How Meta-Films Can Serve Cinema

Abstract: In my thesis, I analyze meta-films and different ways they are used in films. I try to show that meta-films can serve as a creative tool to communicate new and old ideas and stories. Whereas some argue that meta-films are the mark of the death of creativity and that film is doomed to be a parody of itself, I argue that this is not necessarily the case by showing examples of films that use meta-reflection and intertextuality not as a way to communicate their message. The first film that I am studying is Adaptation (2002) by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman. It is a film that reflects at its own creation and process it took to make it. I move on to analyze Michael Winterbottom’s A Cock and Bull Story (2005) which was based on Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen. I explore how the novel captures the essence of the book by not simply telling the story of its narrator but by questioning the concept of narrative and storytelling. The last film in my essay is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) by Edgar Wright. I analyze how Edgar Wright uses the structure of a meta-film in order to switch the focus from its predictable story to an exercise in paying tribute to a culture that the target audiences have embraced.