A Filmmaker's Guide to: The Post-Modern Plot

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we’re actually going to be learning about literature and film together. I understand that many of you are sitting in university during difficult times and finding it increasingly hard to study and I understand that many of you who are not at university or not planning on it are possibly stuck of what to do, need a break or even need to catch up on learning film before you get to the next level. This guide will be brief but will also contain: new vocabulary, concepts and theories, films to watch and we will be exploring something taboo until now in the ‘filmmaker’s guide’ - academia (abyss opens). Each article will explore a different concept of film, philosophy, literature or bibliography/filmography etc. in order to give you something new to learn each time we see each other. You can use some of the words amongst family and friends to sound clever or you can get back to me (email in bio) and tell me how you’re doing. So, strap in and prepare for the filmmaker’s guide to film studies because it is going to be one wild ride.

The Post-Modern Plot

What is it?

Well, the post-modern plot is normally told out of order, parted by strange sub-plots and littered with symbolism and montages. This was obviously pioneered by the modernist era in which directors like Sir Alfred Hitchcock would use montages and/or dream and nightmare sequences to show the audience what was going on inside the character's head.

This then moved on to frame narratives [though they were used long before as well, just not commercially]. Frame narratives are where the main plot is told in a flashback where the beginning and end represent the end of the film. So we get the end of the film, we go back on to the flashback which is the main point of the film and work our way to the end. The other way a frame narrative can work is by presenting one story inside of another story in which the interior story is the one we should be paying the most attention to.

How is it used?

In our own day, post-modern storylines and plots are mostly used symbolically in order to show something to the audience that we cannot express in speech. Films such as "Synecdoche, New York" do this through their usage of double storylines, one within the other in which both are as important as each other in understanding the main message of the story.

Other ways it can be used is to show us things that we could not recognise before by taking us back to specific moments in the story. In films such as "The Sixth Sense" this is obviously possible. But another, more abstract way in which this storyline is based within another abstract. For example: if you were to watch Derek Jarman's "Caravaggio" then you would notice that parts of the storyline are represented by the various paintings of Caravaggio brought to life. This is the abstract nature of the storyline being told through the abstract nature of the presentation of Caravaggio's paintings.

Other films you can watch include but are not limited to:

• Citizen Kane (1941)
• Edvard Munch (1974)
• Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Conclusion

So in conclusion to all of this, when you explore the nature of the post-modern storyline you should really be looking out for pieces of the storyline that are not told in the conventional style or order. Maybe there are even parts of the plot that are represented by other forms of media such a song, artwork and/or dance. These all make up to part and parcel of the post-modern plot and add an extra layer of meaning to the movie.