Lesson Five. (Django Unchained)

How can Django Unchained be seen as a postmodern film?

Postmodernism could be best described as an abundance of hybrid genres that take semiotic raids on media texts. 

The influx of postmodern thinking started after the modernist movement in the 1900's showing an incredulity towards meta narratives - Such as religion, philosophy and art.

Lesson Four extended. (Django Homework)

• What is a western?

Western film is a genre that revolves around stories primarily set in the late 19th century in the American Old West. Most westerns are set between the American civil war (1865) and the early 1900's.

• What is a spaghetti western?

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italian Western or Macaroni Western (primarily in Japan), is a broad subgenre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success.

• What is a blaxploitation film?
• Which THREE films does Django Unchained take its name from?
• Why does Franco Nero appear in the film and what is the significance of his dialogue with Jamie Foxx?
• What song plays over the final credits and how does this film connect to the original film Django?
• Which other song from Django features in Django Unchained?
• Who or what is Mr Ed?
• What is the significance of the red mask worn by Zoe Bell as Django murders the killers of d’Artagnan?
• The name of the saloon in which Schultz and Django drink is called Minnesota Clay, why?
• Who is Ennio Morricone?
• What connects him to both Django Unchained and director Sergio Corbucci?
• What sequence has made the 1903 film "The Great Train Robbery" so iconic?
• What is the significance of the name Von Shaft?
• What TV western does Django's western style outfit pay homage to?

Lesson Four.

Django Unchained

Cast features Jamie Foxx (might not be seen as an A list star), therefore Leonardo DiCaprio is casted as the antagonist of the film. Leonardo DiCaprio is a certified A list star and is arguably the best actor of our time.

The film 'Django Unchained' references the 1966 original 'Django'.

Mandingo

Western movies put two black people against each other, often their goal is to please the whites to save themselves, therefore fighting to the death is a frequent thing.

Lesson Three.

Postmodernism

Theories of genre - John Fiske - American professor of Communication arts, 2000s.

9/11 - "Like something out of a movie."

People refer to movies as real experiences often can relate to what is seen in films.

Claude Levi-Strauss - French Structuralist, 1970s.

Levi-Strauss developed the concept of bricolage.

Levi-Strauss saw any text as constructed out of socially recognisable 'debris' from other texts.

He saw that film makers construct texts from other texts by a process of:

- Addition

- Deletion

- Substitution

- Transposition

Inglorious Bastards

Quentin Tarantino added a revenge element.

He deleted the battles and the big fights that would normally occur in a war film.

He substituted battlefield fights (exterior) for cinema/bar fights (interior).

Gerard Genette - French structuralist - 1990's. 

Genette developed the term 'transtextuality' and developed five sub groups, however only four apply to film.

-Intertextuality (quotation, plagiarism, allusion)

-Architextuality (designation of the text as part of a genre by the writer or by the audience)

-Metatextuality (explicit or implicit critical commentary of one text on another text)

-Hypotextuality (the relation between a text and a preceding hypotext - a text or genre on which it is based but which it transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends including; parody, spoof, sequel, translation).

Baudrillard

Developed the ideas of McLuhan to the point where it is possible to deny that the message underneath the medium has any substance at all. Therefore, the audience comes to perceive through the media, a world that appears 'real' but it is not. 

Baudrillard developed the idea of simulation and simulacra.

Simulation - the process in which representations of things come to replace the things being represented... The representations become more important than the 'real thing.' 

Simulacra - They have no relation to reality, they simulate a simulation.

9/11 has now became the coverage rather than the event itself.

Hyperreality - a condition in which "reality" has been replaced by simulacra, argues that today we only experience prepared realities - edited war footage, meaningless acts of terroris, the Jerry Springer/Jeremy Kyle show.

The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction... The real is not only what can be produced, but that which is always already reproduced: that is the hyperreal... which is entirely in simulation. 

Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible.

Frederic Jameson
He rejects the idea of postmodernism.
Jameson essentially believes that the postmodernism provides pastiche, humorously referencing itself.

Lesson Two.

Finished watching Kirby's 'Everything is a remix clip'.
Started watching clips on postmodernism.

Lesson One.

Post Modern Media

Post modern texts deliberately play with meaning. They are designed to be read by a literate audience and will exhibit many traits of intertextuality.

Bricolage:

 Construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.

What is a remix?

A version of a musical recording produced by remixing.

What style of music was it most commonly associated with?

Who and what did the Sugar Hill gang sample?

Which two other have used the same sample?

Which band formed in 1968?

Led Zeppelin

What term is coined in Paris in 1961?

Heavy metal

What novel did it come from and who wrote it?

What were the band labelled as?

"Stairway to heaven" was based on which existing song?

What's the 'problem' with what Led Zeppelin did?

What's the different between a cover and a knock-off?

What do most box office hits rely on?

How many films out of 100 are sequels/remakes/adaptations?

What is a 'genre movie'?

List 4 sub genres of horror.

What happens to their standard elements?

List the elements of Star Wars.

Which two genres were huge sources for Star Wars?

What does creation require?

Who is now the most movie saturated director?

What are the myths of creativity?

Why do we need copying?

When was Guttenberg's printing press invented?

What elements were combined to create the model T in 1908?

What are the basic elements of creativity?

Who invented the PC?

What is multiple discovery?

What is evolution?

What is the term in for this culture?

What is this called?

What doesn't law acknowledge?

What was the side effect of a market economy?

What was the point of the copyright and patent act?

What term was created to protect ideas?

What is loss aversion?

How did Disney use the public domain?

"We have no problem with copying as long as..."

Which song did George Harrison subconsciously copy?

What connects Kanye West to "it must be jesus?"

What is a patent?

What is a software patent?

What % of patent lawsuits are over software?

How much wealth is estimated to have been lost?

What are sample trolls and patent trolls?

Who is the most famous sample troll and why?

How long was the sample from 2005 and where was it from and where was it used?

Why has this been bad for Hip-hop?

Why are patent laws bad for postmodernism? 

The Copyright act of 1790 meant for an amount of time no-one could copy your ideas. Therefore inventors wouldn't lose money as they couldn't compete with copies, this was because the copies didn't have to cover development costs.