so i've done a good bit of reading on film.

i'm interested in film periods and periodization.

i feel like at the end of the millenia, and going into the 2000's, a genuinely new film period was formed. it was not the result of new technology, although new technology emerged.

we are in a postmodern age. whereas movies generally in the 1900's were about "things", U.S. movies thus far in the 2000's have been about our now-fractured identity.

Famous and high-grossing films like these all revolve around the central tension of the protagonist wrestling with questions of identity:

• Harry Potter
• Bourne Identity
• Star Wars, episodes I-III
• Avatar
• The Dark Knight
• Fight Club
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Being John Malkovich
• Spiderman
• Shrek
• The Sixth Sense
• Inception

That is not to say that this theme did not exist prior, but it appears that the lens of discovery for U.S. filmmakers has turned inwards almost permanently, and become an abstract fixation, the plotlines becoming what the scenery once was.

The U.S. has been a nation of discovery, re-discovering and re-defining itself incessantly since its beginning. Does it seem predictable that this thematic period would be the stable state of a continual exploration of our existence through film?

[Think about the themes in this list by means of comparison to the identity-centric films.]