Postmodern Film

Postmodernism in Film:

Postmodern films upset the conventions of narrative and characterization and also often interacts with the audience's suspension of disbelief to create a work that articulates its ideas or expression using the internal semantic codes and self-awareness.

Playwright Bertolt Brecht has proven important to the evolution of postmodern film in its early stages through attempting to "break the 4th wall" in order to try and empower the audience through doing things such as having the characters address the audience directly. This is known as "defamiliarisation."

A bout de souffle (Breathless), Jeam Luc Godard 1960, is a key early postmodern film about a young boy who moulds himself around the persona of Humphrey Bogart. The way that the film is shot and edited makes the audience very aware that they are watching a film and reflects postmodern ideas that no one can live an authentic life based on past grand narratives and self reflection.

A more recent example of postmodern film is Micheal Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People" in which the character breaks out of his constructed film world to talk directly to the audience directly through the camera lens, this once again breaks the 4th wall.

What I think we have to question is as an audience do we want to be aware that we are watching a film or would we prefer feeling like a part of the film itself and becoming involved with the characters journey throughout the plot? Regardless it has to be said that "breaking the 4th wall" in cinema has becoming an uncommon sight in mainstream cinema and focuses on the story of the characters and involving the audience rather than reminding them that they have no role to play in the characters adventure.