A problem with seeing film as a language is the lack of any kind of
syntactical rules that allow you to map semantic word-meanings onto
propositions. It lacks what linguists call systematicity: the ability to
arbitrarily move from "John loves Mary" to "Mary loves John" by shifting
the semantic units around the syntactic structure. (Even the Kuleshov
effect, which may propose something similar isn't really the same
because it relies on contextual pragmatics.) This, I think, means that
cinema is less apt to express precise meanings (it, like other pictorial
media, is not essentially propositional) but provides it with other
resources that gives it its own strength. Of course films can be used to
suggest propositions but I would think that that is a matter of
pragmatics rather than syntax-semantics. (There are those, me among
them, who see pragmatics as also playing a major role in determining
linguistic meaning which may muddy the water but I still think that
there is apt to be a distinction in principle.
This brings up a related problem of the relation between narrative film
and novels. Novelists have, in a way, much better resources for
developing plot and character than do filmmakers. This could be used to
argue that narrative film is just a lazy person's medium for getting
stories, and in some cases that may be accurate. But I think you can
also argue that although film does not have those resources it has other
audio-visual ones which allow it to stand on their own. A filmmaker
can't exactly do what Henry James can, but Henry James does not have the
audio-visual resources of Robert Bresson. Often, attempting to translate
the visual richness of film into words ends up just falling flat. (To
what extent might the effect of mirror neurons -- whose content
presumably is non-conceptual -- have an effect on how we respond to
film? Top respond directly to an emotional expression on a face may be
quite different than reading the sentence "he smiled" or even getting a
description of a smile.
j
On 10/22/10 9:42 PM, Epiphanie Bloom wrote:
> --0016369200278523f804933edde6
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>
> Hi Dan,
>
>> I am aware of Metz=92s treatment of this issue, which I will paraphrase: F=
> ilm
> cannot be a language because it does not have a minimal unit
> (phoneme/morpheme); it does not use arbitrary signs, and it is not a two wa=
> y
> street.
>
> I think the idea of associating film with language is quite poetic and
> useful. To begin with, film often arises from the words in a screenplay
> (designed themselves to evoke image), and is further influenced by the
> lyrics of the music included, the words floating around in the
> mise-en-scene, and the words that come naturally to the partially
> improvising actor (who is influenced both consciously and unconsciously by
> their surroundings).
>
> I keep thinking of how Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer took
> well-established metaphors such as 'high school is hell' and 'after my
> boyfriend slept with me, he turned into a monster' and translated them into
> visuals, with Buffy's high school full of evil beings rising from below, an=
> d
> her boyfriend losing his soul and hence becoming evil after she loses her
> virginity to him. To Whedon, the connection between language and film seeme=
> d
> an important part of the show's premise.
>
> I suggest that it's more useful to think about '*my* language of film' than
> '*the* language of film' though. :o)
>
> Epiphanie
>
> *
> *
> Film-Philosophy
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> --0016369200278523f804933edde6
> Content-Type: text/html; charset=windows-1252
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> Hi Dan,<br><br>>I am aware of Metz=92s treatment of this issue, which I =
> will
> paraphrase: Film cannot be a language because it does not have a minimal un=
> it
> (phoneme/morpheme); it does not use arbitrary signs, and it is not a two wa=
> y
> street.<br><br>I think the idea of associating film with language is quite =
> poetic and useful. To begin with, film often arises from the words in a scr=
> eenplay (designed themselves to evoke image), and is further influenced by =
> the lyrics of the music included, the words floating around in the mise-en-=
> scene, and the words that come naturally to the partially improvising actor=
> (who is influenced both consciously and unconsciously by their surrounding=
> s).<br>
> <br>I keep thinking of how Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer took =
> well-established metaphors such as'high school is hell' and'a=
> fter my boyfriend slept with me, he turned into a monster' and translat=
> ed them into visuals, with Buffy's high school full of evil beings risi=
> ng from below, and her boyfriend losing his soul and hence becoming evil af=
> ter she loses her virginity to him. To Whedon, the connection between langu=
> age and film seemed an important part of the show's premise.<br>
> <br>I suggest that it's more useful to think about'<i>my</i> langu=
> age of film' than'<i>the</i> language of film' though. :o)<br>=
> <br>Epiphanie<br><br><br>
> *
> *
> Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon
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