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Detailed Analysis of Post Modernism theory applied to Life On Mars
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Time space compression – playing around with time and space
Time space compression – playing around with time and space
A voice whispering to Sam (non-diegetic) ‘Where are you?’ – he’s lost in time and space as is his identity.
The use of sound bridges, bringing a sense of the hospital bed and the bleeps of the life support machine, into Sam’s lounge or into the police HQ.
Early pov shots of shoes walking, seem to echo the mid 1600s i.e. they are costume from that time, but whose feet are they and where. Then a woman runs in red. Again, this is a quick shot, in terms of duration. A worm’s eye shot of bright green leaves, distinguishes the timeframe from the 1970s – where are we now?
Diegetic whistling man vo alludes to ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ i.e. the past in the ‘present’.
The sense of spaces being closer together and worlds colliding is also evident in the narrative. Many scenes cut sharply from Sam in a room to suddenly, Sam awakening in his bed, perhaps to signify that he is moving in time and space in an ‘unnatural’ way or rather than this is ‘all a dream’.
Sam goes back to 1973, when he says he was ‘4’ years old, yet in this world, he is a grown man.
It is heavily self-reflexive – it is aware that it is a cop show and has fun with it.
It is heavily self-reflexive – it is aware that it is a cop show and has fun with it.
The ‘construction’ of the cop setting in the 1970s, almost makes an overt reference to the fact that this is a cop show, playing with conventions.
It alludes to its past i.e. Dixon of Dock Green (the whistle that we hear in one scene is like that of Dixon The Sweeney allusions – slow mo’ leap and the playful diegetic scratch of the record sound to pull audiences back to ‘reality’.
Sam almost acts as the audience, going back to recognise the ‘past’ forms of cop show.
Satire, pastiche and parody are commonplace in postmodern texts
Satire, pastiche and parody are commonplace in postmodern texts
Frederic Jameson suggests that we no longer create anything original: ‘All that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum.’ In other words, media producers in the postmodern era turn back to the past and have little choice but to copy what exists. All creative things have been seen and done before, he would argue. Perhaps, in its defence, the originality of LoM is the way in which it combines those styles and conventions.
Intertextuality is very common as part of this process. We have already referenced The Sweeney, Dixon of Dock Green; sci fi references etc.
The show is a pastiche, imitating similar shows of the past.
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