How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman Essay

In module 11, postmodernism was defined to “call attention to the storytelling process, but through a high incidence of quotation, appropriation, borrowing, homage, copying and recycling”. Additionally, postmodernism involves making references to contemporary culture and everything tends to be built from fragments of other things. It is involves mixture of high and low culture references. Furthermore, it tends to show “the world as imaginary, and reality as a construction” (module 11). Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and Nelson Pereira do Santos’s How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman are classic examples of postmodern film with unique characteristics.
Annie Hall has a very unique beginning to the movie. Woody Allen, dressed in his stand up comedy clothing,

is speaking directly to the audience in a medium close-up. He talks about two elderly women at a Catskills Mountain Resort. One of them says, “Boy, the food at this place is terrible”. In response, the other remarks, “Yeah, I know, and such small portions”. Then Woody Allen, comments, “Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly”. Then he paraphrases a joke by Groucho Marx, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member. That’s the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationship with women”. This whole process of monologue highlights that the movie will be about Woody Allen’s midlife crisis and his breakup with his wife. Additionally, Allen makes these hidden cultural references to the ideas and struggles of midlife, which leads to depression.
In next set of scene, it is understood that we are looking at Alvy’s lifestory, not Woody Allen’s, which is kind of delusionary. Then he kind of goes on talks about his childhood which has some political references. His house is underneath a roller coaster, which might allude to the lifestyle of US people during WWII because life was extremely shaky for people in WWII. Allen makes an allegory that these roller coaster lifestyle of WWII might account for the Additionally, he has very unique childhood as he hangs out with sailors and showgirls at the clam bar. His elementary school teaches some of the most absurd ideas i.e school transportation administration.
Woody Allen additionally utilizes the Fourth Wall effectively, which creates a sense of imagination in the film. At the movie theater, Alvy and Annie are annoyed by the talks of the Columbia University Professor. In order to shut him down, they break out of the fourth wall and Alvy brings in Marshall McLuahn. Another instance of fictional drama comes earlier in the movie. The scene where Alvy kisses a girl next to him, and at that instance we get to see both younger Alvy and adult Alvy in the scene. All the kids are also not behaving like kids, but adults trapped in younger body. All the kids talk about their work, and then we see Alvy as a comedian. This aims to build a character confusion between Alvy Singer and Woody Allen.
On the other hand, Nelson Pereira do Santos’s How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman identifies utilizes postmodern techniques to depict a 16th century event. In order to accomplish this task, do Santos adopts a documentary type of footage, which were generated by long lingering shots. Many of these shots came through an embedded camera, included other character in the background, in order to create direct cinema.
Throughout the beginning of the scene, the users are introduced to the juxtaposition between the things written in the letter and iconic view of the screen.

The letter written by Admiral Villegaignon says, “The country is a barren desert. There are no houses, nor any other commodities. The natives are barbarous savages, different from us, without any religion, or any knowledge of honesty or virtue, or what is right and unjust. They are beasts with human faces”. This is in disagreement with the things seen in the movie. In fact, we see that the natives are generously giving food to the French settlers. Do Santos specifically highlights these difference because he wants to convey that history could be written in an extremely biased manner. For example: In module 12 lecture, we discussed about Hans Staden’s expedition to Brazil. He spent many years as a Brazilian captive, where he observed their culture in extensive detail. After his escape he writes a first person account Brazil: The True History of the Wild, Naked, Fierce, Man-Eating people. These narratives are highly priced in European culture because the authored had spent so many of their with the natives. In order to sell their, the authors could have manipulated the actual lifestyle and story. As a result, history ends up being written in a one sided

way.
Do Santos utilizes multiple quotations throughout the film, in order to enhance the documentary feeling. Lastly, towards the end of the film, we realize that Frenchmen has been integrated into the Tupi culture. He is ready to leave with his gold, but couldn’t do it because he identified himself with the Tupi culture. Do Santos gives a narrative about cultural cannibalism and suggests that to be Brazilian, it is to recognize cannibalism. He suggests that Tupi need to avenge and present as an authentic Brazilian, so that Europeans must be ingest and digest to become a Brazilian. Therefore, this cannibalism allows for the integration of the Brazilian culture into the Europeans.