Movie: Postmodern Film
People make the mistake of using the date and time a book or film was produced in order to determine whether the material is postmodern or not. This is because there are no any defined eras which can be termed to be postmodern. One needs to examine the theme and the characters making up the text. I will focus on the film the Blade Runner. Throughout the essay, I will examine whether the aspects in this film adhere to what the theorists have postulated about the ideas need to make a film to be classified as a post-mortem film. The theorist ideas I will use are from Denzin (1988).
The film Blade Runner was produced in 1982 which was starred by Harrison Ford acting as Rick Deckard. He is a retired policeman who had served at the Blade Runner Unit. Ford is enrolled to track the androids that have refused to obey orders given t by the authority in space and have decided to come to planet Earth. The brief plot is an adaptation of the novel called Do androids Dream of Electric Sheep? written by Phillip Dick. Deckard’s recruitment meant that he was given the responsibility to kill all the androids.
We are the introduced to Rachel who is an android (replicates) who is part of the experiment team producing replicates. She uses memory implants and she believes to be human. Rick Deckard falls in love with Rachael and he goes against the orders by not killing her. The other four replicates are killed. One dies after the elapse of their normal four year life soon while the other three are shot by Rachael and Deckard.
Certain aspects in this movie make it to be termed as a post modern film. This includes the unicorn dream dreamt by Deckard. Also throughout the movie speaks as the pictures are being shown. These two different elements can make us categorize this movie as a postmodern film without necessarily having to look at the time scale. Postmodern was a movement which came up to rebel against realism which had been in the world for more than sixty years. It acknowledges that things have changed in the world in both social production and in relationships. Denzin (1988) showed eight factors which should make us say that a film is postmodern.
First, the inability to draw a line between the present and past time boundary. There are many contradictions to the fact that Blade Runner was based in the setting of November 2019. We instead see a lot of the eighties elements like technology, use of punks, hair cuts and clothes. A second element is the ability of the film to show the past signifiers and these aspects are portrayed in signs of destruction. Rachel in this film is dressed in the manner of the 50s. This makes the audience not to be sure of her true character. The soundtrack in the film is that of the 40s. Another element which makes the movie a postmodern film is the signifying of the future as a threat (Denzin 1988).
They warn of the dangers to come in future with matrix and terminators. The Blade Runner shows with nostalgic the admiration of the past. The film also as postmodern movie refers to the present as the past of the movie. We can see when Deckard comments that in history books he’s the kind of cop used to call black men niggers.” (Movie database, 2011)It is a quite which is applicable in the present. The boundaries of the movie shows an extended limit of the presents into the future in making the aspects which are unreal to seem real and not just a possibility that could occur. This makes us see the future in paradoxical manner which extends our anticipation and even fear of the future. We instead crave for the past and its security.
Reference
Denzin N (1989) Images of postmodern society: social theory and contemporary cinema
Publisher SAGE,
Internet movie database (2011) Blade Runner. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/
On May 6, 2011
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
