The analogy language/film has proven to be
quite futile. Most of the writers and
theorists who tried to prove that film
is a language have only managed to show
the differences between the two. Metz,
for instance, tried to 'solve' the problem
with famous satement that film is language
without a language system, but every student
of linguistics can only laugh at such a
'solution' of the problem. His claim that
a (cinematic) image of a revolver stands
for at least 'this is a revolver' (ie.
whole sentence, not just a word) is hardly
a serious argument or a theoretical stance.
hmmmmm . . . . well, maybe, but i'm not sure . . . i think
one can certainly start by allowing that there are qualities
of similitude in pictures or images that allow them to
communicate differently than words, which resemble nothing
except other words . . . and allowing too that this is a
VERY big difference indeed . . .
but does that have to mean that there are NO linguistic
qualities in cinema . . . let me raise again the fairly
elemtary example of cross cutting . . . most of us have
learned a cinematic code that allws us to read two images
that we see in succession, one after the other, as
representing two actions that take place at the same
time. . . this seems to me a distinctly linguistic
kind of communication . . . and cinema is full of this
kind of thing . . . in fact it seems to me that one
might see griffith's role as recognizing that cinema
COULD be a language -- as well as a set of merely
iconic representations . . .
i'd be curious to know why we can't allow this, without
having to go the kinds of perhaps awkward extremes
that metz and his acolytes find necessary . . .
mike frank
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