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I strongly advocate the use of the term "language" in a narrow sense. I know that it has been popular for almost 100 years to call every phenomenon which has some recognisable pattern and significance a "language". So we have a langage of fashion, a film language, etc. This, in my opinion, obscures more than it sheds some new light on things declared to be a "lanugage". And when Metz wrote about film as a language he spent more space on describing the differences between natural languages and film than he explained why he thought film should be a language. So, yes, we can talk about, say, codes in films, but to take for granted the metaphor "film is lanugage" simply doesn't work. All that being said, the best book built upon this argument is not Metz, but Michel Colin's _Langue, film, discours_ in which he tried to establish "une sémiologie générative du film". Boris * * Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon. After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to. To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask] For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon. **