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
Lyotard in The Differend1988developed a conception of the postmodern sublime that designates an excess of representation in the form of a gap between
reality and its presentation. In postmodern film, what was formerly thought of as unsuitable for film now suddenly is an essential part, to present the unpresentable.
Imagination, dreams, and things which cannot happens in real world, will be represent in visual imagery through film.
Postmodern film creates the imagination into reality through the using of supporting settings, properties, and plots. Many postmodern authors reflect this in
their work by inventing products that mirror actual advertisements, or by placing
their characters in situations in which they cannot escape technology. But then technology, in postmodern film, can lead to detached, emotionless lives.
d. Wild Sexuality or Violence
Some characters in postmodern film, compared to another characters of different genre of film, have more complex characteristics. And employs wild
sexuality or violence as a tool to signify freedom and self-expression in postmodern film will strengthen the complexity of that character.Postmodern film
tends to vulgarly show the deepest lust of the characters. Not only through implicit scene but also straight to the point itself.
According toTomasulo 1999:176, unexplained violence has become not only a dominant motif in recent American screen entertainment but a powerful
mythology that constitutes its own meaning as part of a reactionary social and political agenda.Denzin 1991: 60 argues that we have entered an era where
nothing is any longer hidden. The cultural identities are filtered through the personal troubles and the emotional experiences that flow from the individual’s
interactions with everyday life. The demands of interactions with society and everyday life produce anxiety, a radical isolation from others, madness, violence
and insanity.
e. The Portrayal of Femme Fatale
According to Denzin, there are only ever two categories of women portrayed in post-modern films, the good, usually portrays as a middle-class
respectable housewife. The character of ‘good’ woman usually appears as the comparison of the other character. The other portrayal of women in postmodern
film is the bad, which overtly sexual and disrespectful femme fatale. A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms
ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. Without any consideration, a
femme fatale does anything they want to do.
f. Locating Violent Margins into Everyday Society
