

Postmodern media manipulates time and space from SianLynes

Define postmodern media with examples

Define postmodern media from SianLynes

Postmodern media breaks the rules of representation. Discuss.

Postmodern media breaks the rules of representation from SianLynes

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media from SianLynes

Example of PostModern on TV

How do postmodern media differ from other media

How do postmodern media differ from other media from SianLynes

Jonathan Kramer: Music Theory Application

A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension


2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic


3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present



4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
Kanye West's 'Diamonds From Sierra Leona' is a prime example of high style and low style. The high style, derived from Shirley Bassey's classic 'Diamonds are Forever' (the James Bond soundtrack) and the mix of Kanye West's rapping can be considered postmodernist in line with Kramer's theory. It also makes a political statement about the blood diamonds, in this case referrring to Sierra Leone in Africa, that have a negative effect on their production.





5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity


6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values


7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody can be considered postmodern as it contains a ballad section, guitar solo, hard rock section and operatic passage. The song also contains no choruses which goes against the formal mould of a song.




8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts


9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures The self-reflexive introduction of Lady Gaga's 'Bad Kids' featured on her album Born This Way is an explicit reference to Michael Jackson's 'They Don't Care About Us'. This combination of a hip hop rock and dance-pop, as well as intertextuality, can be considered postmodern.

MJ: "All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us. We don't care what people say we know the truth. All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us. Enough is enough of this garbage."

LG: "We don't care what people say we know the turth. Enough is enough of this horseshit. I am not a freak. I was born with my free gun. Don't tell me I'm less than my freedom"



10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music


11. embraces contradictionsThis example, an official remix of Lady Gaga's single 'LoveGame' featuring Marilyn Manson contradicts the exclusivity of rock music with pop.



12. distrusts binary oppositions


13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities

14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism


15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities

16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

David Bowie: Notes

Present: "The Next Day" released unannounced - album cover "Heroes" taken and white box overlayed with the album title in an Arial font 'The Next Day' on top

Alter-ego

Major Tom

The Thin White Duke
-> Self-reflexive in the song "Station to Station" and featured on the album "Station to Station"


Alladin Zane

Ziggy Stardust:
Self-referential, based on Vince Taylor and inspired by Japanese theatre Bauki (mime)
and the Spiders from Mars -> song
Rejects the idea that performer had relation to the real-life persona
Rock/glam rock music that went against 60s music
Short/catchy/aimed at the revolutionised independent young generation
Cross over appeal -> LGBT communities/young/old/different racial groups
Ambient/experimental/ballads

Moved to soul/funk/psychedelic rock/pop/electronic
Bowie 'Pin-Up' album cover with 60s fashion icon Twiggy

1974: Diamond Dogs based on the book '1984' by George Orwell e.g. Rebel Rebel
Toured in America and influenced by the soul scene and so transformed with stripped down versions/wore suits and adopted soul artist mannerisms
The album cover shows him as "half-dog grotesque" painted by Belgian artist Guy Peellaert -> controversial as it showed the "hybrid" of his genitilia on the other side of the vinyl cover

1975: Plastic Soul album
->Recorded a song with The Beatles' John Lennon called "Fame" and first artist to appear on the show "Soul Train" (began aiming at the black youth culture with RnB/funk music) - appeal to a different genre can be considered postmodernist

1976: Station to Station album
Funk genre/European sound
Inspired by the Kraftwerk (Germanic electronic band)
Album cover -> David Bowie inside the spaceship
Can't recall making the album at all -> Bowie was involved in heavy cocaine use
He was interested in conspiracy theories at this time/gave the 'Nazi' salute but in fact waving

1977-1979: The Berlin Trilogy ->
Moved to Berlin to reform after cocaine use

• Low
• Heroes
• Lodger

Worked with Brian Eno and went with Iggy Pop
Transformed to electronic pop
Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" and "Idiot" were also contributed by David Bowie
Reused these later on in own albums "Let's Dance" and "Tonight"
No such thing as "uncool" prominant
"Casuals" in the late 70s adopted Bowie's look from Low

1976/77: David Bowie survived the Punk/Post-Punk sounds
Many other artist of the time struggled to move away from punk and changing social likes and dislikes
Major Tom -> Harlequin style/started new Romance movement to reject Punk and dress up instead
Recycled Major Tom's Space Oddity

"The Next Day" -> looking back at the Berlin Trilogy

Hunky Dory: Postmodernist

The style of the album cover was influenced by a Marlene Dietrich (a German-American actress and singer) photo book that Bowie took with him to the photo shoot. This is clear evidence of pastiche, imitating the look of Dietrich to formulate his album cover.

David Bowie: Postmodernism

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
- Born David Robert Jones, January 18th 1947
- Changed his name to 'David Bowie' in the 1960s to avoid confusion with the musician Davy Jones from The Monkees
- He was a struggling artist during the 1960s and experimented with other art forms such as acting, mime, painting and playwrighting.
- July 1969 saw the release of the song 'Space Oddity' which coincided with the moon landing and was his breakthrough
- His album which followed was not a commercial success at the time and his career appeared to be in decline
- In 1972 he made a 'comeback' with his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust

ALBUM LISTINGS:
- David Bowie (1967) - baroque pop/music hall/folk rock
- Space Oddity (1969) - folk rock/psychedelic folk
- The Man Who Sold the World (1970) - rock
- Hunky Dory (1971) - folk rock/glam rock/art rock
- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) - rock/glam rock

- Aladdin Sane (1973) - rock/glam rock - Pin Ups (1973) - glam rock/proto punk - Diamond Dogs (1974) - rock/glam rock - Young Americans (1975) - soul/funk/rock - Station to Station (1976) - rock/funk/blue eyed-soul - Low (1977) art rock/experimental rock - Heroes" (1977) - art rock/experimental rock/ambient - Lodger (1979) - art rock/experimental rock/world music

- Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980) - post-punk/art rock
- Let's Dance (1983) rock/pop rock/dance rock
- Tonight (1984) rock/pop rock
- Never Let Me Down (1987) - rock/pop rock
- Black Tie White Noise (1993) - rock/soul/electronic
- The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) - rock
- Outside (1995) - industrial rock/experimental rock
- Earthling (1997) - indsutrial rock/dance rock
- 'Hours...' (1999) - alternative rock/art rock/experimental rock
- Heathen (2002) - alternative rock/art rock/experimental rock
- Reality (2003) - rock
- The Next Day (2013) - rock

GENRE: COMMENTS
The continual mixture and experimentation of genres by Bowie could be considered post modern. This challenges conventional assumption of generic released music album and their artists that album are a continuation of the other. By not sticking to one genre, arguably Bowie creates a unique and innovative sound for each. Bowie is also heavily influenced by the works around him.

THE BERLIN ERA
He moved to Switzerland in 1976 and took up pursuits outside his musical career such as painting, even with the creation of post-modernist pieces of work. Trilogy of albums 'Low', 'Heroes' and 'Lodger' known as the Berlin Era. This coincided with his prolific interest in Germanic art, visiting galleries in Geneva and Berlin whilst on tour. By 1976 he moved to West Berlin after his growing interest in the music scene to revitalise his career. The album 'Low' was heavily influenced by the Krau trock sound of Kraftwerk and Neu! with the album taking an abstract, minimalist approach to music. Lodger then returned to the drum and bass sounds of previous albums with a loose ambient nature, due to the critical reception of Low.

Drive (2011)

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Genre: American Crime Drama
Starring: Ryan Gosling (The Kid/The unnamed Driver) and Carey Mulligan (Irene)
Budget: $15 million
Box Office: $77 million 
Adaption from 2005 novel by James Sallis of the same name

Notes:
Style and inspiration: 
- "Winding Refn's inspiration for Drive came partly from reading Grimm's Fairy Tales, and his goal was to make "a fairy tale that takes Los Angeles as the background"
- "The film's main character, The Driver, has been compared to the Man With No Name, a character Clint Eastwood portrayed in the Sergio Leone westerns, because he almost never speaks, communicating mostly non-verbally"
- His satin jacket was inspired by the band KISS and Kenneth Anger's 1964 experimental film Scorpio Rising
-What he lacks in dialogue makes up for his actions and 'stylish costuming'


- Only referred to as 'The Kid' which gives a sense of ambiguity and mysteriousness
- 'The Kid' appears as if he is the hero on a quest with typical good intentions that go horribly wrong
- Ending has a fairytale element - hypotextuality (Genette's theory of genre)
- Driver is unnamed and has little dialogue, leaving the audience to interpret most from his facial expression and the visuals of the film
- The Samurai - violence
- Soundtrack is quite oppressive/loud as if intentional. 
- Time period of the film is difficult to recognise... this may be due to the fact of several combinations of mise-en-scene and visuals that are reminiscent of different time periods. For example, the modern race cars in comparison to the retro cars we see in the garage
- Scene by river reminiscent of a Romance genre film - the golden hue of the lighting gives an idealistic, perhaps even Utopian modernist feeling which contradicts the rest of the postmodernist style to the film
- The Kid initiates no anger towards Stan which may come as a shock to audiences as the dominance of two males around one female (where we get the impression The Kid begins to like Irene also) is unconventional. This also breaks the boundaries of generic codes such as Barthes' binary opposites of exclusive male/female which may come as a surprise. 

Interesting quotes in Christopher Sharrett's article:

"He sits by himself in a dark room fixing a carburetor (the hero and his weapon)"

"The Kid’s face is seen in profile, his eyes unblinking during the prolonged take, conveying that he is dying or dead. But he blinks and reaches for his car key, starts the engine, and drives away into the polluted LA streets. This attempt to mythologize the Kid corresponds with the ending of Shane, where the wounded hero, slumped in his saddle, rides up the mountain into heaven. Whether Shane lives or dies is immaterial, since a kind of sainthood has been conferred upon him. The similar gesture at the end of Drive has nothing like this resonance. The Kid seems “undead,” his resurrection unjustified, since his function in relieving this decaying society has been less than salvific"

"When the Kid takes Irene and Benicio on a little excursion, one of the very few light moments, he drives them down the concrete surface of the Los Angeles River, a much-used movie location. This “river,” with its absolute human artifice—it is mostly a human construction—has only a stream of (filthy?) water in its center. The trio disembarks at a swatch of nature (the last fragment of Shane’s utopia) at one end of the aqueduct—even that has evidence of human debris. The postmodern industrial gallery installations that are the subject of bourgeois ruminations have indeed merged with the world they inadequately represent."

Blue Harvest (Family Guy): How it is Postmodern

Blue harvest from SianLynes

Youtube links which don't work:

•The cantina band ask if there are any requests for songs and then replies to his own question “play that same song” – a reference to the fact that the original song in the original scene lasts a long time

•Gerard Genette’s sub-group metatextuality – this is implicit critical commentary on the original text

In What Ways Can Inglorious Basterds Be Considered Postmodern?

In What Ways Can Inglorious Basterds Be Considered Postmodern by

Scalping: Reference to Spaghetti Westerns

In this interview QT states that his choice of scalping was also a feature of Spaghetti Westerns but was only spoken about within the films and not shown graphically.

Inglorious Basterds

This list from filmspotting.net forum lists and debates the reference's in QT's Inglorious Basterds:

1) The shot out of the doorway in Chapter One is taken from The Searchers. 

2) The rope burn on Aldo Raines neck is a reference to the ending of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. 

3) Operation Kino references the Russian and German word for cinema.

4) Aldo Raine is named for Aldo Ray who was a character is several WWII films. 

5) The film Nation's Pride is an obvious homage to German propaganda films. 

6) The character Hugo Stiglitz is named for the 70's exploitation star.

7) The Harvey Keitel cameo is a reference to "The Wolf" in Pulp Fiction.

8 ) The whole movie is an homage to The Dirty Dozen.

9) The three fingers part is taken from The Big Red One.

10) Antonio Margheriti (the name the Roth character takes) is the name of a 70's exploitation director

11) Cpt. Wilhelm Wicki (played by German actor Gedeon Burkhard) may refer to German director Bernhard Wicki, who directed the anti-war film “Die Brücke” (1959), which was nominated for an Oscar in the “best foreign language” category.

12) Chapter one is a reference to Once Upon a Time in the West. The first scene in both are very similar. They both start with the lady at the blowing sheets and contain a massacre that results in the death of a whole family except one girl.

13) The title references the original movie spelled Inglorious Bastards. 

14) Mike Myers’ smallish role as a British general named Ed Fenech, which is a nice little riff on the name of ’70s Italian movie starlet/sex symbol Edwige Fenech, who starred in some of the best giallo thrillers of the era.

15) Le Corbeau: Director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1943 film about gossip, misinformation and paranoia in a small French village that turns friends against each other in a storm of suspicion and persecution. The Nazis, smartly sensing it was about them, banned it in Occupied France, so of course it’s featured on a Paris cinema’s marquee in “Basterds.” Improbable in real life, yes, but not in the QT universe.

16) G.W. Pabst: Famous German Expressionist director, mostly known for “Pandora’s Box,” starring Louise Brooks. Another filmmaker referenced in “Basterds” by its cast of movie-mad characters who talk and talk and talk about films when they’re not plotting each other’s demise, the Nazis weren’t fans of his Weimar era “decadence.”

17) Dark of the Sun: A 1968 “men on a mission” movie about mercenaries fighting in the Congo. Stars Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux. Taylor plays Winston Churchill in “Basterds.” Meanwhile, a female character has the last name Mimieux.

18) Jean-Luc Godard: As responsible as anyone for Tarantino’s love of running interference between the people doing the viewing and the thing being viewed, pointing out at every turn that this is “CINEMA.” Godard dedicated his French New Wave classic “Breathless” to American genre film studio Monogram Pictures and spent that entire movie framing Jean-Paul Belmondo as Humphrey Bogart. So when Tarantino throws text up onto the screen, like when he identifies “Basterds” characters with big bold blaxploitation-style fonts — anachronisms be damned, he does what he wants — he’s tipping his hat to the master.

19) Brad Pitt has a line of dialogue about fighting in basements a la Fight Club.

20) Fredrick Zoller is at one point referred to as the German Sergeant York, which is a nod to both real life character and the Howard Hawks film.

21) Sgt. Donny Donowitz is  supposed to be the father of Lee Donowitz from True Romance. Lee dies in a Mexican Standoff which is frequently used by QT and at least talked about in IB as well.

22) The pipe Landa smokes is a reference to the Sherlock Holmes films. 

23) Big face may be referencing 1984 (see image). It could aslo be a Metropolis reference  (One of Hitler and Goebbels favorite films).



24) There's a shot in Nation's Pride taken directly from Battleship Potemkin where a guy is shot and covers his bloody eye.

25) The lobby is exactly like the one in Action in Arabia (directed by Leonide Moguy in 1944 with George Sanders). Specifically the two stairs, the ceiling fans, and the timing of Colonel Landa’s and Sanders’ Action in Arabia character’s descent on the stairs.

26) Private Affairs of Bel Ami (directed by Albert Lewin in 1947, and also starring George Sanders) served as the inspiration for the big circle window in Shosanna’s living quarters, overlooking the cinema.

27) The David Bowie 'Cat People' music cue played while Shosanna Dreyfus puts on her 'war paint' is a double reference to Paul Shrader's Cat People and Jacques Tourneur's original, which co-opted German Expressionism for the film's style.

28) Maybe its just because its a popular German dish, but both IG and The Judgment at Nuremberg involve Stroodle.  In Nuremberg the American judge's German servants at the house he is staying at (a former high ranking Nazi), continue to push Stroodle on him.

29) The part in chapter one where the daughter shuts the window may be an homage to citizen kane, when kane is young, still living with his parents and outside sledding.

30) King Kong is mentioned in the bar game.

31) The shoe sequence is taken from Cinderella.

32) The final setting is reminiscent of Miller's Crossing. 

33) The Basterds shooting from the balcony is similar to Scarface. 

Some images from the thread:

Last House on the Left

20 Songs on Shuffle

1. Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars - Safe & Sounds
2. Coldplay ft. Rihanna - Princess of China
3. Britney Spears - Drop Dead Beautiful
4. Lady Gaga - Changing Skies
5. Lady Gaga - So Happy I Could Die
6. The Wanted - Lightning
7. Lady Gaga - Blueberry Kisses
8. Britney Spears - Trip To Your Heart
9. John Travolta & Michelle Pfeiffer - Big, Blonde and Beautiful
10. Nikki Blonsky - Good Morning Baltimore
11. Katy Perry - Circle The Drain
12. Oh My! - Kicking & Screaming
13. Katie Melua - Call off the Search
14. Birdy - Skinny Love
15. Lady Gaga - Brown Eyes
16. Coldplay - Hurts Like Heaven
17. Christopher Plummer - Something Good
18. Coldplay - Clocks
19. Coldplay - Major Minus
20. Marina and the Diamonds - Primadonna

Hypperreality

hy-per-re-al
n. pl.

• Exaggerated in comparison to reality
• Used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technological advanced postmodern cultures.
• Means to characterise the way consciousness define what is actually "real"
• Reality by proxy

Postmodernism

post-mod-ern-ism
n.

• a late 20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism, which represents a departure from modernism and is characterized by the self-conscious use of earlier styles and conventions, a mixing of different artistic styles and media, and a general distrust of theories.
• A late 20th-century style in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism.

Paradox

par-a-dox
n.

• a statement of proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth
• a self-contradictory or fale proposition
• any person, thing, or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature
• an opinion or statement cotnrary to popular opinion

Examples of Paradox

• "Only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed." - John F. Kennedy



I am a Paradox.



Intertextuality

in-ter-tex-tu-al-i-ty
n.

• the interrelationship between texts, especially works of literature; the way that similar or related texts influence, reflect or differ from each other.

Examples of intertextuality:



Marilyn Monroe the film 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend'







Madonna's music video 'Material Girl' has cinematic reference to
Marilyn Monroe's film