Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner

✍ Scribed by Matthew Flisfeder

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 185
• Series: Film Theory in Practice
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Matthew Flisfeder introduces readers to key concepts in postmodern theory and demonstrates how it can be used for a critical interpretation and analysis of Blade Runner, arguably “the greatest science fiction film”. By contextualizing the film within the culture of late twentieth and early twenty-first century capitalism, Flisfeder provides a valuable guide for both students and scholars interested in learning more about one of the most significant, influential, and controversial concepts in film and cultural studies of the past 40 years.
The “Film Theory in Practice” series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner offers a concise introduction to postmodernism in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Ridley Scott’s cult film Blade Runner.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Postmodernism and history
From Fordism to neoliberalism
An incredulity toward metanarratives; or, the cultural logic of late capitalism
New subjects of history; or, the death of the subject
From postmodernism to capitalist realism
Plan of the book
Notes
CHAPTER ONE Postmodernism and postmodern theory
Toward a theory of the postmodern
Modern beginnings
“Make it new!”
The instrumentalization of knowledge
The commodification of art and the art market⁶
The avant-garde and kitsch
The Frankfurt school and the culture industry
Modernism, mass culture, and the cinema
May ’68 and after
Structuralism and post-structuralism¹⁴
Screen theory and Cultural Studies
The end of history
Michel Foucault’s critique of “ideology” and “repression”
Against master narratives
The breakdown of the signifying chain
Postmodernism and populism
Pastiche and parody
Representation and reflexivity
Double-coding
Simulation, simulacra, and the hyperreal
The postmodern subject
Allegorical interpretation
Notes
CHAPTER TWO Postmodernism and Blade Runner
Mapping the historical logic of Blade Runner
A simulacrum of itself
Nostalgia and pastiche
A noir sci-fi
Cyberpunk
The cybernetic city
World creation
Techno-space, simulation, and the hyperreal
Schizoid androids and Oedipal subjects
History and retroactivity
Race, class, and replicants
Postmodern Blade Runner
Mapping our postmodern present
Future imperfect; or, “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world ...”
Notes
Conclusion Postmodern theory after the end of history
Notes
Further Reading
Index