Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Good afternoon. Today's class is all about post modernism. So, what do you understand
by post modernism? Let us have you know your definitions to start with post modernism.
Probably we are talking about word did to structuralism and philosophies. You know when
we come to fiction; it is probably the same movement. So, I probably understand that the
notion of centrality and wholeness that we had associated with probably structuralism
and modernism to a great extent was challenged. Structuralism and Modernism.
Modernism ok. Movements in stuff. Yeah. So, this is practically challenging whole notions
of centrality and wholeness. That is it.
So, challenging… first definition or interpretation of post modernism that we get is, challenging
the notion of centrality. See what comes to your mind or rather who comes to your mind
when you talk about people who have challenged the centrality in the notion of centrality
in literature or in popular culture. Ok. Umberto Eco. So, these are writers, film makers because
post modernism has influenced popular culture and cinema as well. So, who are those film
makers who come to your mind? French new wave ok.
Films like ‘The last tango in Paris’. What else? Who else? We are talking about
movements. We are talking about films if I ask you to name some directors. The one who
make pulp fiction. Tarantino. So, fine you know taxation is quite recent, but yeah one
of the key names associated in the post modernist movement at least in cinema. So, post modernism
as Vimal was talking about is, when we begin with literature. Say some mode of narrative
which challenged the established notions of centrality as Vimal was saying and also of
realism. Now, realism does not mean that if it challenges realism, then post modernism
is unreal. Nothing like that. What do you understand by realism? Who are the realists
and how were the realists challenged? The narrative. Ok. True to life. True to life
yeah good.
So, realism is, now if you come to post modernism and realism, so realism is very similitude,
trueness to life, slice of life. This is a very cliché term, but slice of life ok. Now,
what is this so called slice of life? It is very true to what we see or what we read.
Can you name some realists? An Italian neorealist period. Yeah Italian neorealist but if I ask
you to name some. Victoria Jessica, Bertolucci, but if we look at literature because post
modernism starts with literature, Thomas hardy, yeah dickens is the most important name when
it comes to realism. Now, what happens in a realist novel? They
give you a slice of life trying to be as close to reality as possible and the idea is to
present, show hold up mirror to society. Also, an important feature is that there is a definite
and this word you should know ‘closure’. There is a solution, there is a plot development.
There is a plot. It develops. There are characters, sketches. Well developed characters, are they
not? Yes and then at the end there is a satisfactory closure, so that is the linchpin of realism
that provides a satisfactory closure. A reader is not left wondering what happens.
However, if you think that this is life. My question is, is it really? Yeah, does life
has a closure? It does not. That is what post modernist challenge. This entity is called
a satisfactory closure. Also, now, if we look at Charles dickens, think of a novel by Charles
dickens, Oliver twist, Hard times’. Hard times, David Copperfield. Now, what happens
there? Who is the narrator in David Copperfield? Whose point of view is there in David Copperfield?
David Copperfield. In Oliver twist, it is Oliver Twist. In hard times, it is the central
protagonist who ever that is. So, the entire narrative unravels through their point of
view. So, narrative thus becomes and this is another word that you should know, monologic.
What is monologist? Mono logic narratives point of view.
What is logic? Logo is word, mono a single, the one single word that is one point of view.
However, this is what has been challenged by the so called post modernist where the
narrative becomes dialogic, heteroglossic, polyphonic. You can take down these words.
Actually, these terms are given by the Russian formalist Mikhail Bakhtin. So, narrative is
suppose to be or should be ideally dialogic that is there should be interaction, not just
monologic, not just one point of view, one fixed point of narrative.
Heteroglossic, many tongues glossia tongue, yeah hetero means several. So, many tongues
it is important you know. Think of a modern movie like a Babel for example, yeah. So,
what happens in Bable? Multiple narratives, multiple points of view, traffic and polyphonic,
many sounds. So, this is what post modernism is all about. As oppose to a single monologic
closure. So, what they believe in, the post modernist believe in the realism, the so-called
realism is basically unreliable because there cannot be there should not be a single monologic
closure because life itself does not allow, does not make space for that kind of satisfactory
or satisfying closure ok. So, therefore most post modernist text whether
you take cinema or literature there open ended, open to several interpretations. So, relationship
between post modernist idea's and literature and art has related in challenging the conventions
of realism and another interesting word that we all know ‘mimeses’. My mimeses is imitation
of life. So, there cannot be any imitation of life because that itself becomes monologic.
Anything that claims to be realist is and a post modernist would regard that with suspicion.
So, post modernist doubt on the truthfully descriptive relationship of language to the
word. So, word itself you know in the beginning there was word, but now post modernism does
not believe in that. So, that should not be any exegeses of the
text. It is not one fixed text which can go unchallenged. So, words itself, language itself
becomes suspect, language word. So, that language hegemony of the written text goes if it is
unchallenged. Then post modernist seek to challenge it and one of the most, one of the
earliest examples of this challenge was the French nouvelle roama not nouvelle vague as
the French new wave that is cinema nouvelle roama is novel of course, so new novel.
Now, if you think of modernism and because what is post modernism post hyphen modernism.
That means something which came after modernism. So, if will look at modernism, this entity
called modernism, what is modernism? What did modernism entail? Technology changes in
lifestyle. Changes in life style. Wavier a present friction may be savant grade movement
like that infection you had all these right. Avante Garde movements, pop culture technology
all these signifier modernism. Now, there is a lot of vagueness about her commencement
of this phenomenon of modernism. We can never be very sure when did this movement
called modernism began, when exactly. In fiction many people say Henry James’s novels. You
know Henry James is one of the most important precursors of modernism. Well, but the most
important names of course are James Joyce and I am going to ask you what you know about
these peoples. Franz Kafka. No, I think that is Nietzsche. Kafka who wrote yes, The castle.
Yes, the castle, Metamorphosis. Yeah and give me more names. Modernism, TS Eliot, Marcel
Proust, Remembrance of things fast. Thomas Mann. James Joyce, Franz Kafka, TS Eliot and
Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, all Europeans. Not a single American here.
So, modernism as a movement at least in its initial stages was centered in Europe. Any
female any feminine name that you can remember? Virginia Woolf. Yes. Now, what is common to
these people? What is one single theme that connects all these writers? Exactly. They
were path breaking for their time. Yes. So, stream of conscious also a challenge the established
notion of narrow realism. Yes, Marcel Proust, James Joyce of course, you know Ulysses. Yeah,
the seminal text by James Joyce, Ulysses, Kafka of course, we have already seen metamorphosis.
What is metamorphosis all about? Metamorphosis means change. Yeah, but what
happens in the novel? It is like a nightmare. Yes, a man wakes up one fine morning and finds
himself to be a bug. Can it happen? Can it really happen? So, what is the metaphor here?
Yeah. The paranoia of modern times. Yeah the fear, the angst, the dread so-called dread.
So, we are talking about existentialist influences on this so-called movement of modernism. So,
one thing that is common among the protagonist of all these writers is the theme of alienation.
The alienated angst trident hero. The hero who feels no connection with those around
him with his society. Except in Virginia wolf, all male writers and invariably all their
protagonist are males as well. So, the alienated white male and this was quite an avante garde
movement, very revolutionary movement. Now, all the hero’s here, sort to challenge the
established conventions of society, social conventions whereas in post modernism, the
art seems to capitulate to the dominant culture. It accepts it. I will read you a quote from
Linda Hutcheon, who is another key theorist of a post modernism. You can take it down.
A post modernism manifest itself in many fields of cultural endeavor, architecture, literature,
photography, film, painting, video, dance, music and elsewhere. In general terms, it
takes the form of and these are the keywords; self-conscious, self-contradictory and self-undermining
statement. Since, you mentioned Umberto echoes and here
his famous novel ‘Name of the rose’. So, I am going to read you one paragraph from
‘The name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco. Think of the post modernist attitude here.
Just listen to this paragraph carefully. So, he says, I think of the post modern attitude
and he writes as, that suppose modernist attitude is compared to a man who loves the very cultivated
women. A man who loves the very cultivated women and he cannot say to her, I love you
madly. You cannot say that to a very cultured woman, I love you madly because he knows that
she knows and that she knows that he knows that these words have already been written
by Barbara Cartland. Now, who is Barbara Cortland? Someone you
know thoroughly. Commercial kind of a romantic novelist like, we have now, Mills and Boon.
So, a generation before Mills and Boon, we had Barbara Cartland where you would have
dashing hero's and demure beautiful girls and they would fall in love invariably. This
is how man would express his love ok. I love you madly, but when you say that to
post modern contemporary women, I love you madly; you know she will just think of those
Barbara Cartland. Now, she will say this is just a lift from a novel. So, he is not saying
anything new to me. So, then echo goes on, still there is a solution. He can say as Barbara
Cartland would put it I love you madly. So, that is the way I love you as Barbara Cartland
would put it. So, now, what is self consciousness, self referential? So, there is the consciousness.
Yeah, that is a messenger taking it. I will take elements from several different aspects
of popular culture. Barbara Cartland is not high broker, high brow high culture that is
the difference. So, you take a post modern work of art, would
borrow elements from high brow as well as very popular or the so-called low brow elements
of culture. I will go on because since this is a very interesting paragraph. So, I could
not resist. At this point having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that is no
longer possible to speak innocently. He will nevertheless have said what he wanted to say
to the women that he loves her but he loves her in an age of lost innocence. In an age
of lost innocence you can say that to a woman that I love you madly in an age of lost innocence.
You say I love you the way Barbara Cortland, he know would love his women ok.
If the woman goes along with this, she will have received a declaration of love all the
same. Neither of the two speakers will feel innocent. Both will have accepted the challenge
of the past of the already set. They take you know they go into the relationship and
they play this is love game, totally self conscious ok. They come into it and this is
not the first time a man has said these words to a women. They have accepted women agreed.
Agreed? So, it has been done several times in better ways.
So, both will have accepted the challenge of the past of the already said which cannot
be eliminated. Both will consciously and with pleasure play the game of irony. Then, post
modernism also accepts the implicit irony. The implicit self contradictions, self awareness,
self consciousness that is an integral part of any post modernist work of any post modernist
text pulp fiction. You said yes and why is it post modernist? You say pulp fiction is
a good example of post modernism Quentin Tarantino directed pulp fiction and you accept him as
a key director of the post modern cinema. Why do you say pulp fiction is a good example
of post modernism? There is no simply capitalized or the realism.
Every statement that is made is probably an intelligent statement that attempts shown.
Now, have you seen post a pulp fiction do you remember? I do not have. Do you? Yeah,
I have seen it, but you know. Yeah, I remember certain scenes.
Let us talk about the scene. I am very sure that you will remember the scene where John
Travolta takes Uma Thurman to a dance club. So, do you remember that? Uma Thurman happens
to be the wife of a mafia boss. John Travolta works for their boss and he has been ordered
that you take my view, keep my wife entertained while I am away. Now, the wife Uma Thurman
who is a typical Femme Fatale, she wants to be entertained and she orders John Travolta
to take her to dance *** bar and he does. So, because would not dare to upset her in
any way. Now, they go there and there is a dance competition.
She wants to participate in that competition and she wants to win the trophy. It does not
mean much to her, but still gives us some kind of a cake. So, she wants it. She persuades
John Travolta to become her partner. She says I know you are a better dancer and I want
you to win that trophy for me. We have to win that. Now, Tarantino being a post modernist
is quoting directly from where, which source? Have you talking about all time movies? Yes,
therefore, you quote right. Something which has already been there likes a Barbara Cartland
text, a pre-existing text. Saturday night fever again blockbuster starring John Travolta.
So, the move capitalizes on the viewer’s knowledge, on the audience’s knowledge that
they know that this actor is a fabulous dancer and there was a similar scene in Saturday
Night Fever where he participates in a dance competition and wins the trophy ok. So, you
know the post modernist writers or the authors, they depend on the success of the products
upon the knowledge, the pre-existing knowledge of the readers and their audience, but if
you are not aware of it, much would be loss to you. Am I right?
If all this spoof that come out of major movies. Yes spoof is not, so that the element of inter
sexuality plays very important role. Extremely that is a very good word; inter- texuality,
since Vidya has mentioned it. So, let me tell you a bit about it now. Inter- textuality
is an integral part of post modernism. It is a term coined by Julia Kristeva where she
talks about how much of a pleasure of a text depends on the readers ability or the audiences
ability to find a previous connection with the other text to a prior, pre-existing text.
No, it need not be. They can code for either from a work of literature. Literature can
code something from her. So, it need not be from the same medium. After all that is post
modernism does not differentiate between high and low. This professor’s movie is tough.
Whose movies? God of small things, this is repeated reference in particular movie. Yes,
particular Malayalam movie Chemmeen. It runs like a motive. God of small things make references
to a Malayalam movie Chemmeen which is of course, all of us are aware of that Salman
Rushdie’s text, frequent references to popular culture, popular film stars Hindi cinema.
For example, I am just reminded of Shalimar, the clown. You have one character in Shalimar,
the clown, Salman Rushdie’s 2007 novel where the central actor, one of the key at character
is called Max Ophels. Does the name ring a bell? Max Ophels and he happens to be a diplomat
and an ambassador to India. He comes from some foreign land, I cannot remember exactly
from where he comes at. Max Ophels is a real life film director. He is the author. He is
considered one of the key authors of the 50s and 60s.
Now, he has made films like ‘Lola Montes’ and ‘The Earrings of Madame de’, ‘The
ellipses’. So, he was also considered one of the key authors, authors of modernism and
post modernism. You know the transition between that a film maker of the transition period
and then Salman Rushdie codes and makes direct reference to him, but you are not aware of
this, we lose the irony, the word play, the paradoxes implicit. I would also like to draw
your attention to this writer and I am sure you are aware of Lyotard, the post modern
condition, a 1979 text. Jean-François Lyotard, the post modern condition. Now, he says a
lot. He is not exactly talking about post modern fiction ok.
You need to know who Jean François Lyotard was and if there is a key text like post modern
condition. So, because he basically discusses the cities, the post modern cities, the cultural
space architecture of a city and gives us post modern spin to that. He also says he
also gives us the notion of met narrative. Now, I would like to caution you here, kindly
do not confuse it with meta-fiction. Meta-fiction is different, meta-theater is different. Met
narrative is different. Meta narrative is a story which individuals and societies tell
in order to situate their particular time and place within the context of larger story.
Met narrative in other word is a device for framing cultures. It has got nothing to do
with a narrative, a work of art of text. It is a device. So, according to Lyotard who
are those people who indulge in these meta-narratives, meta-narratives grand stories about a story,
a culture ok. Also, an attempt is made to universalize those
ideas. Marxism is a very good example of meta-narrative where it is not considered to be situated
in one specific cultural context workers of the world unite. So, you give a universal
spin to something, to an ideology yeah. So, it becomes meta-narrative, framing an entire
culture and making it universal post modernism. However, according to Lyotard, post modernist
should attempt to write petits recits. Petits of course, is a French word for small, recits
is stories yeah. Not grand narratives, but meta-narratives.
So, Marxism yes yeah. So, he makes a proposal for petits recits and not meta-narratives.
So, works of Marx are grand narratives or meta-narratives. Works of eminent sociologists
like Max Weber, they are, any scientific discoveries writings Charles Darwin, they become meta-narratives.
They try to frame culture universal, yeah. So, post modernist, post modern social theories
call for a return to the local and reject the grand theories.
Now, coming to the post modern novel. So, some of the classics of post modernist fiction
are, I will give you some examples just of John Berth. Then, George Borges. When you
have people like William Burroughs, ‘The naked lunch’. Carlos Fuentes, Thomas Pynchon
‘Don Delillo’. Milan Kundera, ‘The unbearable lightness of being’. Michael Ondaatje ‘The
English patient’. Now, give yourselves a moment. Think of all these writers and tell
me if they are considered to be the key authors of a post modernist novel, then what is so
common play write? Look at the notes, your note that you have been making all this time.
So, what is so common in the writings of these novelists?
So, exploration of sexuality. What else? What sexuality could that be with? They are hetero
yeah. Deviant sexuality. Deviant as well yeah. So, it is not just hetero ***. Not the
regular believed. Yes go on. Existing the knowledge of sexuality or society’s norm,
yes anything, but yes. So, challenges the established conventions of society for one
and acceptance of plurality, yeah multiplicity and that is something which is implicit in
all these texts. They are not even told from one singular point of view. Yeah, you have
a text for example, the remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro, who is Japanese settled
in Britain. The novel is too entirely from his point of view. However, at the end, we
are told that this narrator is an unreliable narrator. That is a good example. The unreliable
narrator, yes. So, Linda Hutcheon brain Michael of course, Fredric Jameson.
What is that is Kermode. Yes, Frank Kermode. Is it a critical word? Yeah, I am looking
at now the eminent critics of a theoretician of the post modernist moment. So, brain Michael,
the post modern fiction. Then you have Fredric Jameson. Then, you have Baudrillard, yeah
John Baudrillard, Linda Hutcheon
and as it happens in most theoretical words, most of them contradict with each other. So,
you should not get annoyed by what this, yeah there is a contradiction. They all seek to
you know complement as well as contradict each other. Another very important name is
Ihab Hassan. So, we are talking about the major theoreticians of post modernism.
So, all these writers are concerned with images in circulations in culture texts as well as
images in circulation in a particular culture. How can one reuse reinterpret or recode or
interrogate those images? That is implicit in the works of all these theoreticians. So,
now coming to my first question, how does post modernism differ from modernism? Taken
down a technologic and dialogic. Element is there and then realism is questioned in post
modernism. Then, imitation is not allowed. Absolutely. Yeah good. However, the modernist
hero, the alienated hero, the angst dent hero, you know longer have such heroic heroes anymore
yeah. So absolutely. Yeah. So, we had losers even in the modernist culture. We are not
glorified in the grand narratives, but in post modernism those losers are not glorified.
You do not get to know much about them. They become smaller and smaller. So, while the
modernist art is the modernist hero, the grant hero, the heroic hero would work out of pure
imagination stream of consciousness techniques. The post modern artist works with the cultural
giving’s. So, he uses the accesses the social morals, the cultural accesses, the cultural
morals of the society and tries to become ok.
So, his persona is influenced by several external influences, the cultural influences and these
cultural elements could be high as well as low. So, therefore, we have the notion of
and these are another very relevant terms for you. So, the post modern hero if you can
call him or hero he is made up of. Yes, parody pastiche collage ambiguities, yes and juxtaposition.
So, that takes care of your ambiguity paradoxes. Can you name an artist, a postmodern artist
who is noted for his use of collage artist? Not an actor known for his very popular collages.
The one who drew Guernica that is Picasso that is a modernist, it is a modernist. Yes.
Picasso is not a post modern Salvador Dali. That is surrealism. Yeah. That is an off shoot
of modernism. Are you familiar with this name Andy Warhol? Yes. I would like you to know
more about Andy Warhol because he is a very significant name associated with collage,
the post modernist collage. You may perhaps recall images of Marilyn Monroe in all colors.
You know those close ups of her face in colors and also, he did some work with a can of beans.
You know he made a can of beans and he did some work on it, beautiful collages on that.
So, finding art in common place objects that is the idea. I think this is still important.
I will let it be here parody pastiche. Fredric Jameson is very fond of using this
word pastiche. He says all modern art is a pastiche inflow. You know cultural external
influences parody is not the way we understand it. A commonly yes. Yes it is not that humorous
or satirical something that is used to evoke laughter. That is not and this is the word
Linda Hutcheon uses. This is Linda Hutcheon. This is Fredric Jameson. So, Linda Hutcheon
proposes. The work of art makes use of parody and for Jameson, it is pastiche and Jameson
regards parody as the way it is usually regarded as. It is full of low laugh, yes ridicule,
but for Linda Hutcheon, pastiche is empty and hollow. We will look at it in detail later.
Now, some of the characteristic of any post modernistic text literature or fiction or
novel, even cinema. One is undesirability which suggests the impossibility of deciding
between two interpretations. Yes between good and bad also. No polarities, no you know distinctly
mark categories ok. Kamal Hassan’s film is also. Can you give me one example? Always
he wants for instance Madhavan’s character, but those confused character does not know
the difference between good and bad guy. He thinks the physically dislocate Kamala Hassan
to be a terrorist in the beginning. Yes. Then, finally, you know he calls him his brother
and working off with him. So, there is a change in him in with respect to believing whether
he is good or a bad guy. Throughout the film there is confusion. So, at the end is it resolved?
Yes, but then there is a closure. So, a post modernism decides against closure.
So, undecidability, of course, that inability to decide between multiplicities of element
of post modernism, but there is a closure. So, does not fit into both. Perhaps you know
we have to watch it again. You have to understand which category it fits in. Then, apocryphal
history, this is another feature of a post modernist text which apocrypha, I will write
it undecidability. Well, you know historical work or history itself is challenged. Perhaps
something is added, something is deleted from the extremely normative prescriptive text,
historical text, something is added, something is interrogated and something is challenged.
So, revisiting history and reinterpreting it, that is apocryphal history. That is one
of the, could be yeah. Here, I am actually falls in the category of historiography, writing
the history again. So, you can look at apocryphal history yes. For the apparent, yes. Then,
you also have the science fiction frame work ‘Gravity’s rainbow’. Thomas Pynchon’s
‘Do android dream of electric sheep’ which was remade as a very key post modern text
called ‘Blade runner’. Blade runner is one of the best sci-fi film. It is based on
science fiction novel. So, by creating the idea is to create new
truths and not just expect the already established truths. The science fiction also interrogates
the prevailing truths. Matrix series for example, it does not except whatever we have been told.
Cloning, yeah having androids all around. That is one example of science fiction. Then,
Brined Michael also talks about the Chinese box structure of the narrator. Chinese box
structure look a Chinese box traditionally does not have regular borders or a structure.
It has rescued and distortions. The edges are rescued and distorted ok. So, that kind
of interpretations, it is just they cannot be back to the undividable narrative subject
to ambiguities abrupt shifts. It is an interpretation. Absolutely, definitely also post modern text
often servers the established notions of a space and time. All the rational categories
are subverted and interrogated which has of modernism right. Yes rationality. Rationality
and post modernism is a challenge to that rationality. Mise-en-abyme, this involves
the paradoxical representation of within the fictional world of a fictional world. So,
it is like looking in a mirror and seeing the reflection. I will give an example. I
am looking at italic Calvino’s ‘If on a winter’s night a traveler’. Now, look
at the title. Itself there it give anything ‘If on a winter’s night a traveler’.
It does not even make sense. So, undesirability subject to many interpretations, no closure.
The sentence itself, you cannot have a sentence with a conditional and then just leave it
half world syntax is distorted. So, challenging the established notions of language itself.
Now, I was saying that miser-en-abysm occurs when a text, when there in a text, when the
reduplication of images or concepts referring to the textual hole. So, film within film
is a good example of a miser-en-abyme and then, fiction within fiction. Now, look at
this example. If on a winter’s night a traveler, this is how it begins. I am reading it out
to you. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s
new novel ‘If on a winter’s night a traveler’. Relax, concentrate. Dispel every other thought.
Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next
room. Tell the other’s right away. No, I do not want to watch TV. Raise her voice.
They would not hear otherwise. I am reading. I do not want to be disturbed. May be they
have not heard you with all that. Speak louder. Yell. I am beginning to read italic Calvino’s
new novel or if you prefer do not say anything. Just hope they leave you alone. So, referring
to can you think of a movie like this, movie within movie structure? Movie in Malayalam?
Good. That was a movie of Mohanlal, but that is not really post modern, but it is even
true. Even that but that is like just for you know that still had very linear narratives.
Yeah, but it still had a movie you know working inside the movie. So, there is another Malayalam
movie where there is a writer writing a novel. Yeah exactly. So, is the reference to? So,
the process of writing is interpreter is challenged or you know reflected on perhaps. So, this
is a very good example. Some a postmodern fiction I mean if cinema, especially in western
cinema you will find several such examples. Movie within movie any number of movie funny
games. Yes Vishay but not self referential. See here,
he is totally self referential, yeah referential. It still had a linear narrative. Yeah, you
know a good example could be eight and half by a Fellini where Fellini himself was going
through a mid-life prizes and he had directors block. Then he could not make. So, he did
not know what plot he is going to handle next. That is what the movie is about a film director
who is at loss. Who is yeah a bug man. So, it is a recent movie. Bug man, I think he
was. That is based on his life. I could like to give you an example of funny
games where there is a couple along with their child and they are holidaying in their country
house. Two seemingly harmlessly young men, they knock at the door and ask for eggs. The
housewife just thinking that you know we have to be good neighbors. She does not know them.
She lets them enter and once they enter, all they break lose. She wooed the husband. He
is somewhat you know just left somewhere wounded and they do bad things to his wife. They killed
the child all for pleasure ok. Now, what happens at one point, the women
says I cannot take this anymore. She takes, she finds a gun somewhere and she shoots one
of the guys. Now, the friend says how did you kill my friend? This is not the way it
is suppose to happen. Now, he rewinds, takes a remote control .Then, says I am going to
rewind the entire scene. Then, that dead guy, he comes back to life ok. Self referential,
he is actually commenting on the kind of a media. We are saturated. We know we are infused
with the kind of violence we see on the media around us ok. Scare to meet his wife etcetera.
When finally, all these things are his imagination and finally, he is hung. So, the movie that
we see is only his imagination. He is still there at the galosh when we come
back again. Yes and then finally, he is killed alright. So, we also look at the use for a
pastiest. She has a category of post modernism and again, we go back to a motto, echoes the
name of the rose. So, what is the name of the rose here? What is it? Do you have any
idea about the novel? Have not you seen the movie? Yeah. It was made on I had ratted something
on it. The entire story and foals in a medieval monastery. Then, there is a *** of a monk
and then another monk is called to solve the mystery. So, extremely you know like Sherlock
Holmes, a detective story but detective stories which coats eludes to Aristotle to scientific
theories to political theories and even to the popular cultural theories, a novel which
is written during eighties. So, it elutes to it. Refers to high as well
as low culture and it becomes a pastiest but it is not a comedy. It is a serious work of
art. It is a detective story. It is a *** story, but a motto echo very cleverly borrows
from all elements. You know all elements which all the cultural element, the popular cultural
elements which influences, so it is a detective jonour. It is medieval history. It is gothic
and it is also treatise on science technology politics. So, hybridist is the key word here.
Pastiche hybridity, then Bakhtin also uses an interesting word called carnival. Carnival
was the time it is used because that was a period when official life comes to a temporary
halt and there is an inversion of high and low. So, this provides for a sub-version.
So, this provides for a sub-version of sensibility and interrogation of authority.
Another example is or another future of post modern novels is concept Retour de personages.
Alan Robbe Grillet
is the key author, the French author. The term Retour de personages return of the characters,
so the same characters you are talking about intersexuality right ok. So, this is another
good example of intersexuality characters from one novel find the way into another.
Yes characters shift you know from one novel to another, from one film to another. Yeah
it is also a very post modernist speech. However, they may not retain their characteristics.
So, they may be something, someone totally different in one film or in one novel and
they may change the colors in another. I like to say in Rajanikanth movie, Baba and
that the Neelambari character of its previous film Padayappa as Neelambari goes and those
friends it say Neelambari Padayappa Neelambari is going there. Is it so? So, he says he has
power to few things. It will happen. So, she will come and ask me for the time. Interesting?
So, a very interesting example of post modern novel is the French lieutenant's woman by
John Fowls 1969 novel which is set in the Victorian era. So, the hero is a Darwinian
and very interestingly his name is also Charles, not Charles Darwin, but he is a believer in
the theories in the scientific theories of Charles Darwin. He has a fiancé. A very well
brought up British, proper British lady and there is a mysterious young woman in his life.
Now, it is a love triangle and it sets in Victorian period, but at the same time, you
have a film production which is making a film set in Victorian era.
So, you know the narrative, the alternates between the two periods Victorian period there
by making a pastiche, a parody of the Victorian era. So, there is a movie production going
on, a movie shoot going on. They are making a film in on Victorian morals and Victorian
settings and all at the same time, you have this other story going on which is actually
based in the Victorian era ok. So, they take elements from the typical Victorian novels
and comments on the Victorian prudery. You know the morals hypocrisy of the time again.
It is a good example of self consciousness, self reflexivity, then relativism. The novel
is also noted per using three different endings. If you remember, there are three different
endings to the French lieutenant’s woman, the narrator says. So, you do not like this
dear reader, let us give you this. Let us have this. You are given a choice of three
separate endings, but the story runs into two caught train and gone. What is she? Yes
quite like yeah. So, Girish Karnad in Nagamandala gives us three alternative endings. It is
a story about a woman who takes a lover, you know the serpent lover, but Paheli does not
use that ghost, but do not take the multiple ending. She backs to the ghost. So, in Nagamandala,
Girish Karnad resorts to three different endings. She takes a snake lover, oblivious to the
fact that he is actually not her husband. She thinks because he assumes the form of
her husband and so there is one ending where the woman goes back to her husband. Second
ending, the Naga lover, the cobra commit suicide because he cannot bear to stay away from the
women he had loved. Third ending, she keeps the lover as well as her husband. It is entirely
up to the audience what they want to go with. So, same structure in John Fowls, the French
lieutenant’s woman. What is it about? It is about the barbaric situations years back,
hundreds of years back where the princess falls in love with the commoner and the king
finds out she is. So, he wants to execute crime of falling in love with the commoner.
So, it is like our gladiator kind of atmosphere where he has got two doses. Get chose between
either of dose, one has you know lion or a tiger. It is going to hungry tiger pounds
on him, another one is pretty lady. So, the lady comes out. He can marry and settled with
her. If the tiger comes out, he has to die. So, he asks the princess, she would know inside
story, please tell me I want to live. So, now, hard thought goes on if I say which door
the lady is. Yes. I cannot bear to see him marry that girl and stay with him. At the
same time, I cannot see him die in front of my eyes ok. So, all these thought process
we as a reader, we read it. Then finally, she points to a door, the story ends there.
We do not know which. We do not know which one she actually point out. So, we have to
take in the shoe and desire with the. So, it is open to interpretation. Yeah it
is. There is no definite closure to it right. Now, coming to Fredric Jameson, he also uses
term called an author becoming a bricoleur. This is a term post modernist or artist cannot
invent new prospective that is Jameson’s position. Instead they operate as bricoleurs,
recycling previewer works and styles. Are you with me on this? Again, we are talking
about inter-textuality. Again we are talking about pastiche. We are also talking and that
is again Fredric Jameson erosion of distinctions between high and low cultures. Now, Fredric
Jameson gives a very good example of this movie called Body Heat which was made sometime
during the 80s. Now, Body Heat also draws from it. It is a
film nova has a standard form besotted lover and a husband, but a body heat also draws
from an earlier text double indemnity which is a Billy wilder movie and post man always
rings twice. Now, this movie which was made in during the 80s and this is the movie which
was made sometime during the 50s. I am talking about the first post man rings twice, not
the Jack Nicholson movie. Now, the first movie is set in a small town
mid western America. So, his body heat, now in body heat all though it is set in contemporary
times, but much afford goes into recreating the small town. The ambience of post man always
rings twice. Now, this according to Jameson is a very good example of an artist become
a setting. A movie in the 80’s, but it is still trying to recreate the ambiance, the
atmosphere of the 50’s. A small town of the 50’s in America and he draws on the audiences desire to return
to their past to evoke nostalgia through cinema. You also give example of the star war. The
success of the stars a star war series, the franchise. He says because there was a star
wars, was a TV series and it would be played; it would be on television every Sunday. Perhaps
there is a generation of audience who remember this and it brings back all the nostalgic
memories. So, when the success of these star war franchise, the films is last day because
their ability to evoke the nostalgia, the nostalgic memories of the bay gone period,
but then Jameson has also been criticized here. Especially by the feminist critics,
who says, that this desire to recreate the past is not there because people want to look
at the small town America all over again. It was also the period where the gender distinctions
were very clearly marked. Women are supposed to be like this and men are supposed to be
like this. So, Jameson has been questioned or interrogated
are criticized because it is not necessarily the small time rural MBS, but also because
there is a definite, there is a well defined stable gender roles there which appeal to
this audience. Now, I would also like you to, I have showed you, both of you are familiar
with a movie called Face off, John Woo’s Face off. Now, can you recall how Face off
begins. Face off itself is a very good example of a Hollywood commodity. We were talking
about market forces and auditors commodity. So, John Woo, very successful Chinese author,
how he is welcomed in it is very standard Hollywood studios esteem and he makes a film
with two big Hollywood stars ok. Now, face what happens in it. The title is
also very interesting, Face off. Yeah, the very opening sequence. Can you tell me, does
anyone remember what happens in the opening scene? The Voltas have a daughter something.
You have John Travolta-Sean Archer. If I remember correctly that is his name in the movie. You
have his antagonist Nicolas cage-Castor Troy, an UN mitigated evil was in and Sean archer
is a typical good hero. He too kind of a hero and he you know the distinction, the binaries
are also brought about by the way they live. Where there live castor’s abode is a virtual
hell. You know plenty of red gold and rock music playing in the background. Whereas,
Sean Archer listens a typical suburbs, very conform is very standardize kind of a very
neat clean in an ideal idyllic kind of a peppermint houses yes.
So, he has a devoted beautiful wife and he has two children, a boy and teenage girl.
The boy is 5 or 6. Now, the opening shot is very interesting and that is what critics
like Jameson and other film theoreticians have try to draw our attention to. It begins
with a scene with Volta is sitting on a mary go round along with his son and the entire
scene is shot in those CPR tones. You know what are C P R tones and also slow motion.
This is a scene where who is the antagonist; he comes and tries to kill Sean Archer, but
ends up killing the child. If people who are familiar with this opening shot, they are
reminded of a Hitchcock movie ‘Strangers on a train’.
So, it is a total, not exactly a lift, but homage to Hitchcock. So, it is a good example
of the artist being a bricoleur taking some part from a known work of art. The known texts
by a great master like Hitchcock because ‘Strangers on a train’ the climax takes place between
the hero and the Villain. Is any seen refer to, quoted in such that is the question. Well,
he has taken the narrative, the structure, but then if you hear we are talking about
artist being a bricoleur when the quote refers to scenes directly ok.
Now, this also been a good example of pastiche. We were talking about pastiche. You know a
blend of high and low culture. When Nicholas Cage is first introduced, you know we hear
the strains of very popular rock music. Rock is definitely not highbrow, but at the same
time, somewhere during the movie Nicholas character is in a church and where you hear
halleluiah and that too done in a very classically style. So, you know there is a standard classical
western music. So, blend of high and low and a very consciously
done work. So, as we were talking about in pulp fiction how John Travolta’s character
is referred to, quoted from his persona in Saturday night fever. This is likewise here,
very consciously referring to the elements of pop as well as high culture. Any questions
at this point? I am just giving you this example, so that you know you can use it when you apply
your theories to an actual work of art, in literature or in film. So, these are the things
to look at. These are the things to locate. So, some more apart from Tarantino, you have
good examples of film makers like David Fincher, director of films like ‘Zodiac’ and ‘Fight
club’. Seven is a very good example of post modern text. David Lynch and Kathryn Bigelow, the director of ‘Hurt
Locker’. David Lynch for Blue Velvet. So, these are some of the Sam Mendes, yeah American
beauty is a good example of a Sam Mendes. Alright then. Thank you very much.