Postmodernism: Mis-En-Abîme
Postmodernism: Mis-En-Abîme
There have been multiple literary and artistic movements that have swept the globe in the last 300 years. Many which have changed the way in which we perceive the world. One such movement has been toward so-called postmodernisms. What are postmodernisms, and how have the come to be defined through art and literature? In this essay, I will explore Luhrmann’s postmodern film Moulin Rouge in relation to the theories presented in Jameson’s “Postmodernism and Consumer Society,” and to postmodernism itself. Through critical analysis of textual details, I will illustrate how various elements in the film complement and at times refute both the text and postmodernism as a whole. These elements include: pastiche, parody, citationality, double coding, irony, nostalgia mode, the role of multinational and corporate capitalism, and some paradoxical incongruities within the film concerning modernist and postmodernist paradigms.
For the purpose of this essay, Moulin Rouge is a postmodern work, despite its many quintessentially modern themes. This interpretation is dictated not only by the postmodern chronological definition, but also by the conceptual definition provided by Jameson (which is this papers context). He describes postmodernisms as direct reactions against the established movements of high modernisms (1961). On a broader spectrum, the film’s borders are highly ambiguous concerning modernism and postmodernism. In fact, the film is often both at the same time, which ultimately causes some incongruity between the film as “postmodernist” and Jameson’s postmodern definitions. I would go so far as to suggest that Moulin Rouge is a postmodern film about modernism, no doubt one of the great ironies of the film and of postmodernism itself.
One significant feature of postmodernism is pastiche, which plays a crucial role in Moulin Rouge. According to Jameson, pastiche is a mimicry or imitation tactic very closely related to but
There have been multiple literary and artistic movements that have swept the globe in the last 300 years. Many which have changed the way in which we perceive the world. One such movement has been toward so-called postmodernisms. What are postmodernisms, and how have the come to be defined through art and literature? In this essay, I will explore Luhrmann’s postmodern film Moulin Rouge in relation to the theories presented in Jameson’s “Postmodernism and Consumer Society,” and to postmodernism itself. Through critical analysis of textual details, I will illustrate how various elements in the film complement and at times refute both the text and postmodernism as a whole. These elements include: pastiche, parody, citationality, double coding, irony, nostalgia mode, the role of multinational and corporate capitalism, and some paradoxical incongruities within the film concerning modernist and postmodernist paradigms.
For the purpose of this essay, Moulin Rouge is a postmodern work, despite its many quintessentially modern themes. This interpretation is dictated not only by the postmodern chronological definition, but also by the conceptual definition provided by Jameson (which is this papers context). He describes postmodernisms as direct reactions against the established movements of high modernisms (1961). On a broader spectrum, the film’s borders are highly ambiguous concerning modernism and postmodernism. In fact, the film is often both at the same time, which ultimately causes some incongruity between the film as “postmodernist” and Jameson’s postmodern definitions. I would go so far as to suggest that Moulin Rouge is a postmodern film about modernism, no doubt one of the great ironies of the film and of postmodernism itself.
One significant feature of postmodernism is pastiche, which plays a crucial role in Moulin Rouge. According to Jameson, pastiche is a mimicry or imitation tactic very closely related to but