Yaffa Calev
Dissertation Abstract
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Abstract of
Ph.D. Dissertation
Postmodernistic Elements
in the Cinema of Woody Allen
Yaffa Calev
Woody Allen’s cinematic work exhibits essential
elements of the postmodernistic condition. It demonstrates the deconstruction
of basic values of Western civilization, including deconstruction of human
conscience and loss of confidence in human morality, deconstruction of the
individual as the stronghold of ethical orientation, deconstruction of the
trust in the ability of man to give meaning to his life, deconstruction of
cultural hierarchies and openness to the multifaceted nature of culture,
leading to respect for “the other”.
These elements of postmodernism are parallel to theoretical notions
in the conceptual discourse and are fleshed out in Allen’s cinematic work in
the playful juggling of meta-narratives in the spirit of Lyotard, in the
analytical deconstruction of conventional moral values in the spirit of
Derrida, in the simplistic simulation of human experience in the spirit of
Baudrillard, in the undermining of any metaphysical aspiration of man and in
the exhibition of a total surrender to pragmatic materialism, characteristic to
the consumer society of late capitalism in the spirit of Jameson. The cinematic
expression of these phenomena is quite different from their conceptual
expression.
This postmodernistic sensibility affects specific aesthetic
expressive practices, which are paradigmatically manifested in Allen’s cinematic creation. The examination of Allen’s films allows an analysis of specifically
postmodernistic ways of expression. Their paradigmatic application in Allen’s works allows their clear definition and the
pinpointing of their characteristic features, which can serve as critical tools
for analyzing postmodernistic aesthetics in the cinematic medium at large. It
allows as well a discovery of the correlation between the ethos of postmodernism
and the aesthetics of cinematic that serves to flesh it out, between the
expressive practices of the film medium and the postmodernistic sensibility
that generates them. These postmodernistic expressive practices are:
“Postmodernistic Intertextuality”, “Blurring of the limits between fiction and
reality”, “Realization of Dialogism” …
Book based on this dissertation has been published in Hebrew:
Woody Allen in Postmodernistic
Focus
Optimus Publishing, Tel-Aviv, 2010 (booknet)
(Translation in Progress)
Yaffa Calev
