FILM-POMO

Oh, this is another "conceptual" page, affiliated with all my sites, because of the methodology. POMO or PM is Postmodernism. I try to free the subject pages from the subject of my tools. The Postmodern suits me -- everything about me is "ex" or "former"! I am ex-Soviet and former Russian writer. I consider myself as a post-human; it's only a matter of time, my friends.

Postmodern is very loose, it has no center or self-discipline. I like it.

I can't talk about film without being a pomo. I am not a critic and I don't remember when I was in a movie-THEATRE (what kind of name is that! There is no theatre in there! Only people who never went to theatre could call the empty dark hall a "theatre"!) Well, anyway, sometimes I wonder, what do they fuss about? Postmodern? Watching a film is the postmodern phenomena! Simulacra? Replacement of reality? But of course! What else?

I recommend (Cinema I and Cinema II):

mich@checkpoint.com 12/11/96

The finest reflection on cinema.

Gilles Delueze creates in his books on cinema a taxonomy, an attempt at the classification of cinematic images and signs. This classification is an insightful elaboration on Bergson's theses on movement and on Pierce's signs system. If this taxonomy is the core of the "movement-image" book, its heart is a brilliant and systematic history of aesthetic forms of the classical cinema. Some of the more interesting ideas are the two poles of the close-up, Goethe's theory of color and German expressionism, the space in Bresson, an account of Bunuel as naturalist, the difference between John Ford and Howard Hawks, the crisis of the action-image and the essence of comedy as in Lubitsch, Chaplin and Keaton. Nevertheless, it is not a book about cinema, nor is it a book of film history. It is the practice of concepts. Deleuze writes: "Philosophical theory is itself a practice, just as much as its object. It is no more abstract than its object...So that there is always a time, midday-midnight, when we must no longer ask ourselves 'What is cinema?' but 'What is philosophy?'". Only Deleuze, one of the greatest minds of our Century, could answer this question with so much elegance, profundity, ingenuity and mystical charm.

Pomo-man's Notes about Pomism

FILM IS THE LANGUAGE OF POSTMODERNISM

....a new, "schizophrenic" mode of space and time. [Hal Foster, Postmodernism: A Preface(1)]

Postmodernism is quite difficult to define and categorize in terms of traditional generic guidelines. Rather, it is a combination of lots of different genres, signs, and cultural elements.

The features of Postmodernist (films) are:

Hedonism ... the ego is the space where the film takes place (see film600).

Decadence ... things which are often seen towards the end of a culture's natural life (or even the after-life of the culture).

A feature of postmodernism is its ability to shock, without linking this device to a message. This differs from, say, Soviet Montage and Italian Neo-Realism, which do convey messages with their material.

Jean Baudrillard has this to say:

People no longer project themselves into their objects, with their affects and their representations... and even if it can always be marked out in detail, one feels that it is not really there that things are being played out.(2)

Simulacra replaced the Real. He never mentioned that he talks about movies!

No, no! PM, POMO, Postmodern can't be a theory! Enough! I can't push it anymore...
So, I opened a new ditectory Film600: Wrong Theory, Bad Subjects....

...

Postmodernism and its boundaries

Maning and its 'playfulness'. David Lynch (notes on "Lost Highway" will be posted later) and the Coen Brothers's movies. "Wild at Heart" (David Lynch, USA, 1990) contains references to two sets of musicals -- the differing styles that have been defined by The Wizard of Oz, and Grease. Thus, there is no fundamental purpose for something to be there -- other than the fact that it is.
Consequently, the role that postmodernism takes has to be constantly addressed, in its manipulation of style and content. If, as Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, then perhaps Postmodernism perfectly fits McLuhan's idea. However, as a social phenomenon, film has a duty in society. To what extent can postmodernism convey material without a message? Is there a point when it can't? "Raising Arizona" (Ethan & Joel Coen, USA, 1987) has a bizarre, surreal message. The film pokes fun at, and is making a satire of, modern culture. The form here is taking the material it already has - the culture it operates in - and turns it on its head.

Oh, you still wish to know what exactly postmodernism is! "In short, it seeks to question rather than exploit cultural codes, to explore rather than conceal social and political affiliations." (Foster)(3)

Topics, Themes, Issues, Thoughts

The Irony and Self-Irony (last is the first).

Stylistic elements: tradition of formalism and constructivism (forms are the messages). POMO is full of the mix of Marxism and Existentionalism.

"Importance" -- and management of its messages (nothing and never is absolutely important). Relativism? "It depends," as the kids say.

"Content" - what is or isn't postmodernism?... Content? What is this content in Mozart? Music as philosophy. How about "music as metaphysics"?

[ David Lynch (Lost Highway) and Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man): American pomists take on film-narrative. (see Films Notes Page and film.vtheatre.net: Film Analysis) ]

The Seventh Age of Film: virtual world, now... Film was the pick of the high modernism. Historically and culturally. From Photograph to Motion Pictures: entrance into kingdom of speed -- Dromology.

Film600 pages -- I call it Film Anti-Theory. Pomo is personal and I like this style of discource, free and even chaiotic. Rules? The thought must have poetic forms, and therefore -- extremely personal. Nietzsche was the first?...
Last modernist? And Wilde? The 20th century was the transition. POMO is very "communistic" -- at least, as communications, IT, and other technologies of new post-humans (see TECH files).

@2000-2004 * Virtual Theatre