JAPANESE LANGUAGE & CULTURE, 2002-2003

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED IN HOW TO READ A FILM

jac 10/16/02
 
 

Sign -- a relationship between a signifier and something that is signified.

Signifier -- the thing which stands for something; a word or an image, for example.

Signified -- the thing itself.

In film, the signifier and the signified are almost identical; a kind of "short-circuit" sign.
 
 

 Denotative meaning -- the direct, explict meaning of a word or image; the thing itself.
 

Connotative meaning -- an idea associated with a word or image in addition to its explict (denotative) meaning.

Example: "Mother" has an explicit denotative meaning ("female parent"), but it also has connotative meanings (such as "nurturing", "tenderness", "caring". Paradigmatic Connotation -- A connotative meaning deriving from a (perhaps unconscious) comparison of what we actually see with what we might have seen. Example: In western films, when we see an image of a person shot from a low angle, the image connotes that they are powerful. This is a paradigmatic connotation because we are comparing this choice of camera angle with others (head-on, or from above) which do not suggest "looking up to" that person. Syntagmatic Connotation -- A connotative meaning deriving from a (perhaps unconscious) comparison of a particular image with others that have come before it (or in reflection, which follow it). Example: In Saving Private Ryan, the shots in which there is a lull in fighting gain a connotation of peacefulness (however temporary) from the fact that they follow shots with rapid action and terrible carnage. Icon -- A sign in which the signifier represents the signified mainly by its similarity to it, its likeness. A direct representation of the thing itself. Every image in a film is at least an icon (almost by definition), but making a powerful icon involves choosing an image that does not also carry meanings in other ways. Example: The image of the dead son in The Island is what it is: a dead child. (It might also have other connotations, for instance the fact that it is the elder son who has died conveys other meanings as well…) Index -- A sign which measures a quality not because it is identical to the thing signified, but because the signifier has an inherent relationship to the signified. Example: The thermometer in the opening scenes of Rear Window is an index of temperature. So is the sweat on Jimmy Stewart's face.

Example: Orin's good teeth in The Ballad of Narayama are an index of her healthy condition.
 

 Symbol -- An arbitrary sign in which the signifier has neither a direct nor an indexical relationship to the signified, but rather represents it through convention [agreement between the creator and consumer]. Example: In The Island, the summer fireworks that are seen behind Toyo as she stands at the top of the hill grieving after her son has died are a symbol of celebration. The juxtaposition of this conventional symbol of celebration with her sorrow creates a powerful contradictory image that works to intensify our sense of her grief.

Example: In The Ballad of Narayama, the crows are symbols of death.
 

 Metonymy -- a metaphor in which an associated detail is used to invoke an idea or stand for something. Example: In The Ballad of Narayama the image of melting snow is used to stand for spring. (Arguably this is also an index…) Synecdoche -- a metaphor in which a part stands for the whole, or the whole for a part. Example: In The Island the bales of barley(?) paid to the landlord as rent stand for the entire system of landless farming and its implications of poverty. Trope -- a "turn of phrase" or "change of sense"; a logical twist that gives the signifier and the signified a new relationship with each other.
  Example: The Figure 3-17 from How to Read a Film, in which the French idiom for one's hand being asleep (meaning "to have ants in the hand") is visually displayed as a hand crawling with ants. Such tropes are often very difficult to transmit across linguistic or cultural boundaries.