1.
Unit G325 – Postmodern Media A Cock and Bull Story (Winterbottom, 2005)

2.
Lesson Objectives <ul><li>To recap the features of A Cock and Bull Story that make it postmodern. </li></ul><ul><li>To understand why Winterbottom has again used postmodern techniques in the making of a film. </li></ul><ul><li>To confirm Winterbottom’s status as a postmodern auteur. </li></ul>

3.
A Cock and Bull Story – Postmodern Features <ul><li>Breaking of the 4 th wall destroying the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Coogan frequently directly addresses the audience. </li></ul><ul><li>Intertextuality – references to Alan Partridge and 24 Hour Party People for example. </li></ul><ul><li>Some intertextual casting – Tony Wilson as the interviewer for the DVD featurette. </li></ul><ul><li>Playful approach to film-making. Coogan even says ‘…the trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. Why not?’ at the beginning of the film. There are lots of playful and unconventional techniques used in the film. </li></ul>

4.
A Cock and Bull Story – Postmodern Features <ul><li>Not a chronological linear narrative – time and space jumps about all the time. Sometimes wipes are used to move the story in terms of time and space. The actor playing the director even says “it’s not continuous, we’ve jumped in time.” </li></ul><ul><li>No attempt to maintain realism. Again, Coogan says “ He wants realism?….I’m a grown talking to the camera in a BLEEP womb.” </li></ul><ul><li>Use of parody – exaggeration of Coogan’s celebrity persona in the sequence about what the tabloid journalist has discovered. </li></ul>

5.
A Cock and Bull Story – Postmodern Features – Self-referentiality <ul><li>Self-referentiality is when a text (book, film etc.) makes reference to itself OR to one or more of it’s processes of construction. </li></ul><ul><li>There is lots of self-referentiality in A Cock and Bull Story. </li></ul>

6.
Self-referentiality in A Cock and Bull Story.

7.
A Cock and Bull Story – Postmodern Features – Meta-textuality <ul><li>Metatextuality refers to the idea of a text within a text or a text about the production of another text. </li></ul><ul><li>A Cock and Bull Story is metatextual in that it is both a literary adaptation of Tristam Shandy AND a film about the making of the literary adaptation of Tristram Shandy. </li></ul>

8.
Why all the pomo? <ul><li>Reward the cultural capital of the target audience who would be interested in film (as a medium) and probably familiar with the book. </li></ul><ul><li>“ the audience for this film are not going to be interested in a battle scene” </li></ul><ul><li>Directorial style that Winterbottom uses. </li></ul><ul><li>Book itself is postmodern in that it leaps about in terms of time and space. </li></ul><ul><li>Used for comedy purposes. </li></ul>

9.
Why all the pomo? <ul><li>Fundamentally it’s a comedy and pomo playfulness is funny. </li></ul><ul><li>The book is a book about telling a story and the film is a film about making a film. </li></ul>

10.
Michael Winterbottom – Postmodern Auteur <ul><li>An auteur is a film-maker who can be thought of as an ‘author’ because their films share certain characteristics (themes/genres/storylines/structures/visual techniques etc). </li></ul><ul><li>Winterbottom uses postmodern techniques in both 24 Hour Party People and A Cock and Bull Story and is therefore a postmodern auteur. </li></ul>