Postmodernism is a social and cultural concept that has dominated contemporary theory since the 1950’s. It has been widely used in film theory as a critical perspective that allows debate concerning social shifts in contemporary life and artistic practices in the wake of the decline of modernism.
Characteristics of a postmodern text that can be seen within ‘Fight Club’:
Intertextuality – the referencing of other cultural texts; either visually or verbally within the content of the text
Hybridity - the mixing and/or recycling of pre-existing genres and narratives to construct new forms or a ‘hybrid’
Simulation - a lack of any sense of reality to the real world
Surface – a text that is more concerned with the superficial and/or devoid of any depth of meaning
Pastiche – paying ‘homage’ to older texts
Bricolage - the collection of disparate or differing objects to help explain the nature of the prevailing culture and society
Irony – playfulness with the style, form and/or content of a text
Friedrich Nietzsche & the concept of ‘The Superman’
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers he developed the concept of ‘the superman’ and nihilism as a mode of existence. Nietzsche's revitalizing philosophy has inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural life, including dancers, poets, novelists, painters, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and social revolutionaries.
Useful quotes: (These can be applied to situation or events within the narrative of ‘Fight Club’ to deepen your philosophical understanding)
Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Man is the cruellest animal.
No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
God is dead.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
La Zona (The Zone): 2007 Directors: Rodrigo Pla, Rodrigo Plá
La Zona is a contemporary satirical thriller by director Rodrigo Plá, contrasting the poverty of modern Mexico with heavily fortified, gated communities for the wealthy overclass and their families. For many, myself included, that description hoists a warning flag. Since the huge success of City of God, many movies from and about Latin America have developed the cliches and mannerisms of favela chic and favela porn: aerial shots of the vast hillside shanty towns, crime, sexy violence, kids with guns etc, habitually topped off with perfunctory gestures of concern for all those people whose misery and poverty have underwritten the movie's seriousness.
This is different. It is an intriguing, dystopian drama with a coolly unsentimental attitude to villain and victim alike. The film is a little like something Ira Levin might have written, and I can well imagine it being remade by Hollywood, set in some spiffy development of Los Angeles bordering a tricky neighbourhood - written and produced by Michael Crichton, perhaps.
The title refers to a fictionalised posh district in Mexico City, an arcadia of beautiful homes, resplendent lawns and kids in smart school uniforms, fenced off from the slums with razor wire, surrounded by security guards and CCTV, and boasting legal exemptions from conventional police access, signed off by judges who have links with the rich lawyers who live inside.
The community is horrified when a wealthy woman is brutally beaten, robbed and murdered by a trio of criminals who have somehow breached the perimeter: two of them are shot dead by guards and armed citizens, but the third, a boy, is still at large somewhere in their creepy Westworld. What embarrasses the citizenry of La Zona is that one of the thugs was from their security force. It looks like an inside job. So they decide to settle their own business their own way, and have in any case nothing but contempt for a feckless police force drawn from the same class as the wrongdoers.
When a suspicious cop finally gains access to ask questions about gunshots heard from over the fence, he is stonewalled; the burghers cover up the fact that there was ever a murder at all, they get rid of the bodies and initiate a huge manhunt to find the boy - and kill him.
It is a shrewd study in group pathology, and has the arresting feel of a movie set five minutes into the future: it is not entirely clear that this is a fantasy, a what-if setup, or whether it is being proposed as simply a dramatic variation on something that everyone knows is the case. In the vast lawless sprawls imagined by this movie, the police are ineffectual in rich areas as well as poor: this could well be accurate - or perhaps simply on the verge of being accurate. Either way, it is a smart movie, dramatically lean and mean, exciting and often shocking.
Fredrick Nietzsche's concepts of what constitutes "good" and "bad" in regards to morality can be recognised in the movie Fight Club. Nietzsche believed that a man who always plays it safe and feels guilty for his natural instincts is comparable to a cockroach. Edward Norton plays a nameless nobody in this film; he obsesses over his possessions and sees the routine of his everyday life. Nietzsche also believed that a man who isn't afraid to die and doesn't hide his feelings is comparable to a lion. Brad Pitt is the outspoken rebel who deviates from playing it safe. His character Tyler Durden shows the chaos that can result from being 'a lion'. It sounds more appealing and glorious to be a lion than a cockroach, but things aren't really that black and white. Should we all fight for power, or be slaves to the corporate system? How, according to Nietzsche, is fighting for power a moral pursuit, and what can we learn from the Tyler Durdens of the world?
David Jenkins speaks to the Czech maestro about his brilliant new film, 'Surviving Life'.
This week’s new release ‘Surviving Life’ is a partially animated film about an office worker who embarks on a search for the woman of his dreams. It’s written and directed by 77-year-old Jan Švankmajer, the prodigious Czech iconoclast who dazzled with short films like ‘The Flat’ (1968) and the stop-motion masterpiece, ‘Dimensions of Dialogue’ (1983). He later moved into feature filmmaking and is known for eccentric modern classics like ‘Alice’ (1988) and ‘Little Otik’ (2000).
Are your dreams as vigorous and vivid as when you were younger?
‘Certainly, they are. If Sigmund Freud is right and dreams make our most secret wishes come true, then, as we get older, our wishes gain intensity in proportion to how our energy decreases in real life.’
How did the idea for ‘Surviving Life’ evolve?
‘There was a particular dream of mine at the beginning. The entire story is only a development and interpretation of that dream.’
Why have you personally presented the prologue to your recent films?
‘If books can have an author’s foreword, why can’t a film? It certainly does not originate in some ungratified narcissism. And, maybe, when the viewer is given the chance to see what the author looks like and can possibly learn some of the author’s views, he may gain more confidence in the meaningfulness of the film.’
You say in your introduction that there’s no money in dreams.
‘In the introduction, I say that people do not take their dreams seriously because they cannot make money in this part of their lives. It is undoubtedly an attack against the current utilitarian-economic civilisation that pushes a person towards uncontrolled consumption. This civilisation works against the neolithic nature of contemporary man. In fact, the latest discoveries of neuropathology show that the evolution of man does not progress as fast as we thought. There is no homo economicus. Man is still an irrational, magical and unpredictable creature, the same way he was in the neolithic era.’
Do you see your films as having elements of autobiography?
‘Every authentic creative work is autobiographical to a certain extent. What do you want to derive material for your creative work from if not from your life: from your childhood, dreams and eroticism? These are the sources of every creative work. And, to be balancing on the edge of the grotesque and horror is reality itself.’
Do you still find filmmaking and animating satisfying?
‘I have never considered myself to be exclusively a director of animated or feature films. In my work, I consistently exercise what the surrealists call the “universality of expression”. There is only one poetry. But there are many means one can use to capture it. Besides making films, I have never stopped drawing, writing, making collages, graphics, ceramics, assembling various objects and experimenting with touch – that is the regeneration of imagination with, so-called, free creative work. It is thanks to my unrelenting infantilism that I am still able to do these things at my age.’
Is the stop-motion animation from which you made your name still economically feasible?
‘I have always ignored economic standpoints. Unfortunately, they do not ignore me.’
Another director who draws creativity from the subconscious is David Lynch. Are you a fan?
‘David Lynch is one of few contemporary film directors whose work I am familiar with and which I want to be familiar with. We fish in the same pond.’
Do you have any advice for our readers of practical ways to have potent, meaningful dreams?
‘The advice is to have impossible wishes and insist on their coming true.’
Bill Viola is a contemporary video artist. He is considered a leading figure in the generation of artists whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death and aspects of consciousness.
Bill Viola's video installation, 'Ocean Without a Shore', is presented in the atmospheric setting of the church of San Gallo, Venice. Monitors positioned on three stone altars in the church show a succession of individuals slowly approaching out of darkness and moving into the light, as if encountered at the intersection between death and life. Viola talks about his artistic intentions and the technical challenges of the piece.
Expanded Cinema is an online platform for experimental film, early video, and sound-based, durational work. All of the material is being curated from available media online, emphasising an overlooked facet of the archival function of new media.
Kurt Kren
Sentimental Punk (1979)
"It was in San Francisco at a punk festival. I was already high and the air was so thick in the rooms that you could cut it with a knife. I had a photograph camera with me; I stood in a corner of the entrance hall and took 36 pictures on slide film. At home I put the slides into a slide projector. I took out the lens and filmed the slides by filming directly from the projector - using single frames according to a certain plan. " Kurt Kren
Visit the site here to discover other experimental and avant-garde filmmakers work.
Kenneth Anger - 'Missoni Fall 2010 Campaign Movie'
A short movie shot entirely in Sumirago, the Missoni Fall/Winter 2010-11 campaign was directed by Kenneth Anger, one of the most influential film poets of American avant-garde cinema. Featured in the film are members of the Missoni family: Ottavio Missoni, Rosita Missoni, Angela Missoni, Margherita Missoni, Jennifer Missoni and Ottavio Jr. Missoni.
One of the central recurring images found in Anger's work is the concept of flames and light; in 'Fireworks' there are various examples of this, including a burning Christmas tree, and it subsequently appears in many of his other works as well. This relates to the concept of Lucifer, a deity whom Anger devoted one of his films to, and whose name is Latin for "light bearer"
