Key terms

• intertextuality – one media text referring to another

• parody – mocking something in an original way

• pastiche – a stylistic mask, a form of self-conscious imitation

• homage – imitation from a respectful standpoint

• bricolage – mixing up and using different genres and styles

• simulacra – simulations or copies that are replacing ‘real’ artefacts

• hyperreality – a situation where images cease to be rooted in reality

• fragmentation – used frequently to describe most aspects of society, often in relation to identity

George Ritzer 1996

George Ritzer (1996) suggested that postmodernism usually refers to a cultural movement – postmodernist cultural products such as architecture, art, music, films, TV, adverts etc.

Ritzer also suggested that postmodern culture is signified by the following:

• The breakdown of the distinction between high culture and mass culture. Think: drama about Dame Margot Fonteyn, a famous prima ballerina, on BBC4.

• The breakdown of barriers between genres and styles. Think: Shaun of the Dead a rom-com-zom.

• Mixing up of time, space and narrative. Think Pulp Fiction or The Mighty Boosh.

• Emphasis on style rather than content. Think: Girls Aloud.

• The blurring of the distinction between representation and reality. Think, Katie Price or Celebrity Big Brother.

Postmodern music, easter activity

Apply as many of Kramer's rules (in your own words) to five pieces of music. Embed a clip of each piece in your blog.

Timbaland

Stockhausen

Alvin Lucier

LED ZEPPLIN

Rihanna

Karlheinz, Stockhausen and Alvin Lucier.

karlheinz stockhausen

- 1928 - 2007

- German composer

- Most important & controversial composers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries

- Work includes electronic music, aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition, and musical spatialization.

Helicopter String Quartet

- Best-known pieces

- Most complex to perform

- String quartet, four helicopters with pilots, as well as audio and video equipment and technicians

- First performed and recorded in 1995

Alvin Lucier

- 1931 - present day

- American composer of experimental music

- Professor at Wesleyan University

- Most of his work is influenced by science

I am sitting in a room

"I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but, more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have."

- 1969

- Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the recording back into the room, re-recording it, and then repeated

- Certain frequencies are emphasized, until the words become unrecognisable, replaced by the harmonies and tones of the room itself.

Jonathan Kramer - postmodern music theory

"the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude". Kramer says there are 16 characteristics of 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 ironic

3. Blurs boundaries between past and present

4. Challenges style barriers, including 'high' and 'low'

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

8. Considers music as relevant to cultural, social, and political

9. Includes music of many cultures and traditions

10. Considers technology as a way to distribute music and enhance production

11. Accepts contradictions

12. Questions binary opposites

13. Includes fragments and breaks or gaps

14. Encloses plural and multiple sources

15. Has multiple meanings

16. Locates meaning and structure to listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Postmodern Artist

View more presentations from Dhag.

CD Mixtape

I have chosen a picture of me and Jordan at Dot to Dot festival last year, the picture next to it is of me, my mum, step dad and little brother at my brothers christening a few weeks ago and below a picture of me and my 18 closest friends at V festival last year.

The choice of these pictures taken over the last year are because I wanted the CD to be relevant to my life as of April 2011, as all the songs are my favourite by artists I have seen live over the last year.

All songs are in alphabetical order except Ellie Goulding - The End, for obvious reasons.

Postmodern Artist

White Lies



Below is a review on Virgin Music's Website of the bands first album To Lose My Life where Death is the embarking track, during this review they are examined against other bands of similar genres and compared to Joy Division.

http://www.virgin.com/music/news/white-lies-to-lose-my-life

Joy Division

In interviews White Lies have always expressed clearly their influences and reality of their lyrics. Their influences include Joy Division.
1. Although these songs aren't identical in sound, beat and rhythm, there are clear similarities.
- JD have used a 25 second, guitar based instrumental before the first words are vocalised in LWTUA, this acts as an introduction to the music. WL have opted for a similar introduction of 20 seconds, but here the sound is structured around the drum beat.
2. Vocals
-Harry McVeigh lead vocalist in WL has had his singing voice (which is different to his spoken voice) likened to Ian Curtis lead of JD. Said voice is quite unexpected of a 22 year old Man from west London.

Mixtape ideas

1. UK chart number ones each year on my birthday since 9th May 1993.
2. Songs that have a meaning to me.
3 My favourite songs by my favourite artists.

The death of uncool-ipod shuffle

1. The Drums - Forever and Ever Amen
2. Noah and the Whale - The Line
3. Cajun Dance Party - The Colourful Life
4. Paloma Faith - Sexy Chick (Radio 1 Live Lounge)
5. Rihanna - Take A Bow
6. MGMT - Kids
7. Hurts - Better Than Love
8. Bombay Bicycle Club - Many Ways
9. Crystal Castles - Baptism
10. Cage the Elephant - Sell Yourself
11. The xx - Basic Space
12. The Smiths - How Soon Is Now
13. Vampire Weekend - Cousins

The death of uncool

Brian Eno

Produced work with U2, Coldplay, Ultravox, David Bowie.

Theory
-There are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.
-Go into a record shop and look at the dividers used to separate music into different categories. There used to be about a dozen: rock, jazz, ethnic, and so on. Now there are almost as many dividers as there are records, and they keep proliferating.
-I had a hand in starting—ambient music—has split into a host of subcategories called things like “black ambient,” “ambient dub,” “ambient industrial,” “organic ambient” and 20 others last time I looked.
-We’re living in a stylistic tropics.
-The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

Roxy Music

-Early Roxy Music (first three albums : Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, Stranded)
-Unique sound that drew on many different influences: 50s rock n' roll, 30s style crooning, modern electronic music, sound manipulation and collage, classical instrumentation, sound effects and Pop Art.
-The group were styled by the fashion designer Anthony Price and lead singer Bryan Ferry.
-Each piece of work made a definite artistic statement.
-They were retro and futuristic at the same time.
-They were of their time and also before and after it.

Jim Jarmusch's Golden Rules

Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Don’t let the fuckers get ya.
Rule #3: The production is there to serve the film.
Rule #4: Filmmaking is a collaborative process.
Rule #5: Nothing is original.

Postmodernism and Music

Dan Black- Symphonies
Dj Shadow - Organ Donnor
Daft punk- Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Participation
Daft Punk - Using a website called dothedaft.com we can recreate the song, making our own original copy.

Modification
Dj Shadow - Uses lots of bits of music and re arranges them in a new order which therefore is modification, his album endtroducing was the first of its kind made entirely of other music reordered.

Authenticity Disrupted
Dan Black - Makes it obvious that his song Symphonies is copied from various other songs, he also illustrates this in his video.

Originality

Theory

My (dreadful) essay for Mr Smith

Hit-Girl - Postmodern Heroine or "morally reprehensible"?

Hit-Girl, whilst not being your average child still shows characteristics of a young girl. On the other hand she has a darker slightly twisted side which seems totally inappropriate for anyone especially a tenderly aged girl.
Kick-Ass is a film that addresses what would happen if normal people tried to behave like superhero’s. The film, so unrealistic still shocks when it shows a twelve year old girl beating up fully grown men and calling them such derogatory terms such as ‘c**t’s’ the director draws attention to this though by making it so obvious. This which is socially unexceptable and completely unrealistic still causes such controversy during the film. If you think seriously about this context all the superhero’s associated in the film are morally reprehensible, just because Hit-Girl is younger this surely doesn’t matter.
The picture of her and her dad connotates nice thoughts about a farther and daughter relationship, however the image of her in a school girl outfit, pouting with a gun to hand connotates quite morally inappropriate thoughts as this image seems very provocative and inappropriate for you young girl to look like, what isn’t so recognised is how strong, powerful and fearless Hit-Girl is, especially being so young. Different again is the cartoon picture, this although realistically isn’t humorous in this context I find that it is. The caption below read "She was John Rambo crossed with Polly Pocket", the use of the blood and the stance she is pulling also add to the humor as they are so unrealistic like the film itself.
When you think of other superwomen like Batwoman and Catwoman, they are mostly seen looking provocative and not really doing a lot, this is completely different to Hit-Girls purpose and this makes her more acceptable and more like a heroine.
Possibly if this young girl had these characteristics and she was slightly older she wouldn’t be seen as so morally reprehensible by so many critics. To appreciate and accept the film it would seen you need to except Hit-Girl, her role and purpose first.

Female superheroes research

Female superheroes

A female superhero is sometimes called a superheroine.

Batwoman
-A fictional character and female counterpart to the superhero Batman, created by Bob Kane and Sheldon Moldoff.
-Originally named Kathy Kane, the character was introduced as a love interest for Batman.
-Although Batwoman made a number of appearances during the late 1950s and early 1960s, declining sales of both Batman and Detective Comics led to the editorial retirement of the character.

Supergirl
-She was created by writer Otto Binder and designed by artist Al Plastino in 1959.
--As Supergirl, the Kara Zor-El character plays a supporting role in various DC Comics publications, including Action Comics, Superman, and several other comic book series unrelated to Superman.

Spider-Woman
-Spider-Woman is the codename of several fictional characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Batgirl
-Batgirl is the name of several fictional characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, frequently depicted as female counterparts to the superhero Batman.

Catwoman
-Catwoman is a fictional character associated with DC Comics' Batman franchise. Historically a supervillain, the character was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane.
-The original and most widely known Catwoman, Selina Kyle, first appears in Batman #1 (Spring 1940) in which she is known as The Cat.
-She had a love/hate relationship with Batman.
-Since the 1990s, Catwoman has been featured in an eponymous series that cast her as an antihero rather than a supervillain.
-A popular figure, Catwoman has been featured in most media adaptations related to Batman.
-Halle Berry starred in a stand-alone Catwoman film in 2004, which was a box-office flop, although only loosely based on the Batman character.

Superhero research

“The centre is not the centre. The concept of a centered structure…is contradictorily coherent. And, as always, coherence in contradiction expresses the force of desire.” Jacques Derrida

A superhero is a type of stock character possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers" and dedicated to protecting the public.

Batman
-Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger.
-Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne.
-Having witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on crime.
- He trains himself both physically and intellectually and dons a bat-themed costume in order to fight crime.
- he lives in the fictional American Gotham City.
-Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers.

Spider-man
- Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko.
-Spider-Man's creators gave him super strength and agility, the ability to cling to most surfaces, shoot spider-webs using devices of his own invention which he called "web-shooters", and react to danger quickly with his "spider-sense", enabling him to combat his foes.
- Spider-Man did not benefit from being the protégé of any adult mentors like Captain America and Batman, and thus had to learn for himself that "with great power there must also come great responsibility" — a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man story.
-The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a teenage high school student to whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate
-Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first and longest-lasting of which is titled The Amazing Spider-Man.
-Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes.

Spiderman film
-Spider-Man is a 2002 American superhero film, the first in the Spider-Man film series based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man.
- It was directed by Sam Raimi and written by David Koepp and stars Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker.
-After being stuck in development hell for nearly 25 years, the film was released on May 3, 2002, by Columbia Pictures.
-Spider-Man was, for its time, the most successful film based on a comic book.
-The film's success has led to two sequels, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3.

Marvel Comics superheroes
-The first was the one-shot Marvel Super-Heroes Special #1 (Oct. 1966), reprinting Daredevil #1 (April 1964) and The Avengers #2 (Nov. 1963).
-The first Marvel story was written by future editor-in-chief Stan Lee.
-The first ongoing series of this name began as Fantasy Masterpieces, initially a standard-sized, 12-cent anthology reprinting "pre-superhero Marvel" monster and sci-fi/fantasy stories.
-Fantasy Masterpieces ran 11 issues (Feb. 1966 - Oct. 1967) before being renamed Marvel Super-Heroes with #12 (Dec. 1967.

Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass is a 2010 superhero/action-comedy film based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn, who co-produced the film with actor Brad Pitt, and co-wrote the screenplay with Jane Goldman. The film's general release was on 26 March 2010 in the United Kingdom and on 16 April 2010 in the United States.

The film tells the story of an ordinary teenager, Dave, who sets out to become a real-life superhero, calling himself "Kick-Ass". Dave gets caught up in a bigger fight when he meets Big Daddy, a former cop who, in his quest to bring down the drug lord Frank D'Amico, has trained his 11-year-old daughter to be the ruthless vigilante Hit-Girl.

Characters (so far)

Edward Norton's Character
-Strange
-Insomniac
-Can only cry in the company of people with actual issues
-Can't enjoy it with another faker in the room.
-See's things
-Lost as a person
-Why is he like this?
-Office job/ on the road, boring
-we don't know his name

Martha Singer
-Strange/ Scary/ Tough
-Pale
-Dirty/ Unclean
-Intriguing
-Fearless
-Smokes alot
-Contradicting behaviour

Fight Club and Grand Narratives

Comedy

Postmodernism and Violence

-Since its 1999 release, Fight Club has solidified its place among American pop culture.
-Humor is often used as a means of accepting violent imagery.
-Fight Club is just one of many recent films that treats violence in an ironically humorous manner.
-"In the postmodern procession of simulacra, traditional images of violence have lost their affective power, and consequently have been replaced by a more neutral style" (Grant 24).
-The film's release was delayed because of the spring shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.
-Prior to Fight Club's release, ultimate fighting clubs had been thriving in various American cities.
-Just as the men in Fight Club attempt to reclaim their masculinity through violence, "the contemporary wrestler exemplifies the thoroughly postmodern idea that human identity is purely a construction, a matter of choice, not nature" (Cantor 20).
-Fight Club the power exchange is purely competitive.
-Violence is not the answer.

In the first weekend Fight Club opened in 1999 it grossed $11 million in ticket sales placing it number one at the box office for the weekend of October 15-17. Sixty percent of the audience was male and 58% of the audience was under the age of 25.

David Ansen
This is not a movie that can be easily dismissed or forgotten. An outrageous mixture of brilliant technique, puerile philosophizing, trenchant satire, and sensory overload, Fight Club is the most incendiary movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time. It's a mess but one worth fighting about.

Fight Club and the Postmodern Dilemma of Manhood

-Men's role in society is vastly changing due to the feminist movement of the 1970's and women in the workplace.
-The primary subject and focus of the movie Fight Club is the generation of men born in America since the 60s, while certainly the film will appeal to both sexes, men and masculinity will be central to the discussion.
-The movie is primarily about the relationship between Tyler and Jack, which takes seems to be a father-son type relationship, in the sense that the father is a role model for the son.
-Through Tyler, Jack experiences an awakening from a group called Fight Club, in which men get together in a basement and fight one another for the simple pleasures of fighting and bonding with one another.
-Roger Ebert describes Fight Club as "the most frankly and cheerfully fascist big-star movie since 'Death Wish,' a celebration of violence in which the heroes write themselves a license to drink, smoke, screw and beat one another up.
-Fight Club is incredibly popular among young men because young men can identify with the film, men work the tedious jobs that Jack and Tyler suffer through to survive, and they are victims of the same feelings that Jack suffers from.
-Fight Club speaks to listless and directionless young men in a calculated attempt to shock and disturb them from their mundane slow deaths and it speaks to and shocks women in an attempt to wake them up to the way the change in society is damaging and killing their sons, brothers, and husbands.

Dust Brothers

The Dust Brothers are the Los Angeles, California based, Grammy Award winning producers, E.Z. Mike (Michael Simpson) and King Gizmo (John King) who met in 1983 while working at the Pomona College radio station, are famous for their sample-based music in the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically for their work on the album Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys. In the years to follow, the Dust Brothers emerged among the most sought-after remixers and producers in the industry. They also founded their own label, branching out even further, in 1997 they produced Hanson's chart-topping "MMMBop," as well as a handful of tracks from the Rolling Stones. Their first full-length solo record was the score for the 1999 film Fight Club.

David Fincher Filmography

Alien 3 (1992)
Seven (1995)
The Game (1997)
Fight Club (1999)
Panic Room (2002)
Zodiac (2007)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
The Social Network (2010)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Fight Club

An office employee and a soap salesman build a global organization to help vent male aggression.

Postmodern Elements of Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino uses alot of postmodern elements within his films, and Inglorious Basterds is no exception.
The film opens with 'once upon a time' and is split into chapters, this is not a convention you would typically associate with a War film, however you may expect to see it split up into dates/years. This element connotates that the story is a fairy tale and possible made up, which some of it quite clearly is, yet the idea is that you believe this happened during WW2.
In the first scene there is an intertextual reference from one of his other films 'Pulp Fiction', where he uses painted back drops as apposed to real ones, this like the getting ready scene with Shosanna in the cinema where the set is revealed is obviously used to show that it is only a film and however WW2 was real this film is not.
The music used in Inglorious Basterds is also postmodern. The use of italian composer, Ennio Morricone's music was used not only for the film but featured on the soundtrack aswell. There is music from Westerns during the film aswell, this also doesn't really fitt with the War genre of the film these elements could also be used for humour during fight scenes. This is completely contradictory of the genre of this film.

Promblems with intertextual references

As the movie ramps up for the lengthy, action-packed finale the music is clearly Murphy's. It's Murphy's music for 28 Days Later, one of the variants of In the House – In a Heartbeat. As the movie progresses there's more from Murphy, what sounds like his music from Sunshine. Kick-Ass reuses his scores, his highly recognisable scores that have previously been heard not only in the movies for which they were written, but also achieved omnipresence on trailers, adverts and TV - The Guardian.



Intertextual references can go wrong, especially when films like Kick-Ass use music that has been previously associated with other high profile texts, in this context intertextual references can ruin a film and make you think of a part of another film that is possibly better than the one you are watching. On the other hand they can be used well and input and interesting element to a film.

World War 2 - Time Line

1939

Hitler invades Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later.

1940

Rationing starts in the UK.
German 'Blitzkrieg' overwhelms Belgium, Holland and France.
Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Britain.
British victory in Battle of Britain forces Hitler to postpone invasion plans.

1941

Hitler begins Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of Russia.
The Blitz continues against Britain's major cities.
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, and the US enters the war.

1942

Singapore falls to the Japanese in February - around 25,000 prisoners taken.
American naval victory at Battle of Midway, in June, marks turning point in Pacific War.
Mass murder of Jewish people at Auschwitz begins.

1943

Surrender at Stalingrad marks Germany's first major defeat.
Allied victory in North Africa enables invasion of Italy to be launched.
Italy surrenders, but Germany takes over the battle.
British and Indian forces fight Japanese in Burma.

1944

Allies land at Anzio and bomb monastery at Monte Cassino.
Soviet offensive gathers pace in Eastern Europe.
D Day: The Allied invasion of France. Paris is liberated in August.

1945

Auschwitz liberated by Soviet troops.
Russians reach Berlin: Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders on 7 May.
Truman becomes President of the US on Roosevelt's death, and Attlee replaces Churchill.
After atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrenders on 14 August.

Hollywood Grand Narratives

Marshall McLuhan view that 'the medium is the message', this is certainly the case with Hollywood cinema. In terms of medium, film genre serves as the medium

There is a view that only 7 narratives exist

Overcoming the Monster A terrifying, all-powerful, life-threatening monster whom the hero must confront in a fight to the death. An example of this plot is seen in Beowulf, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Dracula.
Rags to Riches Someone who has seemed to the world quite commonplace is shown to have been hiding a second, more exceptional self within. Think the ugly duckling, Jane Eyre and Clark Kent.
The Quest From the moment the hero learns of the priceless goal, he sets out on a hazardous journey to reach it. Examples are seen in The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Voyage and Return The hero or heroine and a few companions travel out of the familiar surroundings into another world completely cut off from the first. While it is at first marvellous, there is a sense of increasing peril. After a dramatic escape, they return to the familiar world where they began. Alice in Wonderland and The Time Machine are obvious examples; but Brideshead Revisited and Gone with the Wind also embody this basic plotline.
Comedy Following a general chaos of misunderstanding, the characters tie themselves and each other into a knot that seems almost unbearable; however, to universal relief, everyone and everything gets sorted out, bringing about the happy ending. Shakespeare’s comedies come to mind, as do Jane Austen’s perfect novels.
Tragedy A character through some flaw or lack of self-understanding is increasingly drawn into a fatal course of action which leads inexorably to disaster. King Lear, Madame Bovary, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Bonnie and Clyde—all flagrantly tragic.
Rebirth There is a mounting sense of threat as a dark force approaches the hero until it emerges completely, holding the hero in its deadly grip. Only after a time, when it seems that the dark force has triumphed, does the reversal take place. The hero is redeemed, usually through the life-giving power of love. Many fairy tales take this shape; also, works like Silas Marner and It’s a Wonderful Life.

Theorists

Jacques Derrida proposed that a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without... a genre. Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text

(Derrida 1981, 61).

Levi Strauss and his theory of 'binary opposites', he also however developed the theory of 'bricolage'.

Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan who coined the phrase 'the medium is the message'. By this he means that the manner in which the message is shown becomes more important than the meaning of the message itself.
Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.

Frederic Jameson sees postmodernism as vacuous and trapped in circular references. Nothing more that a series of self referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose.

Jean-François Lyotard

rejected what he called the “grand narratives” or universal “meta-narratives.”

Grand narratives refer to the great theories of history, science, religion, politics. For example, Lyotard rejects the ideas that everything is knowable by science or that as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress. He would reject universal political ‘solutions’ such as communism or capitalism. He also rejects the idea of absolute freedom.

In studying media texts it is possible also to apply this thinking to a rejection of the Western moralistic narratives of Hollywood film where good triumphs over evil, or where violence and exploitation are suppressed for the sake of public decency.

Lyotard favours ‘micronarratives’ that can go in any direction, that reflect diversity, that are unpredictable.

Rosenau (1993)
1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamently rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.

Postmodern Dictionary.

Bricolage
Bricolage is a processes by which traditional objects or language are given a new, meaning and context, for example, geeky clothing from the 1980's is now seen as cool and unique when worn.

Homage
Not to be confused with a pastiche, the homage is a far kinder and more respectful way of making use of an existing style. Tarantino makes use of homage is all his films. When watching a postmodern text you need to decide whether what you're witnessing is a pastiche or a homage.

Hyperreality
Hyperreality is a symptom of postmodern culture where a person loses their ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, examples could include reality television like Big Brother, pornography, or multi-player online games.

Pastiche
Pastiche is a tongue-in-cheek imitation or tribute used in literature, art, music, movies. Used with respect to, or in homage to, other works. An example is Family Guy especially the Star Wars based episodes.

Pluralism
is simply a belief that there is no one answer to anything, this is much like postmodernism.

Simulacra
A simulacra is a copy of a copy, so far removed from its original, that it can stand on its own and even replace the original for example is the cartoon Betty Boop, who has now become an icon for the long forgotten actresses she was based on.

Pluralism
simply a belief that there is no one answer to anything, this is much like postmodernism.

What is Creativity?

Taken from Media Magazine blog.

One of the possible areas you could be asked about in the exam is creativity. The projects you have undertaken will hopefully have felt like an opportunity to display your creativity, but you will need the chance to discuss what you understand by creativity and what it might mean to be creative.

The assignment options at AS and A2 all offer constraints for your work, whether it be making pages for a music magazine, the opening of a film or the packaging for an album; one of the reasons why you aren't offered total free choice is because people often find that working within constraints gives them something to exercise their creativity, whereas total freedom can sometimes make it really difficult to know where to start. It's why genre can be interesting- how has something been created which fits with certain structures and rules but plays around with them to give us something a little bit different?

The word 'creative' has many meanings- the most democratic meaning would really suggest that any act of making something (even making an idea) might be seen as a creative act. In more elitist versions of the term, it is reserved for those who are seen as highly skilled or original (famous artists, musicians, film-makers etc). an interesting third alternative is to think about how creativity can be an unconscious, random or collaborative act that becomes more than the sum of its parts.

A great shared site for creative random art with some effort is on Flickr with the shared CD meme pool. This is a game where you create a CD cover for an imaginary band and upload it to Flickr; the trick is you have to create it from 'found' materials, again following a set of rules.


The key question to consider is: how has something been created which fits with certain structures and rules but plays around with them to give us something a little bit different?


Ideas and theories to help you.


"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)


"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)


"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)


"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning)

Ennio Morricone

Biography
Born November 10, 1928, he is an italian composer and conductor. He is considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era. Morricone has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and TV productions.

Westerns and Spaghetti Westerns

Western
Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West. Some Westerns are set as early as 1836 but most are set between the end of the American Civil War (1865). There are also a number of films about Western-type characters in contemporary settings. Westerns often portray how primitive and obsolete ways of life confronted modern technological or social changes. This may be depicted by showing conflict between natives and settlers or U.S Cavalry or between cattle ranchers and farmers. American Westerns of the 1940s and 1950s emphasize the values of honor and sacrifice. Westerns from the 1960s and 1970s often have a more pessimistic view. Despite being tightly associated with a specific time and place in American history, these themes have allowed Westerns to be produced and enjoyed across the world.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - 21 century.


Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians, usually in co-production with a Spanish partner and in some cases a German partner. The partners would insist some of their stars be cast in the film.

The movie that qualifies as the first spaghetti western, Tierra brutal (1961)

Blaxploitation

Explanation

A film genre that emerged in the United States when many exploitation films were made specifically (and perhaps exclusively) for an audience of urban black people. Blaxploitation films were the first to feature soundtracks of funk and soul music.. These films starred primarily black actors. These films were accused of stereotyping blacks—their target audience—as pimps and drug dealers.

Examples

1975

• Black Shampoo
• The Black Gestapo
• Boss Niger

Post 1970

• Original Gangstas
• Jackie Brown
• Black Dynamite

Music in IB

Tarantino originally wanted Ennio Morricone to compose the soundtrack for the film. Morricone was unable to, because the sped-up production schedule of the film conflicted with his own work. However, Tarantino did use eight tracks composed by Morricone in the film, with four of them included on the CD.

The opening theme is taken from the folk ballad "The Green Leaves of Summer", which was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin and Paul Francis Webster. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, including spaghetti western, R&B. This is the first of Tarantino's soundtracks that does not include dialogue excerpts from the film. The soundtrack was released on August 18, 2009.

1. "The Green Leaves of Summer" - Nick Perito
2. "The Verdict (La Condanna)" - Ennio Morricone
3. "White Lightning" - Charles Bernstein
4. "Slaughter" - Billy Preston
5. "The Surrender" - Ennio Morricone
6. "One Sliver Dollar" - Gianni Ferrio
7. "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" - Zarah Leander
8. "The Man with the Big Sombrero" - Samantha Shelton & Michael Andrew
9. "Ich wollt, ich wär ein Huhn" - Lilian Harvey & Willy Fritsch
10. "Main Theme from Dark of the Sun" - Jacques Loussier
11. "Cat People" - David Bowie
12. "Tiger Tank" - Lalo Schifrin
13. "Un Amico" - Ennio Morricone
14. "Rabbia e Tarantella" - Ennio Morroicone

Inglourious Basterds Reviews

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inglourious_basterds/\

BBC NEWS

By Emma Jones BBC News reporter in Cannes

Quentin Tarantino has made an eye-catching return to the Cannes Film Festival with Inglourious Basterds, an epic World War II movie set in Nazi-occupied France.

Tarantino swaps fact for pulp fiction in Inglourious Basterds, a comic revenge fantasy about Jewish freedom fighters bringing down the Nazis in 1944.

Brad Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, the leader of a gang of Jewish-American soldiers operating in occupied France whose self-proclaimed mission is "to kill as many Nazis as possible".

They succeed in Tarantino's usual grisly-comic fashion, carving swastikas into the foreheads of any German soldier they do not scalp.

The plot culminates with an attempt to incinerate the Nazi high command - including Hitler, Goebbels and Goering - at a film premiere in Paris.

It's western meets war movie, with David Bowie on the soundtrack

In the words of Tarantino, it's "the power of cinema bringing down the Third Reich".

Once again, the US director has blurred film genres. Essentially it's western meets war movie, with David Bowie on the soundtrack.

And it becomes positively camp-operatic in parts - particularly in its portrayal of a shrill, semi-hysterical Adolf Hitler and British generals who could have been lifted from 'Allo, 'Allo.

Pitt may get top billing, but he's not the star of the show.

That honour goes to Christoph Waltz, an Austrian TV star who plays SS officer Colonel Hans Landa.

Comedic menace

So important was this character to the film, says Tarantino, that he considered scrapping the movie if he couldn't find the perfect actor to play him.

Waltz carries off comedic menace with aplomb in a performance that makes him a strong contender for this year's best actor prize

The film runs almost three hours and has a large international cast

This is not an American movie. Rather, it's Tarantino's homage to the European cinema he adores.

Indeed, there are so many scenes shot in French and German that an English-speaking audience will spend a lot of the film reading subtitles.

Some will wish there were a few more, just so they can understand Pitt's Tennessee-born, almost incomprehensible character.

Inglourious Basterds clocks in at nearly three hours, and its director could certainly have trimmed more of its flab.

This, and Pitt's character not getting the screen time he deserves, are the main disappointments.

It still can't touch Pulp Fiction, which won the Palme D'Or in 1994, but the reaction here at Cannes is that Quentin Tarantino has made a glorious, silly, blood-spattered return.

He is royalty at this festival - and as long as you can suspend disbelief and offence, he remains the king of trashy cinema.

Filmography

Inglorious Basterds - 2009

Hell Ride - 2008

Sukiyaki Western Django - 2007

Planet Terror - 2007

Hostel Part II - 2007

Death Proof - 2007

Grindhouse - 2007

Daltry Calhoun - 2005

Sin City - 2005

Hostel - 2005

The Protector - 2005

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 - 2004

My Name Is Modesty - 2004

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 - 2003

Hero - 2002

Little Nicky - 2000

From Dusk Till Dawn 3 - 1999

From Dusk Till Dawn 2 - 1999

God Said, 'Ha' - 1998

Jackie Brown - 1997

Girl 6 - 1996

Curdled - 1995

From Dusk Till Dawn - 1995

Four Rooms - 1995

Desperado - 1995

Destiny Turns On The Radio - 1995

Natural Born Killers - 1994

Somebody To Love - 1994

Sleep With Me - 1994

Pulp Fiction - 1994

Killing Zoe - 1993

Iron Money - 1993

True Romance - 1993

Reservoir Dogs - 1992

Eddie Presley - 1992

Past Midnight - 1991

Quentin Tarantino

Mini Biography

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born March 27, 1963, he is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and occasional actor. In the early 1990s he began his career as an independent filmmaker whose films used nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence. His films include Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill (2003–2004), Death Proof (2007) and Inglorious Basterds (2009). His films have earned him an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA and a Palme d'Or and he has been nominated for Emmy and Grammy awards

Film Features

• Lead characters usually drive General Motors vehicles, particularly Chevrolet and Cadillac, such as Jules' 1974 Nova and Vincent's 1960s Malibu.
• Makes references to cult movies and television.
• His films usually have a shot from inside a car trunk.
• His films will often include one long, unbroken take where a character is followed around somewhere.
• Long closeup of a person's face while someone else speaks off-screen.
• Extreme violence, much of which is suggested off-screen.
• Often frames characters with doorways and shows them opening and closing doors.
• Frequently uses Spanish classical guitar for the soundtracks.
• Known for giving combacks to "forgotten" actors and/or cult actors by giving them important roles in his movies.
• Characters frequently use the phrase bingo.