This thesis concerns the possibility of "madness"working within film, both in content and form, as acritical device. The questions that will first beasked and will later be explored are all relevant tothe intrinsic contradictions that the postmodernperiod embodies. Firstly I will define the Foucauldianidea of art and madness and then define meta film andits possible symbiotic relationship with this madness.In my chosen films iies the possibility of madness andself-reflexivity coming together in different ways. Iwill explore the potential of madness and film workingtogether to produce a subversive aesthetic that isable to metaphorically ask questions about society,one that might potentially carryon the "meta"modernist tradition of works of art that work againstand outside the dominant order of bourgeois values andideals. If madness can be seen to be working withinthese films, we might ask whether this force should beviewed as a source of insight or of deceit? Does itexpress or does it play with the deepest existentialconcerns of the human spirit? If my chosen films areable to use madness's critical ability then they mightbe labelled as metafilms. But in saying this I willalso explore the possibility that my chosen films arejust postmodern pastiche, films that use popularuncritical depictions of "madness" as hollow motifsand are in no way, other than in a postmodernrecycling of style, connected to Foucault's criticalmodernist idea of madness.
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