Christian Metz

Question 1

Who is the theorist?

Answer 1

• Christian Metz
• French Theorist
• “Cinema: Language or Language system” (1964)
• Writing based on structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure
• He uses semiology to question if film has a linguistic dimension?
• His structural linguistic film theory tries to find a method of how films are meaningful to audiences
• Later on in his career, he moves into psychoanalysis

Question 2

Metz General Introduction

Answer 2

• Cinema is a language without a language system
• Nothing in cinema corresponds to the second articulation (Ability to be broken down of into meaningless elements)
• An image cannot be subdivided but is inherently understood due to its inherent reproduction of reality
• Signifier = Image; Significate = What it represents
• These two are so close they are inseparable
• Film images escape the definition of a language due to its connotative richness
• Cinema has no words and thus also lacks a first articulation
• The image corresponds to one or more sentences (énoncé) (Large Signifying Units)
• The sequence is a complex segment of discourse
• Even when a shot is a word, it is a sentence word
• There is no unified grammar between film texts
• There is no syntax or film grammar film is learned as an aesthetic norm historically

Question 3

Vocabulary

Answer 3

• Semanteme: Meaningful words
• Phoneme: Smaller elements within words (No meaning)
• Morpheme: Smaller elements within word (Meaning)
• Lexeme: Context evoked
• Énoncé: Oral sentence
• Syntax: Set of rules and principles that rule sentence structure

Question 4

Conclusion

Answer 4

• One should not conclude cinema as not being a language and give up on analysis through semiotics
• It is a meaningful medium
• One should permit an analysis of a new form of language
• Of course we move away from de Saussure but one should only point this out and not let this stop one
• The method of linguistics, especially on the level of large signifying units will begin to be accomplished in the study of cinema

Question 5

Strucuralism to Post-Structuralism

Answer 5

-Post-structuralism leaves an theory of film based on an
understanding of cinema through central concepts of sign, system language
-In Post-structuralism theorist wanted to move away from this and read films through psychoanalysis and philosophy

Question 6

How do we read meaning in films? (Paradigmatic)

Answer 6

• One needs to consider style to understand the problem of cinematic expression
• There is a signifier and significate in a film’s denotation
• Signifier: A shot (including technical aspects)
• Significate: Literal meaning
• These together form the signifier of connotation
• Together they reveal the symbolic meaning
• Denotation = Natural expressiveness, Connotation = Aesthetic expressiveness
• It is the wealth of its connotations that makes a film great
• The signifier of the artistic language is the sum of signifier-significate of a prior language
• This is all within the paradigmatic realm
• Non-coded paradigms are poor and should be avoided
• The way the filmmaker expresses himself with angles and camera movements instead convey meaning (more universal)

Question 7

Cinema and Literature: The Problem of cinematic expressiveness

Answer 7

• In cinema aesthetic expressiveness is grafted onto natural expressiveness
• That makes it difficult for films to contain a great deal of art
• There is expression when a meaning is somehow immanent to a thing
• In natural and aesthetic expressiveness, meaning is naturally derived from the signifier as a whole without resorting to a code

Question 8

Why is Cinema not a language system

Answer 8

• Opposes three characteristics of linguistic facts
• A language is: a system of signs used for intercommunication
• Cinema has very few true signs (They can exist but films can be understood without them)
• Cinema offers a one way communication only

Question 9

What kind of a language is film?

Answer 9

• Literature (language of art) and Cinema are on the same semiological horizon
• Cinema cannot be non-artistic like the verbal language
• In regard to the ordinary language, cinema begins where it ends (Sentence)
• On the one hand we have two realities (language and literature) and on the other only one (cinema)
• Signification and communication are related, which is why film is expression rather than signification

Question 10

Syntagmatic relations

Answer 10

• Filmic narrative is the sum of paradigmatic choices (unlimited) put together (Syntagmatic structure)
• Syntagmatic relations are the ways shots are ordered and edited together and can convey meaning
• Once this order is changed the meaning of the scene changes