Through the [Image]inary Door: Lyotard, Baudrillard, Jameson and Postmodernism in Film
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Date
2013-02-22
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Texas A&M University
Abstract
"Through the [Image]inary Door: Lyotard, Baudrillard, Jameson and Postmodernism in Film" combines a chronological history of postmodernism in the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard and Frederic Jameson with a section of film analysis, where prominent themes of postmodernism are traced throughout Rashomoji, Orlando and Playtime. Postmodernism entails more than a certain style of art, film, literature or architecture. What we call postmodernism is part of the larger system of global capitalism, or what Jameson calls "late capitalism." In this total system, everything, including art, is assigned monetary value. The theorists agree that the telling attributes of postmodernism are responses to (and characteristics of) this system. Lyotard writes from a perspective that is extremely skeptical of total systems. Lyotard is equally wary of teleology and the unified subject, since these both suggest a totality in which everyone must agree without questioning-to realities dictated by the system. Baudrillard believes that in the age of world capitalism, objects become separated from their value, and signs from their supposed referents. Now, when a consumer buys an article of clothing, or a car, he or she is not buying a utilitarian item. instead, a brand name, or an intangible quality is purchased, which is then perceived to be transferred to the consumer. What is being acquired, then, is floating signs, unconnected to any object. The relationship between word and meaning, object and referent is broken. Jameson clashes with Lyotard on a crucial point of postmodern theory. One of Lyotard's major additions to the field, the breakdown of master narratives, is insufficient to convince Jameson, since Lyotard's own account of the end of master narratives is itself a narrative. At the same time, Jameson agrees with Baudrillard's main complaint that: "aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production." That is to say, art is stripped of aesthetic value and imbued with monetary worth. In Through the [Image]inary Door, these postmodern themes may be recognized not only in the content of films, but also in the circumstances under which they were produced.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-79).
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-79).
Keywords
cultural studies., Major cultural studies.