In the lecture and seminar today we were talking about both of these topics. They both fall under the umbrella term of ‘Post-Cinema’ and mean very similar things. However what I find interesting is how, despite being so similar, the distinction between these two terms matter a lot. These two terms I am referring to of course being ‘Post-Continuity’ and ‘Chaos Cinema.’ 

There was a very good video essay that we watched in the class that put forward a fascinating argument around the change of continuity style at the turn of the century. He referred to 20th Century films as following the conventions of the classical continuity style and the twenty first century films as following the ‘post-continuity’ style, or, as he called it, Chaos Cinema. He put forward a great argument in his video but I disagreed with the conflation between the two. 

It’s very tempting to fall into the ‘new thing bad, old thing good’ mindset when it comes to audiovisual analysis (or analysis of any kind to be honest, nostalgia is a hell of a drug) but it’s important to note when comparing the past and present to do so in relation to each other. For an example of what I mean, the comparison between ‘Raiders of the Lost Arc’ and ‘Battle Los Angeles’ is a poor one because Raiders is one of the best action films of all time by one of the most influential directors of all time and the Battle LA is Battle LA. 

The reason why this bothered me is that the term ‘Chaos Cinema’ has a clear negative connotation and by pitting legendary “older” (relatively) films against poorer “newer” ones, of course you are only going to get confirmation for what you already believe. The reason why I prefer the term ‘Post-Continuity’ is that it addresses more or less the same phenomena but without a tone of judgement. 

This is not to say that newer movies don’t deserve scrutiny or that the term ‘Chaos Cinema’ is without worth. It is not. In fact, it is still a highly effective and important term to know with many applications. However, this was just something I noticed from listening to the lecture.

Arthur. 23/1/26