What is Postmodernism?

What is Postmodernism?

"The more you know, the more you know you don't know"

I think it helps to think about the market for your script as well as the way in which you think it will fit into the mainstream? Will it be over looked or will it stand out?...

Here is a writing exersise I engaged in that helped me and other writer understand my story and our world...

I would love to hear thoughts and discuss this more with anyone.

AxiomTy
Anything turns to everything as quickly as everything turns to anything!

Reply Criptic Quotes
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"Eclectic Simularum Reality Posted Bricollage."

Darkness and Sunshine

What is Postmodernism? It exists in Language.

jimjimgrande
Registered User
Posts: 2
(2/5/05 10:16 am)
Reply Re: ..@$% Postmodernism? %$@..
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I took a class on it in college and I still don't know what it is.

AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 14
(2/5/05 11:55 am)
Reply Re: ..@$% Postmodernism? %$@..
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That's why they should make a movie!

Do you think they should make a movie that adresses this totally cool social theory?

scriptfxr
Registered User
Posts: 47
(2/8/05 1:32 pm)
Reply No
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No.

They should make a movie about great characters in an engaging story. If one of them happens to talk about postmodernism theory as his "thing" then it might make for an interesting character... but to build a movie around an esoteric theory? Good luck...

AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 25
(2/9/05 3:09 am)
Reply Re: No
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You don't build the movie around it. You make a movie using it..

That "interesting character" is the professor in the story, and the engaging characters happen to be smart and beautiful, and ever so marketable characters.

The story is built around someone who is trying to understand the world he lives in, trying to make it right.


AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 28
(2/12/05 12:32 pm)
Reply What is the Matrix?
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You know what movie is built around postmodern theories. The Matrix. The Matrix digs into the esoteric, and incorporates Pomo theorist Jean Baudrillards 'death of the real' and 'simulation and simularca' as well as many other postmodern styles and concepts.

I'm telling ya, this pomo thing is already big, the market is there, waiting to be addressed.

username
Registered User
Posts: 44
(2/12/05 7:41 pm)
Reply Re: What is the Matrix?
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The Matrix was successful for it's special effects. That's what put asses in seats -- not postmodern theories.

AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 30
(2/13/05 3:22 am)
Reply O' contrare
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Postmodern theories of film making drove people to create such awsome visual effects. They beautifully evelated and integrated computer animation flawlessly within the story.

Before that could get on screen, there needed to be a theory for what it is that they (The Wycoski or whatever Brothers who spent five years writing and researching [postmodern] theorists) were trying to bring to the screen.

Special effects don't make up for a weak story, in my book; luckily the Matrix has both.

My point was that the market has already responded well to postmodern elements being thrown at them. I think the market is ripe for a film like the one I just so happen to be selling...

username
Registered User
Posts: 45
(2/13/05 11:39 am)
Reply Re: O' contrare
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Perhaps the Wachowski's (sp?) intended The Matrix to be based on postmodern theories, and perhaps it is based on postmodern theories -- to be honest, i'm not real sure what postmodernism is -- but, the fact remains that it was more successful for it's special effects than for it's ability to get people to buy into it's underlying postmodernistic theories. The Wachowski's (sp?) creatively found a way to turn a decades-old idea into a movie that was able to showcase cutting-edge special effects technology and CGI. That is what the market responded to.

A google of "postmodern" reveals that the concept of postmodernism emerged in the mid-80's. The concept the Wachowski's (sp?) used (machines vs. man) has been done many times before -- even before "postmodernism" emerged as a concept. Take Kubrick's Space Odyssey. That movie was released in '68. It used the same theme of man vs. machine (Hal vs. Dave) as the Wachowski's (sp?) used three decades later (man vs. machine). What about the Terminator movies??? Again, it's man vs. machine.

In ALL of the examples i listed, each of those movies were praised for their special effects, which were cutting-edge in their time. That, is/was the main attraction to those movies, and that is/was what the market responded to -- NOT any underlying postmodern theories, as in fact, postmodernism was still two decades away when Space Odyssey was released.

AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 33
(2/19/05 3:40 pm)
Reply The Matrix has you Username...
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I changed the size of the title in that last post and then it just deletes the whole thing, fricken computers...

The Matrix is postmodernism, an instance of postmodernism, an example of it. The effects, the story, the marketing, the concept-- postmodern!

Meaning, new, cutting edge, drawing on the past in a new way, intertextual (drawing on texts of east and west, i.e. Oracles and Kung Fu) and elevating digital effects to the status of the real... entering us into an era of hyperreality film making! Can't get someone to do that on camera? No problem we will just digitally make them do it.

Postmodernism did not just appear in the 1980's. You have completely missed the boat. The term Postmodernism, the term, has been around since the 19th century (the 1880's to be exact) and where the modern era ends and the postmodern era begins is not yet answerable. But one thing is certian, we are in the post now.

"The concept the Wachowski's (sp?) used (machines vs. man) has been done many times before -- even before "postmodernism""

This is exactly why the Matrix is postmodern. It is taking a conceopt that has been visited millions of times and making it new, bringing new elements to it and making a story conbination that relies on many elements, together. Man vs, Machine + mind over matter + hyperreality computer worlds + men in black + gangster neo-noir + spoon bending Budhists + action, explosions and unkillable computer programs. and more.

Postmodernism is best thought of as the world today, a world where all rules are out the window. All the worlds ideas, cultures, creeds, religions, races, concepts, sciences, stories and facts are stirring together contradicting eachother and making it impossible to understand who is right and who is better looking? Postmodernism is the era of the image, image is everything and money is the only sign of value, everything is sex and nothing is sex, TV and reality have blended giving us a world of simulated hyperreality where we watch TV as it watches us. In this world we can google answers and find information about anything instentaneously, whether or not it's true is only a matter of perspective anyway! In this way religion is both dieing and being reborn, falling appart and coming center stage, it becomes absolete and necessesary. Everyone is simply lost in a world of images, we perfer them to reality anyway, and we all go about our lives living in a dream world we can't rise out of, why would you want to leave anyway...

Darkness and Sunshine: A Postmodern Story

username
Registered User
Posts: 46
(2/21/05 6:41 pm)
Reply The Matrix has you Username...
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I don't know what postmodernism is, and quite frankly, i don't care what it is. The only time i ever even thought about postmodernism was after reading your posts here. A google of "postmodernism" returned...


Quote:
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Postmodernism is a complicated term, or set of ideas, one that has only emerged as an area of academic study since the mid-1980s.
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That quote comes from the first link returned by google. That link is...
www.colorado.edu/English/.../pomo.html

That is where i came up with the part about postmodernism originating in the '80's. But, like i mentioned, i don't know anything about postmodernism, and if you say it started earlier, then that's fine with me. I'm in no position to question that.

However, i would like to question one of your claims. You posted...


Quote:
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where the modern era ends and the postmodern era begins is not yet answerable. But one thing is certian, we are in the post now
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How can this be??? If it hasn't been answered as to when the modern era ended and the post-modern era began, then how can we know for certain that we are in the postmodern era now??? Wouldn't it be impossible to claim that we are in the postmodern era now, when we don't even know for sure when the modern era ended, or even if the modern era did in fact, end??? Perhaps we are in the modern era now -- maybe even the pre-modern era??? Is it grandiose of us to assume that we are in the postmodern era???

I watch movies to be entertained. When i watch a movie, i'm not looking for enlightenment, knowledge, understanding, etc. I simply want to be entertained for two hours. Maybe i'm shallow, but i don't want to have to think real hard at the movies, and i don't want to have to try and figure out underlying postmodern concepts or how i can apply them to my everyday world. A movie, to me, is an escape, where i can forget about the day's worries, and just relax and get lost in what's happening on the screen.

I liked The Matrix movies, because i like Mr. Smith and some of the other baddies, and i particularly liked watching them fight with Keanu Reeves and his gang. That was the entire attraction to me -- the special effects and action sequences. To me it was about man vs. machine and really cool CGI. If that's postmodernism, then so be it, but that's not what i was thinking about while watching. The main draw for me and countless others was the special effects and fight sequences. The story was secondary and nonessential. All the viewer needs to know is that the machines want the humans dead, and the humans don't want to be dead. If people want to analyze it on a deeper level, then that's up to them, but that's not what i go to the movies for, and that's not what Hollywood marketed when they advertised these films.

I'm not into the "red pill, blue pill" or "The One," or any of that other crap. I just want to see some fighting and Carrie Anne Moss in that skin tight suit. (IMO, The Matrix would have been a much better movie if they had put Angelina Jolie or Teri Hatcher or somebody like that in that skin tight suit.) The Terminator was the same way for me -- cool fighting, and in the last one, a really hot chick playing the "bad machine." Personally, i didn't care for Space Odyssey because it was too much story and not enough action.

Don't get me wrong, though -- i do like a good story, but i like it even better when there's some big explosions and big tits to back it up. If they're able to package it into a movie that is based on postmodern concepts, then that's cool too, but don't blame me if i pay more attention to the cleavage than to the concept.

AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 34
(2/22/05 2:59 pm)
Reply The Matrix has a lot of people...
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First of all I don't want to offend you dude, and I want to say I enjoy our difference of opinion and discussion and I hope it is mutual.

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Postmodernism is a complicated term, or set of ideas, one that has only emerged as an area of academic study since the mid-1980s.
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This statement is dead wrong becuase many of the most prominent discourses on postmodernism were written in the 1970's. Loytards "The Postmodern Condition" was written in 1972! And he was building on previous other discourses.

Did World War II ever end? Common understanding would say yes and yet some would say no. This is like modernism and postmodernism. While the war was declared over, we are still dealing with the consequences and aftermath of it. The middle east was a WWII creation, all the countries were divied up in the post WWII and that is far from over (Iraq, Isreal Palistine ect).

Postmodernism is full of contradiction and catch 22's, just like in the matrix. Man and machine trying to kill each other even though they can't survive without eachother; catch 22. This is the post dude, we hate it but thats just the way it is.

"Perhaps we are in the modern era now -- maybe even the pre-modern era??? Is it grandiose of us to assume that we are in the postmodern era???"

Of course it is! But this is also how I KNOW we are in the postmodern era (a catch-22), we are questioning wether or not we are which means we are. Just like the end of WWII came with the delcaration that it was over, the postmodern era began with the delcaration that it has begun. The problem is that it has been delcared man times by many people in many ways. What makes it even more complicated is the fact that not EVERYONE is in the postmodern mode or mindset, many people and many places are still living in the past, the pre-modern as you put it. So in a sense you are right. But only the postmodern era and thinking could give us the Matrix right?

"Don't get me wrong, though -- i do like a good story, but i like it even better when there's some big explosions and big tits to back it up. If they're able to package it into a movie that is based on postmodern concepts, then that's cool too, but don't blame me if i pay more attention to the cleavage than to the concept."

Spoken like a true red blooded American, I love it. Don't get me wrong either dude, I love a good cleavage shot and expensive explosion, but the nerd in me also like a good subtext and high concept. Postmodernism in film only draws attention to the fact that rules are breaking, it is not trying to make people strain their brains. South Park is a great example of Postmodern Television. Pushing content to the edge, and yet it is so simple or as the creaters put it in the South Park movie filled with "crappy animation". See postmodernism is fun, it is all around you, you just don't realize it because you don't know any different. Old people on the other hand grew up in a world that is long since gone, to the masses while to them it may still exist, but such is postmodernism...

Keep watching the cleavage dude, postmodernism want to give you more!

username
Registered User
Posts: 47
(2/24/05 7:34 pm)
Reply Re: The Matrix has a lot of people...
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Oh no, i'm not offended. I'm sorry if i came across like i am/was offended.

"Postmodernism," for me, is a term i've heard many times but never gave a second thought to -- i simply dismissed it, whether correctly or incorrectly, as being "artsy-fartsy," and since i've never considered myself to be much of an artsy-fartsy type guy, i've just ignored the term and/or whatever it might mean.

Then, i started reading your posts about postmodernism, and it made me start thinking about the term and what it means. I guess i'm not very good at it, because i still don't know what it means, LOL. However, as far as postmodernism relates to the movies, i think we are both in agreement, even if we don't refer to it as the same thing. In other words, i think we both liked The Matrix for the same reasons, even if i just refer to it as "cool effects," while you refer to the underlying postmodern concepts that brought us those cool effects.

I guess my point is that even though i might like a movie that is full of postmodern concepts and in fact relied on those concepts in order for the movie to be made in the first place, the red-blooded American in me won't allow myself to acknowledge the postmodern stuff, i guess because, i don't understand it.

Hollywood LOVES guys like me. As long as they keep pumping out explosions and big tits, or really cool story lines and really funny one-liners, then i'll keep buying tickets. AND, if those same movies are considered to be "postmodern," that's fine too, but Hollywood needs to market them to me as action-packed flicks with ultra-hot chicks instead of something that i would consider "artsy-fartsy." I think if Hollywood loses sight of that, and starts trying to push the postmodern angle, then Hollywood is gonna lose.

Even if The Matrix is a postmodern movie, i think you would be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of people who would be in agreement with that and/or willing to discuss the posmodern concepts involved. On the other hand, you wouldn't have any problem at all in finding a plethora of people willing to jump on the "cool effects" bandwagon. I think Hollywood realizes that and will market it's movies accordingly, since i represent the target market, LOL.


AxiomTy
Registered User
Posts: 36
(2/25/05 1:20 am)
Reply Exactly
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"Artsy-fartsy" I love it.

What I love about you is that you both love and hate postmodernism, which is so postmodern.

I have a secret though. Postmodernism is a scam!

I made it all up just to promote my script:
Darkness and Sunshine: A Postmodern Story

I bet I could get you, Joe-Hollywood, to come see my movie. I just need to add an explosion...

*This post was deleted from soyouwannasellascript.com for some reason, this post has been edited so as not to rattle any nerves!