a. An Effacement of Boundaries between Past and Present
Referring to Strinati’s theory about the ‘jumbling’ in postmodern works; postmodern film tends to create blur boundaries between past and present. It
means that the viewer cannot distinguish the time in which the film is set with any certainty.It makes the audience become unsure about the plot of time in the
film.Most postmodern film employs the unusual plot of time which the beginning of the movie is actually the ending of the movie itself, for example. It will lead the
confusion to the audience especially the usual audience who is unusual with postmodern film.
Denzin said that postmodern film push the boundaries of the present farther into the future where the unreal is real and not just a possibility. It creates
people’s wildest imagination into a visual work that the audience will realize the function of the creation itself. Related to the confusion of a space and time, the
plot in postmodern film usually jumbled. It is not clear which is the present and the past. The audience have to pay more attention in order to understand the
boundaries between past and present.
b. Terrorizing the Nostalgia of the Past
Postmodern film tends to show signifiers of the past and portray them as signs of destruction. In Denzin’s own words they “locate terror in the nostalgia for
the past.” Jameson 1984: 22 states that postmodern is highly critical of the current historical situation; indeed, it paints a rather dystopic picture of the
present, which associates, in particular, with a loss of the connection to history.
What’s left with is a fascination with the present. In Denzin’s own words he states that:
These films do not just return to the past in a nostalgic sense, and bring the past into the present, as Jameson suggests. They make the past the present, but the
locate terror in nostalgia for the past. The signifiers of the past e.g. 1950s and 1960s popular music, including rock-n-roll and rhythm and blues are signs of
destruction.1984: 69
Postmodernism has transformed the historical past into a series of emptied-out stylizations pastiche that can then be commodified and consumed.
The result is the threatened victory of capitalist thinking over all other forms of thought.On the other hand, usage of such a blunt statement is also quite typical of
post-modern film.
c. Present the Unpresentable