| This dissertation explores the contemporary metafilm in the U.S., Europe and Mexico. In recent years, cinema's fascination with formal manipulation, narrative play, and metafictional elements has increased dramatically. American directors today consistently employ flashy, attention-grabbing formal techniques in order to draw the audience into theaters, and this often includes narratives that have become increasingly self-aware. The aim of this project is to explore the specific techniques used in self-reflexive cinema, which range from simple fourth-wall breaks, to the use of drastic filtering, and even to the manipulation of diegetic/non-diegetic music. While metaelements are often highly stylized and overt, I argue that they function quite differently in the U.S. than they do abroad. American metafilms appear to hide a reliance on conservative morality and grand narratives. In contrast, self-reflexive movies created in Europe and Mexico offer viewers a less conventional depiction of ethics and ideology. This juxtaposition aims to illustrate an American audience's gravitation towards what is formally innovative yet ideologically conservative.;This project is therefore conceived in three separate parts: the first chapter addresses contemporary U.S. directors such as Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher, focusing on the way that they utilize film form to incorporate metafiction and self-reflexivity into their films, while also maintaining ties to grand narratives. The second section focuses on the European directors Pedro Almodovar and Michael Haneke. These two directors also consistently employ self-reflexive techniques; but in contrast to American filmmakers, do not adhere so closely to rigid moral or ideological structures. And the third chapter looks closely at Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu as auteurs that make use of meta-techniques, but do so by combining them with generic conventions. The result is a cinema that is capable of pushing the audience into more progressive moral and ideological territory, while also maintaining a sense of familiarity to narrative and genre. |
