Applying Postmodernism to Amelie

1628 Words4 Pages

The success of the film Amelie, also known in France as Le Fabuleux desin d'Amélie Poulain directed by Jean Pierre-Jeunet, can be attributed to both the vision of the director and brilliant writing of the screenplay. This is a film which takes place around the year 1997 a day after the incident of Princess Diana's death is televised all around the world. We are then guided through the life of Amelie Poulin (Audrey Tautou) who is trying to find meaning in her life by doing good deeds for others around her. Amelie is a film which was made in the modern society of France, but one of the elements that makes this a postmodern film is its tendency to look back at past times, be retrospective of modernism in our society and build an image of it. Postmodernism is to be understood as a movement beyond modernism which is nonetheless able to make use of modernism techniques and conventions as one set of stylistic choices amongst others. By analyzing Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 ward-winning film Amelie, we will identify the presence of many underlying motifs in both the narrative and the characterization of the film when using influential theorists such as Frederic Jameson and Jean Baudrillard’s concepts on postmodernism.
In relation to contemporary cultural aesthetic, the postmodern adopts two modes: mainstream mode and oppositional mode (Hayward 302). In Amelie, a mainstream approach is taken through the mannerisms and stylization of the film, through pastiche. Amelie resembles a mainstream use of pastiche and bricolage, which can be seen through the assemblage and mixtures of the different styles and genres. The assemblage of different genres is a common characteristic that is found in many postmodern films. We get a blurred line of genres ...

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...at time is blurred and not crucial to the overall narrative of the film. “Far from being a purely experimental film, the movie presents, in many ways through its non-linear plot, a rather mesmerizing and eccentric worldview” (Lanzoni 375).

Works Cited

Amelie. Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Perf. Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus. 2001.
Streaming.
Bruno, Giuliana. “Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner.” In Alien Zone, ed. Annette
Kuhn. London; New York: Verso, 1990. 183-195.
Hayward, Susan. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge, 2006. Book.
Hill, John. "Film and postmodernism." Hill, John and Pamela Gibson Church. Film Studies:
Critical Approach . New York: Oxforce University Press , 2000. 94-102. Book.
Oscherwitz, Dayna. Past Forward: French Cinema and thw Post-Colonial Heritage. Southern
Illinois University Press. 2010. Google Book.

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