ABSTRACT
Obviously, this is in itself a task that could fill another book. The development and elaboration of the term ‘modernity’ is the subject of both complex debate and a vast literature. One recent lengthy account, John Jervis’ Exploring the Modern, concludes by stressing the impossibility of pinning down the meaning of the term: ‘perhaps, modernity has alwaysexisted as a story that exaggerates its own unity and distinctiveness ... At the end of this book, we can no longer be entirely sure what it was about’ (338). Therefore, I want to stress that I am not attempting to offer a definitive account of modernity but something more modest. This chapter seeks to provide a sketch of some of the key aspects of modernity so that its terms may then be used to look more productively at the films under discussion. What is provided here is a somewhat abstract account of terms chosen not because they are necessarily the most important with respect to debates about modernity but because they can do theoretical work in the film analysis in subsequent chapters.
