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Postmodern films an essay
Postmodern films an essay
Hollywood influence on society
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Movies and films have been in the American society for over a century, and in its timeless enjoyment, we still watch a film for its rich entertainment, and storytelling. As time progress, the American audiences demand more films to more interesting, and realistic. Knowing this, directors try to make movies as a mirror to reflect the changing society and transform theme to suit our tastes. Each different theme that is added have a two opposing side to it, their influence on the society is undeniable. This change of favors has drawn many writers to voice their thoughts in this matter. Two authors that shared their input into the topic: Vivian C. Sobchack; whose essay: The Postmorbid Condition addressed the unneeded increase of violence in movies;
and Robert B. Ray, and his essay: The Thematic Paradigm, that focuses on the hero theme in American cinema. However, a common theme most of the modern movie share is the element of violence. Because of its connection to real-life, many have shunned upon this theme. Violence like all things has a good and evil tone to it. Unknowing to us, violence has been used to tell stories, a way to release stress, and has decreased crime. Through those, violence in movies has a benefit in the American audiences.
There are several different heart problems that show up as an abnormal EKG reading. For example, a heart block can occur when there is a delay in the signals coming from the SA node, AV node, or the Purkinje fibers. However, clinically the term heart block is used to refer to an AV block. This delays or completely stops communication between the atria and the ventricles. AV block is shown on the EKG as a delayed or prolonged PR interval. The P wave represents the activity in the atria, and the QRS complex represents ventricular activity. This is why the PR interval shows the signal delay from the AV node. There are three degrees of severity, and if the delay is greater than .2 seconds it is classified as first degree. Second degree is classified by several regularly spaced P waves before each QRS complex. Third degree can be shown by P waves that have no spacing relationship to the QRS complex. Another type of blockage is bundle branch block. This is caused by a blockage in the bundle of His, creating a delay in the electrical signals traveling down the bundle branches to reach the ventricles. This results in a slowed heart beat, or brachycardia. On an EKG reading this is shown as a prolonged QRS complex. A normal QRS is about .8-.12 seconds, and anything longer is considered bundle branch block. Another type of abnormal EKG reading is atrial fibrillation, when the atria contracts very quickly. On the EKG this is shown by no clear P waves, only many small fibrillating waves, and no PR interval to measure. This results in a rapid and irregular heartbeat. On the other hand, ventricular fibrillation is much more serious and can cause sudden death if not treated by electrical defibrillation.
Maasik, Sonia, and J. Fisher Solomon. "The Offensive Movie Cliche That Won't die." Signs of life in the U.S.A.: readings on popular culture for writers. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1994. 407-411. Print.
The author of “Hollywood, Stop Exposing Our Kids to Violence” claims that filmmakers need to stop producing violent movies. The article argues that many children pick up bad habits from watching violent
Over time, the United States has experienced dramatic social and cultural changes. As the culture of the United States has transformed, so have the members of the American society. Film, as with all other forms of cultural expression, oftentimes reflects and provides commentary on the society in which it is produced. David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight Club examines the effects of postmodernity on masculinity. To examine and explicate these effects, the film presents an unnamed narrator, an everyman, whose alter-ego—in the dissociative sense—is Tyler Durden. Durden represents the narrators—thus every man’s—deep-seated desire to break free from the mind-numbing, emasculating world that is postmodern, post-industrial America.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
In the “Pstmorbid Condition” by Vivian Sobchack she states that films use to use violence for a purpose to provide meaning and depth but today they grotesquely use violence without meaning. She states that 25 years ago in 1975 that films were using violence, but it was being used artistically to show great meaning in what was truly happening. It was through this kind of intelligent filming that allowed the violence to keep the people interested in trying to interpret what the director was trying to show. It is 25 years later that Sobchack states that films are now over using violence. The films such as Pulp Fiction that have an over use of violence are taking away the meaning that use to be in the violence. They no longer put in the aesthetics
The average viewers of movies movies today may utter that they watch movies merely just for pleasure; however, today’s movies offer more fulfilling values to us than we generally realize. Films today provide us with a substantial amount of insight into some of todays most debatable topics. Look at the Pursuit of Happiness for instance, viewers believed after watching that they could fight for what they truly wanted even though their situations may be difficult. Similarly, like Will Smith who fought for himself and his son so that they too could be better off after struggling through very tough times. The film Crash left viewers with many questions, not about the film itself but rather about themselves. It led to self-examination, where viewers
Film scholar and gender theorist Linda Williams begins her article “Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess,” with an anecdote about a dispute between herself and her son, regarding what is considered “gross,” (727) in films. It is this anecdote that invites her readers to understand the motivations and implications of films that fall under the category of “body” genre, namely, horror films, melodramas, (henceforth referred to as “weepies”) and pornography. Williams explains that, in regards to excess, the constant attempts at “determining where to draw the line,” (727) has inspired her and other theorists alike to question the inspirations, motivations, and implications of these “body genre” films. After her own research and consideration, Williams explains that she believes there is “value in thinking about the form, function, and system of seemingly gratuitous excesses in these three genres,” (728) and she will attempt to prove that these films are excessive on purpose, in order to inspire a collective physical effect on the audience that cannot be experienced when watching other genres.
In recent years, Hollywood has been inundating the American public with movies that question the very essence of reality. While set in highly entertaining, thrilling, and spectacular films, the very foundations of reality have been challenged, and some unsettling questions have been left unanswered in the minds of the American public. When did Hollywood become such a philosophizer? But more importantly, why has Hollywood taken to creating powerful films that manipulate the emotions and beliefs of their viewers as specifically concerns reality and their understanding of it?
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
Movies have had an influence on the American culture through the content of various issues. In American movies, the characters take on such issues as social reform, political views, and emotional turmoil. Movies have changed people's attitudes about consuming information. Today, movies quickly give us a visual picture of where and what the characters are doing. Most movies neatly package a story into less than two hours of carefully edited material. Movies have made current generations used to this way of consuming information and can often make reading a book seem to slow for them.
Today, many ways of life and beliefs in terms of culture and tradition have become old. They are no longer what people really live by. Further, in media especially in films released in the late 1900’s there are many things that are shown which at the time were considered a phenomenon. Additionally, these films are known as “Postmodernist films”. “Postmodernist film attempt to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure, characterization and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief. Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and low art and often upend typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something different from traditional narrative expression.” (Wikipedia) I feel that postmodernism is largely portrayed in Lynch’s films and we see this a lot in “Mulholland Drive” and “Blue Velvet”. Therefore, in this paper I will research how David Lynch uses dominant and recurring themes and techniques such as sex, loss of personal identity and use of profanity in his films showing the postmodern culture in USA.
It’s not a disguised fact that movies and cinema have come to impact nearly every facet of our culture- our colloquialisms, our views and beliefs, our moods. When you decide to watch a movie, you’re often making that decision based on how you think it will make you feel- if you want to be scared, if you want to laugh, if you want to think, or if you want to have a good cry. What the layman may not truly grasp is how a film can have such a huge impact on them- but the movie industry knows the kind of power they have over people, over consumers. It’s become an art form to be able to accurately and powerfully move an audience in any given way. People study and work for years to balance the delicate skill of subtle manipulation through this visual medium.
Blood, guts, and glory puts amusement in the hearts of millions of people everyday in theatres everywhere. Of course this doesn’t mean literal guts are shown on screen. However, seeing violence on screen in films makes people much more enthusiastic to finish the film. In an essay written by Vivian C. Sobchack, she shows readers there has been an outburst in usage of dramatized violence in Hollywood today. A prime example of this are films that center around times of war, particularly the highly notable time of World War II. From movies like Saving Private Ryan or American Sniper, violence has become a very big part of the dramatization of these war films. These films highly rely on violence in order to attract attention from the public, in which they would substantially benefit from the profits gained.