Studies and research: discussion about postmodernism

Problems of Periodization of Film Postmodernism

This essay presents an attempt to apply an analytical-periodizational paradigm on the interpretation of film (and other arts) in accordance with the distinction between post-modern as the wholesome, stylistically plural period, and postmodernism as the stylistic formulation within that period. The issue is the concept of interpretation of contemporary art according to which we can easily recognize works in which parody and intertextual-interdiscursive playfulness are more important than political and ideological involvement, or in other words, moralistic instructiveness. In that sense, Gilić, among other things, polemizes with Bruno Kragić, who, writing in his treatise American Film Postmodernism — New Era or Misconception, (chronologically) conditions the presence of postmodernism in the American cinematography with the previous domination of modernism and its tendency to abandon the classical narrative style.

Since, according to Kragić, the modernist narrative-stylistic paradigm in American cinema never really took over, one cannot talk about postmodernism because postmodernism comes only after modernism. In response to Kragić’s claim that techniques observable in ’postmodernist’ works are not new, Gilić calls for analytical caution motivated by two facts. Namely, even in the works that ’undoubtedly’ belong to, for example realism, there are characteristics of past and future periods. In that sense, periodical considerations should not overestimate the role of chronology, while at the same time we should bear in mind the importance of stylistic characteristics and poetical guidelines interwoven in the work.

Nikica Gilić