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In the second half of the twentieth century traditional realism began to be increasingly repudiated, questioned and self-consciously reflected upon. This attitude has also had an impact on cinema in that the number of films signalling awareness of their own artifice has been growing more rapidly than in any previous era. In this book the concept of postmodernism and its stance towards realism as well as the mutually infective relationship and strong affinity between the postmodern and metareference will be looked at in detail. In this context the study of filmic metareference is of special interest because of the high potential of illusionism and unequalled access to verisimilitude commonly attributed to the filmic medium. Using the films Adaptation and The Player for a close analysis, possible forms and functions of filmic self-reflexivity will be discussed.

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Lisa Konrath, Mag. phil.: Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik an der Universität Wien.

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