On Christian Metz: Cinema and Language

2009. this was my encounter with semiotics and i’m glad to say now that i am unhappy about many things i said; i understand this as i have made progress in the field. i keep the post for the sake of a record of first impression

Preliminaries

Films mean because people want them to mean. Hence the production of senses as a cognitive process relies much on the hand (mind) of the spectator. However, this is not to say that the filmmaker may present any material to make sense for anybody. In order to successfully establish the communication, the material has to be organized in a certain systematic order. Furthermore, although the system allows the communication to take place and creates meaning out of its material, it also ultimately limits the way it is interpreted. All these characteristics (channeled communication, system of interpretation with its limits) bear a strong resemblance to another system that human being is familiar with: the verbal language; hence, it is not at all inappropriate to ascribe to the cinema certain linguistic capacities.

Yet the arise of a semiotic study of cinema in the early 1970s aspires more than a modest exercise of the above possibilities. In response to a dissatisfaction with discourses in the field that are too general, with observations that are often impressionistic, semiotics wants to establish a science out of the material of cinema, and in order to do so it needs to make use of well-defined categories, to deploy rigorous analytical procedures, to highlight certain points of interest at the price of others. Hence, from the outset, the semiotics of cinema runs the danger of substituting with one methodology the concrete reality that is the object of its study, but this is a price that semiotics is willing to pay.

It is not the first chance these possibilities are brought into knowledge. In fact, the idea of cinema as a language (or anti-language, in the case of Béla Balaz) had been proposed immediately after the naissance of cinema and fell out of favor with the coming of sound. According to Metz, this is probably because now that the cinema has language in it, it can no longer be analogized to it. But even in the age when cinema was deemed as a veritable language, anyone ventured to make such an analogy would immediately and instinctively realize many incompatibilities between these two. Incompatible, yes. But not without a certain theoretical interest.

The laudable effort of Christian Metz seeks to see what was concealed by the metaphor of “cinematographic language” (to distill the turbid muddle for all), and from there, to apply the concepts of linguistics to the semiotics of cinema.

The theoretical framework in which Metz based his work on is a comparison between different forms of signifying procedure, initiated by Ferdinand de Saussure. De Saussure establishes a suture between traditional grammar and structural linguistics. In cinema, similarly, there has been efforts to put forth a grammar of the “cinematographic language” which correspond to the traditional grammar’s role of defining a good usage of the language and consisting of a list of errors to avoid, By contrast, the structural linguistic opts for an universal descriptive analysis of all the languages that are in use. And a linguistic treatment of cinema remain descriptive instead of prescriptive.

Although deemed as laying out the foundation of contemporary Semiology, de Saussure never exceeded a precautious theoretical boundary circumscribed by general observations to the relationship between sign systems. It would take the more audacious effort of Roland Barthes (eléments de sémiologie) to charter out the definite prospect of semiology’s existence as a scientific discipline. De Saussure was content to observe language as a system (he declared that dans la langue il n’y a que des différences). But later semiologists are keen to apply this Saussurean linguistic system (langage) back to its source material (langue). What Christian Metz did to cinema is that, despite all the accusations of wrongly denoting cinema as a langue, Metz nevertheless adamantly believes that the study of film can have a linguistic dimension. It is actually semiotics that we are talking about here, to which linguistics is only a branch. Yet since in fact semiotics was created from linguistics—whereas the former remains to be done, the latter is already well advanced—It is the duty of the older brother to help the younger.

Metz’s first and perhaps still the most well-known attempt to study cinema in the light of semiotics is the 1964 essay Le Cinéma: langue ou language? This lengthy and ambulatory article discusses many issues in a fashion features more rhetoric than rigorousness. And it is well worthwhile to briefly trace its various arguments here.

The article begins with a historical observation that if there certainly was an era where montage is everything (montage-roi), now the king’s power seemed to have greatly diminished. Why is that? In order to answer this question, Metz made several statements. First, he believes that montage-roi signifies the spirit of manipulation, the mind of erector-set. Second, more audaciously, he observes that manipulation implies treating cinema as a language system.

It is apparently a kind of language, but it was seen as something less, a specific language system. It allows, it even necessitates, a certain amount of cutting and montage; its organization, which is so manifestly syntagmatic, could only be derived, one believed, from some embedded paradigmatic category, even if this paradigmatic category was hardly known. Film is too obviously a message for one not to assume that it is coded. (40)

Being a Proust lover, as we all are, Metz demonstrates great use of figurative speaking:

[a message in film] becomes in time like a great river whose channels are forever shifting, depositing here and there along its course a string of islands: the disjointed elements of at least a partial code. Perhaps these islands, barely distinguishable from the surrounding flood, are too fragile and scattered to resist the sweep of the current that gave them birth and to which they will always be vulnerable. Nevertheless there are certain “syntactical procedures” that. After frequent use as speech, come to appear in later films as a language system: they have become conventional to a degree. (40-41)

Metz went on to assert his strong belief in narrativity (echoed in several of his other essays).

The rule of the story is so powerful that the image, which is said to be the major constituent of film, vanishes behind the plot it has woven—if we are to believe some analyses—so that the cinema is only in theory the art of images. (45)

The emergence of narrativity is taken by Metz as a “positive development in the history of film, and particularly in the evolution from Lumière to Mélières, from ‘cinematography’ to cinema.” (44) Narrativity is, according to Metz, capable of being the essence of film. It is at this point he unhesitatingly joints Mitry, who already points out that the Kuleshov experiment does not authorizes the theory of montage-roi, but simply demonstrates a “logic of implication”. (It is on this very ground that Mitry attacked the several indiegetic uses of montage in Eisenstein’s works.)

Now there cometh the talkie. Metz writes that “in the period when the cinema considered itself a veritable language system, its attitude toward verbal language was one of utmost disdain.” (49) Considering the obstinate refusal to speech by silent film theorists, Metz reminds us, the ease with which speech did in fact find its way into the films is paradoxical. Another paradox, even greater, Metz notes, is that the advent of speech was not immediately reflected in theory: “films talked, and yet one spoke about them as if they were silent.” (51) Or there was a tendency to oppose sound to talking where noise and music were accepted but not speech. Here Metz points his finger towards the manifesto by Eisenstein, Alexandrov and Pudovkin. He comments,

Their attitude is positive. For them it is a matter of giving visual counterpoint an auditory dimension, of multiplying the old cinema by the new. However—and precisely because a healthy and intelligent reaction makes us regret its omission, since it provides them with such a rich frame—one notices that nowhere do the three Soviet directors take speech into consideration. (53)

In Metz’s mind, such a different treatment of sound and speech is due to the following:

..any utterance, whether governing or governed, by nature tells us something first, whereas an image, or noise or music, even when it is “telling” us a great deal, must first be produced. (53)

It is thus implied that the Soviet directors perceive image as incongruent with the speech, not with noise and music. Yet to console the montagists, Metz remarks that “the cinema as a language system is also the birth of the cinema as an art, only through its excesses— theoretical as well as practical—could the cinema began to gain a consciousness of itself.” (56)

The cinema is not a language, Metz announces, because the latter is by definition a system of signs used for intercommunication. The cinema is partly a system, with very few true signs and like other arts, it is only a one-way communication. In film, the distance between the signifier and the signified is too short to call an image a sign.

The image is first and always an image. In its perceptual literalness it reproduces the signified spectacle whose signifier it is; and thus it becomes what it shows, to the extent that it does not have to signify it. (76)

Also, “A film is always understood, but always more or less so, and this more or less is not easily quantifiable, for there are no discernible degrees, no units of signification that can be immediately counted.” (72) “A linguistic unit,” on the other hand, “is either recognized or not by the hearer, since it already exists in the language.”

Metz went on to observe that in any work of art, the world represented (denoted) never constitutes the major part of what the author has to say. It is merely a threshold. In the nonrepresentational art it is even missing.

But if the cinema is not a language system, what is it? Metz writes, “A rich message with a poor code, or a rich text with a poor system, the cinematographic image is primarily speech. It is all assertion. The word, which is unit of language, is missing; the sentence, which is the unit of speech, is supreme.” (69)

Finally, Metz lists four approaches to film: criticism, historical, theory of cinema and filmology, which is the scientific study conducted from outside by psychologists, psychiatrists, aestheticians, sociologists, educators and biologist. They consider the cinematographic fact rather than the cinema, the filmic fact rather than the film. The last two are complementary, with bordering cases (Arnheim). The Mitry book is an example of the deep reconciliation of these two.

Linguistics, Metz concludes, which can be imagined as an amiable Monsieur Norpois, has ample reason to concern with cinema, making a few extra demands that will certainly not overburden itself—the busiest people are always those who find the time to concern themselves with others.

Langage et cinéma

 

From Cinéma: Langue ou langage to Langage et cinéma, there is a discernible difference in tone and in style. The first one circumspectly introduces a question (it takes fifty pages to prepare the reader for the question), the second one takes the answer as granted; the first one is prosaic, resembling to that of Bazin or Mitry, the second one austere, presumably in the lineage of Spinoza. But there is one thing in common, Metz is determined to apply the full force of semiotics to cinema and expect to generate some useful results there. Although the first essay is presented in a questioning form, one cannot help but feel that the question was already answered, since the very fact that we are wondering whether cinema is a language system or is a nonsystematic language already signifies that we are applying some of the discipline’s terms to it, that we are already taking a point of view from semiotics. As the normal way of arguing goes, if cinema is evaluated as not a language system, should we not admit that a linguistic (which happens to be nothing but the study of language system) approach to cinema would be inutile (as Mitry is firmly convinced)? Metz, on the other hand, wants to posit a perspective and insists that it holds up despite unfavorable facts. That is why Langage et cinéma is indispensable in that it illustrates what Metz was only promising but unable to prove in the first essay: what can he do with the cinema, using all the linguistic terms he can think of?

Langage et cinéma is characterized by a “scientific style” where a certain methodology precedes the subject, where the question of range has to be resolved (as if it were possible) before everything else. The approach adopted by this book is determinedly top-to-down. There is no question what would be the best theoretical apparatus to cope with the structure of film (linguistics just comes handy), or even whether or not linguistic is the best candidate among alternatives (because it is the only tool he proposes). What matters is rather, to which extent a theoretical framework such as this can be bent to accommodate the specificities of the cinematic medium (we shall witness a constant effort to reshape the linguistic terms and their theoretical implications).

To illustrate this point, let us look at a matrix of choices made by Dominique Chateau in his Le cinéma comme langage. (29)

a)      Le cinéma est-il un langage?

b)      Possède-t-il une grammaire?

For these two questions, the answers of three persons are as follows:

	a	B
Mitry	OUI	NON
Metz	OUI	OUI
Worth	NON	NON

Now this table reveals, if nothing else, that all possible choices regarding the relationship between language and cinema are legitimate. Even if we identify cinema as a langage, the idea of applying linguistic concepts does not mandate a grammar for the cinema. A theoretician may propose a grammar, or merely a rhetoric[1] (as Mitry, Bordwell do), if it is already sufficient and efficient to explicate his area of study. And if the application of a certain theoretical term proves to be problematic, why insist? It is my personal belief that the ultimate criterion which we can use to evaluate a certain approach is not how well is defines cinema (since cinema defies definition), but rather, what can this particular approach add to our understanding of the cinema.

To readers who have not yet read Metz’s previous articles or those who unfortunately did not agree with its conclusion, the premises this book bases itself upon may seem suspicious. But to Metz it is all too natural and consequential. What is the demolition of the previous prevailing notion if not to serve to erect a new edifice from ground zero? The problem of film/language analogy is not, as Metz saw it, the result of too much application of linguistic theory in film, but on the contrary, too little. Thus Metz calls for a return to linguistics with all its terms: code, message, system, text, syntagmatic, paradigm and so on.

The quadrants

Let us begin by looking at four closely related terms, which I organize in the form of quadrant:

	actual	virtual
Single	text	message
plural	system	code

According to Metz, a text is a film, or a part of the film, or a group of films. In any such text, multiple messages are delivered. How one particular message is delivered is an instance of specific codes; an actualized code is a system.

So far so good. But as Metz continues to refine what exactly each of these terms denotes and what are their interactions, problems arise. Taking up the example of Ordet, for instance, Metz argued, there are three principle types of systems: general cinematographic codes, particular cinematographic codes and the third, singular system.(58) 

First, what are the difference between general cinematographic codes and the particular ones? Metz himself noted that (60) that the distinction between them is only a matter of degrees of generality. Western is a particular code under the general tab of narrative fiction; yet Western becomes a general code if we study Italian Western, which in turn becomes general if we shift the object of our study to Sergio Leone.

But if such a pair of oppositional adjectives can be useful (like high and low) without denoting an absolute value, ultimately it is better to do without them if really scientific terminologies are wanted. In Metz’s logic, ideally, if the general cinematographic codes are the codes that apply to all films, then what is cinema can be conveniently defined as the entire body of work in which cinematographic codes are in use. This in itself is a vicious cycle .Yet what is worse is that it seems to me that cinema is indefinable in such a way, when every single aspect of film has been proved as non-essential (narration, character, camera, celluloid, image). The only trait I can think of that is still common to all films is that they are all framed. But can this be justly called a cinematographic code? Likewise, the exact distinction between cinematographic and extra-cinematographic is constantly blurred. Instead of having endless disputations here, I would rather propose that we divide codes into categories that pertain to our sensory and cognitive faculties: visual codes, auditory codes, and of course, codes that allow us to comprehend cause and effect. Each artistic discipline (painting, music, theater, film) corresponds to a different subset of these codes; and for each artist, he/she needs to employ a particular subset of codes to a satisfactory composition. Two things need to be clarified immediately: first, the codes employed by artists do not differ from the codes on which a normal person perceives his world; second, it is customary for an artist to function entirely within the regulations of a particular discipline—that is, he uses only the codes prescribed by this discipline—but it is completely acceptable that he borrows codes that are conventionally not deployed in this place. This act of transgression is often not regarded as a violation of codes, but as an expansion of the particular discipline.

Obviously, in cinema, it is more and more difficult to assert, among multiples codes that are in use, which are cinema-specific, which are not. Metz claimed that the accelerated montage is cinema-specific, while chiaroscuro is from the painting. To my knowledge it is safer to say that one is originated from cinema and the other from painting, since the codes are constantly displacing in multiple sub-cultural fields and it would be naïve to believe they still belong exclusively to one particular area of culture practice. Cinema borrows heavily from literature, music, painting, theater and others. The very notion of narration comes from extra-cinematographic sources. But does that mean voice over is just an adaptation of literary monologue? Is the accelerated montage a way of sequencing image, or a mode of narration? From Sidney Sheldon to Michael Crichton, I find the latter sense in very effective use. Ingmar Bergman, Jacques Rivette and Michael Haneke are all heavily indebted to the theater, but are their methods not cinema-specific and still remain at the stage of Marcel Pagnol? Video games, the latest means of mass entertainment, bring the full range of cinematic experience to the desktop with its own idiosyncratic mode of entertainment.

Under these circumstances, is it still advisable, if possible at all, to be content with the mere enumeration of codes into respective cabins? Nowadays every code—a bit of exaggeration granted—is culturally interchangeable and shared by a multitude of media activities. The general codes of social conduct, as well as the particular codes of a specific genre, are undergoing constant revision. Is it fair, for instance, to maintain Western as that which was established by John Ford, as a set of rigid codes of characters, events and moral values, or to allow revisions by Nicolas Ray, Eastwood, Costner, or even Ang Lee?

What is in my opinion the most confusing aspect of Metz’s tripartite is the last: système filmique singulier. According to Metz, the reason why this has to be singled out is because the study of codes is always comparative and non-exclusive whereas the study of singular filmic system is by definition not. Of course, singular is by no means the synonym of original. A banal system, Metz brilliantly argued, is yet another system that is quite “semblable à de nombreux autres systèmes. Assez semblables, et non identique.” What is problematic is that although the study of a système filmique singulier is never a study of cinematographic specificity (because this latter calls for comparison), the entity is only called such because it is a unique combination of the cinematographic specificity, that is, cinematographic codes. In other words, without the codes and their particular form of dynamic interaction, there is no way to conceive what it means by système filmique singulier. Therefore, it seems to me that such a term does not have enough ground to stand side by side with the notion of code, cinematographic or extra-cinematographic, general or particular. It is as if a scientific study of Christian Metz as a person commences by claiming that he is a man, a son, a husband, a father, a film scholar, etc.,  and finally, himself. But if we acknowledge that any aspect of human life can be generalized and coded since it is probably shared (if not, divide further) by more than one person, then naturally what constitutes Christian Metz is nothing more than a unique, organic and dynamic combination of many such codes. Ideally, there should be no mysterious, non-qualifiable core in the heart of a text; or if there is, it should be excluded from our code-oriented study since it automatically disqualifies.

Metz himself is probably aware of the awkwardness of the above terminology. From a certain point(97) he substituted code cinématographique particulier with the notion of sous-code and consequently code cinématographique géneral with simply code cinématographique. As for système filmique singulier, it was already previously (88) renamed as système filmique textuel. The nuance between singularity and textuality, as Metz demonstrates, is that “la singularité n’est pas exactement le caractère définitoire du textuel, mais plutôt un corollaire de cette définition: ce n’est pas parce qu’il est singulier qu’un texte est un texte, c’est parce qu’il consiste en un déroulement manifeste antérieur à l’intervention de l’analyste.” (88) Later, Metz further classifies both code and sub-code to système filmique non-textuel (112). To simplify the matter, one is led to believe that what can be codified is textual; and the rest (Metz doesn’t specify whether permanently or temporarily) goes to the “unclassified” bin that is labeled “non-textuel”. But again, does it help to improve the overall clarity of the whole system of classification? I think not.

The Syntagmatic and the paradigmatic

Stephen Heath once remarks “the focus on syntagmatic relations ‘saves’ Semiology in the face of the paradigmatic poverty of cinema.” (4) There are four messages in this sentence: the cinema is paradigmatically poor; Semiology focuses on syntagmatic relations; syntagmatic relations in cinema is richer (implied); by focusing on a richer aspect of its study, Semiology saves its face. For these four messages, I only accept the second, which is a fact. But let me first resume what Metz said about the pair of syntagmatique and paradigmatique.

The idea comes from de Saussure, where he observes linguistic properties implied in the text as:

En dehors du discours, les mots offrant quelque chose de commun s’associent dans la mémoire, et ils se forment ainsi des groupes, etc.… ainsi le mot enseignement fera surgir inconsciemment devant l’esprit une foule d’autres mots (enseigner, renseigner, etc.).

Metz believes, however, that de Saussure wrongly interprets this phenomenon as “dans le cerveau”. He regards this is the kind of “psychologisme” and “associationnisme” as “parmi les aspects de la pensée saussurienne qui ont le plus vieilli.” (126) Metz rightly asserts that semiotics should be concerned only with the study of discourse, not the psychology of discourse. Hence, this phenomenon refers to the “paradigme”, which is by definition “une classe d’éléments dont un seul figure dans le texte: c’est donc le proper du paradigme que de ne jamais être déployé dans toute sa surface au niveau textual.” (124) The “syntagme”, on the other hand, is always textual and given, albeit it might feature both simultaneity (temporal and spatial) and succession.

Apparently, the pair of “le syntagmatique” and “le paradigmatique” presents a virtual/actual contrast reminiscent of the quadrants that have been the focus of previous chapters. And the study of both (la syntagmatique and la paradigmatique), Metz stresses, are both “codique”. (124) The study of syntagmatic departs from a given text to arrive at syntagmatic regularities; the study of paradigmatic is accomplished when the paradigm is discovered. In this way, the latter complements the former by extending the notion of the text into an ensemble of texts, a big text, if you wish, where both syntagmatic and paradigmatic can be found.

Again one must note that proposing these two studies to cinema actually acknowledges that the cinema has a grammar (and two!) and that we can apply something to cinema that is firmly associated with the study of langue (from de Saussure, grammaire associative et syntagmatique) while Metz has already claimed that the cinema is not a langue. It wouldn’t be a surprise, therefore, that the result is multi-folded. On the one hand, the notion of syntagmatic works well with cinema; on the other, the paradigmatic does not.

In the verbal language, if we substitute a minimal unit in the sentence (a word, or a letter) by another, there is a high chance that the sentence would not make the same sense. According to Odin (93), we say the result is wrong, or even it no longer belongs to that language. In cinema, however,  we do the same (no matter what the minimal unit is, cineme, iconeme, videme…), and the result still makes sense and is still cinema. Therefore, Odin argues, if we can substitute one element of the message for indefinite others, the value of opposition of this element is considered weak. Moreover, in the paradigm scenario established in linguistics, elements from the same class are mutually exclusive: you cannot have two subjects for the same sentence; this, again, is not true for the cinema.

It is easy to arrive from here the conclusion that cinema is paradigmatically poor. But let us take another perspective of the issue, temporarily. Cinema and language both model after the real world. And in doing so they adopt different approaches, making distinct abstractions and compromises. Both excel in depicting the world. Yet the ways they succeed are sometimes compatible, sometimes incompatible. Certainly we can substitute an image or a framed-object in a film and still make some sense, at least for someone, but this sense is always perceived as in contrast to a norm[2]. The syntax of cinema is indeed very loose, but the fact that we are looking for syntagmatic regularities proves that the making of senses is achieved in relation to a norm. In this sense, none of the filmic image is completely arbitrary. It is true that compare to the cinema, verbal languages seem to be better “regulated” and have equipped themselves with a repertoire of laws. But let us not forget that not every linguistic law can be applied to all languages. Some languages have more inflections (conjugation and declension) and are consequently more flexible in word order (Latin, for example); but the same result can also be attained by not using any inflections at all (Chinese, for example). The assertion that cinema is paradigmatically poor is a poor assertion itself since it implies that one has to use exactly the same means for a similar result, for example, to sustain causality, substituting subject with only subjects, not a predicate. It also suggests, rather “arbitrarily”, what is language and what is cinema without specifying which language, which cinema. The poem of Isidore Isou (Odin, 94), for instance, is considered not belonging to the language while similar productions of Stan Brakage is considered remaining in the cinema.

Another aspect of the paradigmatic is that, although for a scholar self-charged with the study of a filmic text, the paradigmatic dimension seems intangible and arbitrary, for the author of this text, this is probably not the case. A director has to choose between different takes of a same shot (paradigmatic) not only by their internal virtue, but also how it functions inside the syntagmatic order of the bits he shot. These apparently two different tasks in reality are inevitably intertwined and the choice of one affects another. A director sees a different text in front of him/her not only because he/she is the author of it, but also because, he/she sees more syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions. In contrast, an average moviegoer would not experience a same film in different orders or some parts of it substituted with different takes. He accepts the film as it is, without bothering himself with the endless question of how to improve it. Naturally, there are cases where the paradigmatic dimension can be larger than what a director can see. A remake, for instance Van Sant’s Psycho, provides a paradigmatic dimension of which even Hitchcock is certainly unaware.

The best thing of the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic is that they help to define the code: une code est une machine paradigmatique et syntagmatique à la fois. (128) In fact, Metz claims, “il est impossible dans le domaine cinématographique, de définir la notion de séquence autrement que par ses différences avec d’autres formes d’agencement syntagmatique.” Consequently, a sequence cannot be said to have been established unless both of its internal (the exact images that it is composed of) and external (the exact position of this sequence in the entire film) syntagmatic order have been established. Obviously, here the syntagmatic establishment has as prerequisite numerous paradigmatic decisions.

Perhaps in order to salvage the “paradigmatic poverty of cinema”, Metz claims that in an alternating montage (his favorite example) sequence A-B-A-B, the simple enunciation of A/B is not only a syntagmatic order, but also a paradigmatic one, since A/B signifies a logical opposition (129). But here I believe Metz contradicts himself. According to his own definition (see above), the presence of A/B is only a case of simultaneous syntagmatic order, but not paradigmatic, for the simple reason that they are already given in the text. Lévi-Strauss’ mythemes, Propp’s formula on Russian fables, they are all extra-textual and typical studies of the paradigmatic. A myth, a fable, on the other hand, contains a syntagmatic order actualized in one text. Therefore, if a film presents us in itself different endings of a same story, as they sometimes do these days, this is always a syntagmatic strategy, not a paradigmatic one. Likewise, if Eisenstein presented us in Alexander Nevsky the allegorical opposition of black and white, it cannot be paradigmatic exactly because it is quasi-arbitrary. (134)

What I do agree with Hearth’s observation is that in cinema the process of making meaning relies more on syntagmatic order than on paradigmatic ones. A film can be comprehended by itself to a certain point without the help of paradigmatic dimensions (who made it, under which circumstances, how, etc.). In the production notes of Kill Bill, we read “WE DO A QUICK SHAW BROTHERS ZOOM INTO HER EYES.” Do we really have to know who the heck are Shaw brothers? Or even what is a zoom? Certainly not. A film is given to us; and it is what is given that counts. This is especially true for narrative fictions, which happens to be Metz’s object of study. Semiology, at least that of Metz, focuses on the syntagmatic order of cinema, not because it is richer (would you say a limited selection is richer than an unlimited one?), but because in cinema, especially in the narration films, the syntagmatic is more tangible for both the spectator (which includes the scholar) and the task of analysis. Cinema is in no way poor in paradigmatic dimension. On the contrary, cinema is probably the richest in paradigmatic dimension amongst all art and all communication. The only problem is that what we used to qualify this aspect of the “cinematographic language” does not work very well any more. Since cinema does not have a dictionary, it certainly cannot have a thesaurus or an associative grammar. The notion of grammatical category cannot exist in cinema, so does a transformational grammar of the cinema.

A discussion on the system of signs

Although there might be different opinions in regard to in which way the Semiology of the cinema can be progressed, the first problem that was identified in Metzian semiotics involves the very notion of sign. Peter Wollen, in his comments on the matter, published as early as 1969, already points out that the inflexibility of the Metzian notion of sign lies where de Saussure started the whole enterprise. This was made clear by a comparison with the works of Charles Sanders Peirce, who developed independently another conception of the system of signs. Peirce’s works are massive and cover extensive grounds. But his theory of signs is often resumed as follows. According to Pierce, there are three kinds of signs: an icon is a sign which represents its object mainly by its similarity to it; an index implies an existential bond between itself and its object; finally, a symbol presents an arbitrary connection. With the help of this trichotomy devised by Peirce, Wollen proposes that the cinema is mostly iconic and indexical whereas the verbal language is by and large symbolic. Another point Wollen stresses here, also from Peirce, is that these three categories are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they frequently or even invariably overlap and are co-present. Photography, Peirce noted, is the good example to illustrate this point.

To outline make my understanding of the matter, I would like to inquire about the said trichotomy as follows.

First, if indeed the three classes of sign do not have a clear-cut boundary between them and co-exist in many instances, the term trichotomy is probably not the right word to use here, because it signifies a division. Instead, I propose we use the notion of layer. Layers overlap by definition and generate hence a combinatory effect where the receiver is not always aware of its composite nature.

It goes without saying that the sign operates differently in verbal language and the cinema. How different? In verbal language (that is, I need to stress, in alphabetic languages), icon seldom makes an appearance. In cinema, the iconic is omnipresent and immensely effective. Eisenstein, we are told, went into great length picking out the right actors in order to make effective use of their image, especially their faces (typage).

The indexical layer becomes apparent when an object refers to another object. In the domain of verbal language this phenomenon is often called metonymy and almost invariably involves a concept. In cinema however, an indexical sign must also point to a concrete object. A rolling gait hanging in the closet points to the identity of sailor, not necessarily which sailor; but an added dimension of the real owner of the costume is often desirable. The pince-nez in Potemkin is such an example. It can of course be wore by no matter who[3]. But in order for the sign to function properly, it is better regarded as pointing to the rank and pro-Tzarist aristocracy; or better still, points to a certain Dr. Smirnov. And the general notion of “ruling class being thrown overboard” cannot exist without this singular sample of the ruling class being thrown overboard first. Whatever the signified idea, the represented object must be in the first place confirmed as an object. This way, and only this way, can a notion be introduced into the context of film and functions properly.

It is customary for us, in painting, to talk about whether a portrait resembles its object or not. Because there is a high chance that, due to the lack of expertise or purposeful “artistic” rendition for the part of the painter, it does not. In photography, however, the indexical side is unquestionable because it is carried out in a mechanical fashion, free of human intervention.

By using our metaphor of layer, we can illustrate the differences between these two in a much more intuitive way—that is, in painting, the indexical layer is opaque whereas in photography it is transparent. Therefore, what Bazin finds especially pleasing in Italian Neorealism and repulsive in German Expressionism, for example, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Nibelungen, is the opacity value of this indexical layer. In Rossellini the opacity is zero (things are, why manipulate); whereas in Lang, or even The Third Man and Ivan the Terrible, this value is rather high. Bazin developed an aesthetic which was founded upon the indexical character of the photographic image.

As for the symbolic, according to Pierce, it refers to all the signifying instances where the signifier and the signified bear neither physical resemblance nor existential bond. Under this circumstance, the connection is perceived as “arbitrary.” Yet obviously, the arbitrariness of the signification does not mean that I can arbitrarily refer one object to another and expect the others to understand. Naturally, the connection is not really arbitrary, but only conventional; it exists by a contract, so to speak, shared between different parties of the communication. If ever, as it often happens across radically different cultures, the contract is invalidated and the sign will not function.

What are the symbolic signs in verbal language? The favorite example given by structural linguistics is the connection between articulation and meaning. The fact that cinema does not have a double articulation signifies one thing: cinema does not have, or at least does not encourage symbolic signs.

“In the cinema,” Wollen has argued, “indexical and iconic aspects are by far the most powerful.” Contrary to the verbal language, in the cinema it is rather difficult to name any instance that is purely an arbitrary sign. The symbolic does find its usage there, but it is never without the cooperation, or rather the foundation of indexical or iconic facts. The God sequence in October shows why symbolic signs along can not be effective in cinema. And theoretically, Wollen remarks, if we are to take one aspect (as Bazin with index, Metz with symbol) as The essential sign of cinema, we are “impoverish the cinema”. The rhetoric of cinema is based on all of them and especially, the interaction within the three.

Despite the rigorous thinking, Metz does not question an over-restricted Saussurian notion of sign. Compared to Pierce, Saussure limits the sign system as consists of only arbitrary ones, that is, symbols. The onomatopoeia, he argues, are never organic elements of a linguistic system. Besides, their number is much smaller than is generally supposed. In short, they do not contribute to the complex and dynamic structure of the system but rather, are the surplus, marginal residue of the language in its primitive days. Jakobson corrected this view by pointing out that both the iconic and the indexical can be found in syntactic structure of the language. He argued that the poet’s use of language is a challenge between the arbitrariness between a sign and its signifier.

If in alphabetic languages the link between spelling and meaning is perceived as arbitrary, in hieroglyphic languages this is not the case. In Chinese, for instance, a symbol is never wholly arbitrary. There is always a natural bond (most of the time the rudiment of it since it has been five thousand years) between the signifier and the signified. The words, when they were first invented, are icons.  Every elementary school kids can testify to this point, since their first lesson of writing can hardly be distinguished from a lesson of drawing. Even in cases where the connection is indeed arbitrary, it is not arbitrary in the sense that it can be substituted by something else.

Emblems are labile; they may develop into symbolic signs or fall back into the iconic. In fact, there is not clear-cut point where we can say an icon has definitely become a symbol. The only thing we can say is one icon is more symbolic than the others due to the fact that this icon is more often connected to a fixed signified.

A poet aims to challenge and destroy these established symbols and reduce them to their iconic state. In the meantime, he inevitably establishes new symbols, which is a vocabulary of his own. A word, in the hand of a poet, becomes an image where the icon is again visible. The craft of working out a poem, then, is similar to the montage process, where images form a sequence. A word signifies nothing alone; it is where the poet puts it that makes all the difference.

In fact, if in medieval paintings the symbols and their deciphering occupy an important place in the overall meaning-making, for impressionists, symbols are for a considerable period of time completely ousted. Wollen, for one, notices that Courbet echos Bazin and Rossellini: nature is there, why manipulate?

The beautiful exists in nature and may be encountered in the midst of reality under the most diverse aspects. As soon as it is found there, it belongs to art, or rather, to the artist who knows how to see it there. As soon as beauty is real and visible, it has its artistic expression from these very qualities. Artifice has no right to amplify this expression; by meddling with it, one only runs the risk of perverting and consequently of weakening it.

Wollen suggests that de Saussure dismissed natural signs as unexpressive and less meaningful. He also suggests that, obscured beneath Metz’s semiological analysis is a very definite and frequently overt aesthetic parti pris. Because like Barthes and Saussure, he perceives only two mutually exclusive modes of existence for the sign: natural and cultural, uncoded (which is named, as we have seen, textual) or coded.

If we restrain ourselves to the domain of real world in the discussion of sign systems, we may say a sign (iconic, indexical, symbolic) is a link between two objects. Whether or not this link is to be acknowledged is another question: sometimes it is; sometimes it is not; it depends on the user. A portrait, for example, may resemble its subject or not, depending on my attitude; a straitjacket may signal a patient, or nothing at all; as for symbolic signs, I reserve my right to deny any of them in case I need to associate the signifier to another object.

Verbal language is different: by using it, we undertake a thousand conventions of its signifying system. Words are merely words. How can they signify anything without a grammar, a vocabulary, a syntax and a million other things?

Film lies somewhere between the verbal language and the real world. It encourages the establishment of conventions: there are cases when not only are film images and sounds no longer to be thought of as fragments of reality, they now do not even refer to the real—in this sense we may say the film has become a reasonable language, albeit a language still in the process of making itself clear. But unlike language, a film can function without any convention by falling back easily to the real world (the level of natural signs) with all its arbitrariness. This can happen when a spectator refuses to recognize signs that are perfectly conventional, as reported by André Maurois (cited in Kracauer’s Theory of Film, p175);  or it can happen when a filmmaker makes use of his private signs into a film that is destined to public viewing, where his signs would most probably not function as he has envisioned them to be. But here lies the power of cinema: between the thoroughly public symbolic sign and the potentially private natural sign lies a whole range of ambiguous signs about whose status we are unsure. Thus the spectator is free to exert his power of interpretation over these signs, from entirely rejecting as incomprehensible, to partially accepting as potentially insinuating, to wholeheartedly intaking as a manifestation of his own concrete experience.

Film is a language-like communication which strives to be art; but it is none of these three in its simplest form. Unlike verbal language, a film represents a one-way communication where the message unrolls before a silent spectator. And unlike art, which has to be communicative, a film can be communicative without being art. Finally, exactly because film is not a language, and has neither grammar nor vocabulary, film as a means of communication is characterized by a linguistic inefficiency. All languages have exceptions and aberrations. In this sense film is the poorest among them, whose incorrigible imperfection should have been begging a linguist’s effort to become a “pure” one such as Esperanto. Instead, not only does it already make perfect sense in an intrinsically ambiguous way, it makes sense despite everything else, and will always do.

 

Repercussions

Any examination of Metz’s work without paying attention to its theoretical context is incomplete. In this respect the single most important name to pronounce is Jean Mitry. In fact, it is profitable to look at what Metz has chosen to do as a counteraction to Mitry’s monumental work. This counteraction is described by Dudley Andrew as:

Despite Mitry’s thoroughness, indeed all the more because of it, Metz is convinced that film theory must achieve a reorientation. For him the first fifty years produced at best a diverse, intelligent, and sometimes astounding view of the medium, but in every sense a view which must be termed “general”. (212)

What exactly is too general in Mitry’s gigantic effort? Is it not exhaustive, not well organized, or not scientific enough? It seems to me that what Metz meant by “general” here can be better understood as “too ambitious”. It is simply impossible, in Metz’s view, to encompass all areas of phenomena that relate to cinema. That is why in Cinema and Language, Metz lavishes (for the length of three chapters) on the careful delimitation on his subject matters: what is cinema, what is film, film inside cinema, cinema inside film, and so on. All these distinctions would seem to have served no purpose (does one do the same for literature/novel?) if it were not for its context—Mitry’ work.  Mitry has done film theory an incomparable service by touching virtually every problem film theorists need to encounter, Metz might well proclaim, “but let us now get to the real business.” In opposition to Mitry’s aesthetic and psychology (human, too human) of cinema, Metz proposed a neutral and specific approach.

In response to Mitry, Metz asks, does a film theory need a statement on what is man’s state in the universe and the function of art? Naturally, such a statement, once established, will enable the critic, with utmost coherency, to tell good art from bad art. But Metz finds this too subjective. What he proposes instead is something totally impersonal, and just by the look of it, more scientific. But what makes science scientific is not that it is neutral, but that it can be verified or falsified. Humanities, on the other hand, do not possess such an absolute value, no matter how scientific it might seem to be.

Metz claimed to establish a description of the processes of signification in the cinema. How scientific can this description be? The system/code/message/text quadrants, for example, find no solid correspondence, as we can in physics, to concrete objects in the real world. Instead, the whole project can be at best a system of conjectures. Metz’s method is what a discourse typically does, that is: mark out what appears to be a new area of human experience for preliminary analysis, define its contours, identify the elements in its field, and discern the kinds of relationships that obtain among them. It is simply a discourse which adds to many others. And in circumstances like this, there are always legitimate grounds for differences of opinion as to what they are, how they should be spoken about, and the kinds of knowledge we can have of them.

Also in response to Mitry’s extensive coverage, Metz boasts of specific inquiries. Instead of sitting back, pipe in mouth, ruminating about the origin, purpose and general laws of his subject, Metz prefers field and laboratory work which, unconsciously or not, suits better to what he conceives as scientific research.

The last issue is the research method. Andrew has already pointed out that Metz’s reliance on the work of others. He wrote, “by attending conferences on semiotics, exchanging manuscripts and bibliographies with scholars from virtually every country, and by arguing with colleagues in other branches of semiotics, Metz’s theory consciously builds on gains made by others. In this way he has indeed given to film theory at least the outward appearances of a progressive human science.” Such is the reality of film studies as a scholarly discipline today. It is Christian Metz, among others, whose effort establishes an example of how scholarly work can and should be done in the cinema.

****

Semiotics tends to treat realism as a specific mode of signification which has no special rights or privileges. By doing so, semiotics automatically devalues any debate around the virtues of implementing a cinematic realism—neither the faithful duplication nor the intentional distortion of the real implies any intrinsic value. And if the latter, represented by a modernist cinema, is readily recognizable, the former, still the dominant form of our time, yields interesting results once the code on which it operates is exposed.

Semiotics reveals the cinematic reality as an implicit point of reference in film criticism. By extending this line of thought, we might also see that the so-called reality is also built up by perceptive codes, albeit differ from those in cinema. The inquiries we should be making, therefore, are not how much film approximates reality, but how much the codes of vraisemblance approximate codes of actuality.

The grand project of the semiotics of cinema, as envisioned by Metz, was to progressively illuminate, on the one hand, the codes that all films must draw on to signify anything, and on the other, how in particular films, genres, or periods, these codes interweave with together. But one important underestimation of the task is that, the cinema functions not so much as a system of codes/rules, but as a place where multiple codes come together and lend each other its signifieds. A consistent meaning does not exist (consider how, for instance, by the virtue of hindsight many perfectly harmless Hollywood fabrications are deemed as highly subversive). Nor does a construction of codes exist where meaning whatsoever is totally absent.

The various scientific terms that Metz introduced into the cinema studies seek to understand how films mean. Curiously, although it is vital to understand how films mean, the often brilliant analysis supplied by Metz do not illuminate our understanding of the cinema in several ways. First, the terms also apply to other forms of communication, if they happen to rely on the power of visual narration. Second, the complex relationship between sound and image, one of the definite specificity of cinema, is hardly mentioned. Metz treats the films, I regret to say, as if they are completely silent. This is not to say Metz is not aware of the importance of the soundtrack. On the contrary. It is the theoretical framework in which Metz works does not provide a ready-to-wear for such purposes. Finally, such an approach does not concern at least what are the purposes (or meanings proper) of the cinema, and intentionally so. Yet I cannot help but to feel that meaning and purpose are two sides of the same coin. As long as we are still looking for meaning, the study of cinema probably still belongs to humanity, not science. Granted, linguistic terms are much more impressive than impressionistic observations. Yet one wonders why Noel Burch can operate on films in a formative way comparable to semiotics without borrowing anything from linguistics. For example, in his Theory of Film Practice, Burch churned out fifteen possible relationships between succeeding shots. Apparently, there is a similar exercise associated with Metz, by the name of la grande syntagmatique[4]. In this sense we might say Burch’s structural approach achieves more or less the same thing with Metz’s linguistic analysis. By staying formative, both expel the realistic or “natural” as the ultimate reference point. But in Burch’s way, films do make a difference: they are well crafted or badly crafted; in Metz’s way, however, all films are same: I strongly believe that this implication will inevitably invalid any serious study on the subject.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Christian Metz, A Semiotics of the Cinema.

------------------, Langage et cinéma.

Peter Wollen, Sign and Meaning in Cinema.

Stephen Heath, The Works of Christian Metz. Screen, v14, n3, Autumn 1975.

Andrew Dudley, Major Film Theories, Oxford Univ. Press: 1976.

-------------------, Concepts in Film Theory, Oxford Univ. Press: 1984.

Jean Mitry, Sémiologie en question.

Francesco Casetti, Theories of Cinema 1945-1990.

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[1] Metz once asked the same question, rhetoric or grammar, in Problems of denotation in the fiction film.

[2] The norm is often “what happens in the real world.” A man wearing a boat signifies rather “a man should be wearing a hat, but instead, he is wearing a boat.” Here the image refers to an improbable situation in the real world. But if Bruce Willis beats up a woman in Die Hard, which is quite probable in the real world, the norm is now “what usually happens on the screen.”

[3] In Potemkin, pince-nez is seen on a pensioner and a schoolmistress. See Bordwell, The Cinema of Eisenstein, p70.

[4] Problems in the denotation of fiction film. p119.

Notes On Eisensteinian Montage

It is possible to dismiss Eisenstein as an autodidact, to slight him for his lack of serious academic training—or rather training in the wrong subject—but few are now willing to take the risk. It is quite clear that, despite his own lack of rigor and the difficult circumstances in which he worked, Eisenstein was the first, and probably still the most important, major theorist of the cinema. The main task now is to reassess his voluminous writings, to insert them into a critical frame of reference and to sift the central problematic and conceptual apparatus from the alarms and diversions.

Peter Wollen, Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (9)

The whole analogy of cinema to linguistic resides on the very fact that film uses montage.

Is montage an essential aspect of cinema? People tend to believe so before they see works that demonstrate otherwise (e.g., Russian Ark). But if montage is not absolutely presented in every instance of filmmaking, does it make it automatically disqualify for an “inherently filmic” technique? Likewise, if we safely observe that most films are shot through a camera, through optical mechanism that captures the real world, does it mean that what McLaren, Brakhage are producing is not cinema? Or if they are, what about Disney cartoons?

If we give up the somehow “natural” tendency to fit cinema into rigid categories, one or another, and if we admit that montage is present in most films where semiotics can be helpful towards a textual analysis, what are the benefits and pitfalls that we can predict in this application?

Montage became what it is understood today mainly through the early pioneers effort both in theory and practice. But if in Méliès, cuts are already used, it is generally understood that they do not create meaning out of the simple displacement of action. Montage came to create meaning only through significant associations. In the Kuleshov experiment, when the shot of Mozhukhin looking is connected with the shot of a naked woman, we effortlessly interpret a mere juxtaposition as “the man desires the woman” And despite strong evidence of improbability, we feel the same impulse watching a shot of officer peeping through a periscope immediately followed by another shot of a coquettish woman in Bruce Conner’s A Movie. Would an uninitiated child readily make such an inference? Man projects his own image onto the screen, and this is probably the only way he can understand what is being projected there. An adult understand the signification of such a sequence since it recalls for him the same experience. In other words, the Kuleshov effect is based on concrete facts of human behavior. The image provokes a certain idea already formed and the emotion connected to it. What we observe in the first place from such a looking/being looked at juxtaposition is naturally the idea of looking. Consequently the objects of looking then lead to different emotional responses: woman/sexual desire, food/hunger, corpse/fear, etc.

If montage is indeed a powerful tool to evoke associations already present in human mind, why in many cases they are perceived as ineffective and why Eisenstein is criticized as making excessive generalizations? The accusation is based on the premise that montage’s primary responsibility in a film is to construct a narrative flow in a rhythm that is proper to its content.

Pudovkin observes montage as a linkage of pieces whereas Eisenstein confronts him with the notion of conflict. What linkage? And what conflict? Talking about linkage, Pudovkin probably refers to the linkage of narrative, in other words, the continuum of space, time and causality. Eisenstein, on the other hand, talks about the conflict of abstract notions and kinetic impression.

But these are not two incompatible modes. The semantic connection established by two consecutive shots are multifaceted. The more unambiguous cases (such as the looking/being looked at one discussed above) are only one end of the spectrum. There are plenty shots in any film, even those of Eisenstein, do not necessarily generate any signification, but rather, as we have already claimed, serve as a way of constructing the narrative and its required pace. Moreover, the association is normally more perceivable only if the shot is rather singular in its meaning. Close-up, obviously, is the best candidate for this purpose. In fact, it is customary in Eisenstein to sacrifice the integrity of the action in a scene into many close-ups, in order to stress a certain emotional response that he intend to evoke from the audience. In the “cream separator sequence” in The General Line for instance, the specific parts of the apparatus in action, as well as the faces of the peasants, are magnified, in order to convey a sense of “wonder” and “joy”. Same can be said for Vertov, in his The Man with a Moving Camera, where children are supposed to be amused by street artists, although we never see them both in the same frame.

Why this is problematic? Because the validity of such a looking/being looked at connection arises from the very fact that both the subject and object of the action must exist in the same time and space. And if it is proved otherwise, our experience is betrayed, the signification itself becomes suspicious.

Now the “God and Country” sequence in October. According to Eisenstein, the sequence is meant to discredit the idea of God and to demonstrate the futility of the concept. How does he do it? By showing successively a Baroque Christ, ancient Greek Gods, Hindu, Mexican, African etc. he argued,

While idea and image appear to accord completely in the first statue shown, the two elements move further from each other with each successive image. Maintaining the denotation of ‘God’, the image increasingly disagree with our concept of God, inevitably leading to individual conclusions about the true nature of all deities.

The discrepancy between his intention and the actual effect (it is fair the say that few would be able to decipher this message upon first viewing) lies on the fact that in spite of Eisenstein’s belief that an image of God (no matter which) is singular in its meaning, and thus can be manipulated as such, it is in fact highly ambiguous. As a matter of fact, an image of Christ on cross does not invoke the general notion of God, but instead, abstract feelings like suffering, redemptions, and more substantially, personal guilt, or even sexual desire, etc. As for the pagan gods, if indeed the sequence addresses to a western mind, they are not immediately recognizable at all. The sequence is more likely to be perceived as show a collection of statuettes that is contained in a same space (the immediate perception) or, at its best, an imaginary museum.

What we propose to draw from this instance is that, if a verbal list of Gods does indeed accentuate their common denominator—the concept of God—a display of statues brings in first their attribute of being concrete objects in space. Shots are not equivalent to words in that we recognize them first not as concept, but as object. If somehow these objects acquire a symbolic dimension, it is only because they are based on common and concrete experience.

Another famous example is from Strike, where the suppression of rebellious workers is juxtaposed with the butchering of a bull. It is not so much because the narrative logic is distorted and an alien event is inserted arbitrarily into the scene that the symbolic expression becomes ineffective. On the contrary, what we perceive in this scene is that the arbitrariness is not enough to justify a symbolic expression. Hora de los hornos by Getino and Solanas provides a counterexample where a similar juxtaposition involving abattoir is effective exactly because it is completely arbitrary. In this instance, a cinéma-vérité style depiction of the grimy slaughterhouse where the bulls are brutally hammered down are put side-by-side with a bursting slideshow of glossy fashion magazine photos. The concrete act of hammering of bulls is associated with a more metaphorically visual “hammering” of the capitalist consumerism towards proletarian reality.

Yet another similar example is also from October, where Eisenstein intercuts Prime Minister Kerensky with shots of a mechanical peacock. In regard to this association, Bordwell argues:

Eisenstein pictorializes a figure of speech: Kerensky is as vain as a peacock. But the sequence triggers other implications as well. The peacock is mechanical, and it enables Eisenstein to reiterate the artificial pose and gesture of the man. Like motifs elsewhere in the film, the peacock’s sparkling highlights and suggestion of precious metals associate Kerensky with a static opulence due to be overturned by revolutionary energy. The whirling of the bird and the spreading of its tail coincide with Kerensky’s standing at the door that will not open, suggesting that the mechanical toy works better than the government. Moreover, the bird’s spinning is edited so that it seems to control the door’s swinging open; a toy becomes the mainspring of the palace. The peacock’s mechanical dance also suggests an empty ritual, like Kerensky’s grand march up the stairs and the flunkies’s insincere greetings. (45)

Applying the same logic, one can argue that the thaw sequence in the end of Pudovkin’s Mother is also goes “beyond one-for-one comparisons and acquires the penumbra of connotation that distinguishes a rich poetic metaphor.” We could argue that Pudovkin believes that ice (the mass) is in itself a passive substance whose form is always dictated by external climate, that thawing (revolution) is merely a stage in the perennial cycle of transformations, just as freezing up is.

Such anti-revolutionary implications are obviously against Pudovkin’s intentions. This case illustrates how over-interpretations are whimsical and unsubstantiated.

This method—likening bad guys to animals—is already used in Strike where the factory director is intercut with a crow and a cat, and police spies are identified as bulldog, fox, owl or monkey. While these analogies are clearly understood as derogatory, the same likening of workers as bulls waiting to be slaughtered is nevertheless “heroic”.

戒色

很久以来就想说说我对这个色戒的看法，但是唯恐我因为是男性的缘故，会有某些主观，所以先列下两个别人的影评；这两个在关键问题上是针锋相对的，但是都是出于女人之手。

窦婉茹 8月31日发自威尼斯电影节

首先要问：如何把握一部电影的好坏？这是个大问题。众所周知在艺术评论的领域，说好坏难，说好恶易，非要有一个说法的话，我还是引用在8月29日威尼斯电影节开幕式评委见面会上，评委会主席张艺谋回答这个问题给出的答案：好电影就是内容和形式能很好的结合。

其次，说《色，戒》本 身的好坏，其实完全离开张爱玲是不行的，因为张爱玲在那，一个标准在那，否认她是不行的。不是说不能挑战这个标准，不是说这个故事没有任何改动的可能性， 但是不充分认识这个标准的存在，是不明智的。张爱玲这个小说写的好，30年写了28页，都说是呕心沥血之作，还是公认不错的。它也可能是一篇精心制作的垃 圾，但是据我了解它还不是。所以谈原著还是有点意义的。

第三，什么叫对原著的继承和背叛？既然背叛也是一种继承，背叛也是一种对原著和作者敬意的表达，那么继承的继承也是有价值的。聪明人有时候是不 是也表现在该继承就继承，表现在不做无用功，表现在不去勤奋地做一件错事呢？所以该背叛就背叛，该继承就继承，继承也是选择的一种，继承也有可能是对的。

再说到《色，戒》，我认为李安以 美化男性角度的改编，根本上动了张爱玲这篇小说的核心，就是女人的不专业和男人的专业，就是女人一时糊涂的痴情和男人一以贯之的无情。而没了这个最根本的 基础，这篇小说是没什么价值的，一场布置那么周密的女人去暗杀男人的计划，就是因为女性一向分不清性和爱的可分离关系(男人是分的很清的，易先生在杀情人 的时候是干脆利落的，拿出的是干大事的专业劲儿)，就是因为女性对一枚戒指有太多情感而非金钱的指望和依恋，就前功尽弃。女人一直在处心积虑杀男人，费劲 周折，就因为男人送了一枚戒指就心软了，不仅前功尽弃，还害人害己，多么的不专业，也因此才多么有戏剧性，令人惊心动魄的感叹。这真是“一枚戒指引发的血 案”。而在电影中李安没有突出这个引发悲剧的男女性心理和感情结构的差别，而是模糊和缩小这个差别，这是非常致命的。片中李安花了太多的力气去渲染男人在 性方面的美感和优越(这个优越感表现为男性对女性轻微的性虐待)，渲染男人在金钱上的慷慨(把小说中一枚比普通略强的戒指，变成电影中几乎要惊天动地的豪 华大戒指)，渲染男人在杀死情人后的留情(小说中毫不犹豫的心狠手辣，变成电影中签署处死情人文件颤抖的手和坐在情人生前床上的眼泛泪光)，都是违背了这 个悲剧的基础的。再完美的细节，汤唯和梁朝伟再完美的表演，都不能掩饰这个致命的缺陷。

再讲到《色，戒》的激情戏，暴露尺度不是问题，问题是“is it necessary?”，它真的需要吗？它是否需要那么多？如果需要，再多都不多；如果不是，那就有问题。观众都已成年，对性本身都有大体清楚的认识，知 道那“欢愉是短暂的，动作是滑稽的，代价是昂贵的”，所以在这里对于《色，戒》是否色情的讨论，并不是出于道德规范乃至法令，纯粹就是讨论这些镜头为的是 什么？从我看片的角度，我认为这些镜头对深化悲剧主题是没什么意义的，也就是说形式是对内容没有帮助的，我从这些性爱镜头里面看不到多少女主角受虐的极度 欢愉，带来的身心享受，也许里面有一点点女性的“被占有欲”得到满足的痕迹，但更多的还是表现梁朝伟的身材和技能。这些我认为是与主题无关的，是不必须 的。

最后再说一点，就是观影是personal的事，带着不可避免的个性色彩和个人局限，一篇影评出来，背后是影评人本身的知识背景(不讲政治立 场，这光谈艺术呢)、理性健全的程度以及本人的生活经历。影评人起码都受到这三方面的局限。所以抒发感想，立是断非，都没有绝对正确的可能和义务，大家不 过在直舒胸臆的同时，随时准备虚心讨教。如此而已。人人都未必全对，同理，李安也是这样。

我在威尼斯的新闻中心和一个比利时记者说起《色，戒》，他说他喜欢这个电影，但是更喜欢《断背山》。我想了想，说我也是这样。其实我同意的是他的后半句。

 

这个一看就是咱们大陆来的， 官方口气改不了啊。再看看台湾的：

台湾中国时报 ◎张小虹

在西方电影圈开玩笑，要害一个导演，就叫他去拍莎士比亚，不仅因为莎翁经典深植人心，朗朗上口，不易讨好，更因莎剧字字珠玑，意象丰满，若是拆了叫演员一字不漏朗读一遍，又叫摄影机用影像画面拍摄一遍，没别的话，就是画蛇添足。

若是换了在华人电影圈开玩笑，要害一个导演，最好是叫他去拍张爱玲。从1984年香港导演许鞍华找来周润发、谬骞人拍《倾城之恋》，就是一连 串灾难史的开始，其中稍稍及格的，只有关锦鹏的《红玫瑰与白玫瑰》，多亏了导演的敏感细腻，演员陈冲红玫瑰的精彩诠释和艺术指导朴若木的美术构成，总算抓 到那么一些些老上海的氛围、张爱玲的底蕴。

这回李安要拍张爱玲，真是让所有李迷与张迷又爱又怕受伤害。两个大难题，张爱玲怎么拍？前面的例子可以说是拍一个死一个。老上海怎么拍？十年 来的上海热，从台北、香港一路延烧回上海，早已让老上海的影像熟极而烂，要不落入窠臼套式，难上加难。又是月份牌，又是老旗袍，又是黑头车，往往不是不够 真实，而是所有的真实都已过度曝光成了超真实，更别提还有那厢王家卫透过香港所折射出来的老上海怀旧风格，难以挥去。

但李安还是拍了，拍出了一个惊心动魄的张爱玲，一个恐怕连张爱玲也觉得惊心动魄的《色，戒》。若是按照惯常的文学电影读法，当然是从张爱玲到 李安，从张爱玲的小说《色，戒》到李安的电影《色，戒》，前者是「原著」，后者是「改编」，再东转西绕两相比对一番，谈的终究还是是否忠于原著的老问题。 这样的谈法既不尊重文类的基本差异──小说是用文字讲故事，而电影是用影像讲故事，更是让「原著」成为终点而非起点，让影像的再次创作，沦为文字的重复叙 述。

所以我们要反过来说，从李安到张爱玲，这种违反常识的先后时序倒置，就是要让我们跳脱「改编」的魔咒，真正看到影像创作的爆发力。李安的 《色，戒》拍出了张爱玲写出来的《色，戒》，李安的《色，戒》也拍出了张爱玲没有写出来的《色，戒》。李安的厉害，李安的温柔蕴藉，打开了《色，戒》藏在 文字绉褶里欲言又止却又欲盖弥彰的《色，戒》，李安是在张爱玲的文字地盘上，大开色戒。

肉体情欲的暴乱

电影《色，戒》从片子一开头，就充满了强烈的悬疑紧张氛围。李安成功地运用了两种语言的加成，一种是快速剪接、局部特写的电影镜头语言，一种是尔虞我诈、 各怀鬼胎的华文牌桌文化语言，只见易公馆麻将桌上一阵兵慌马乱，玉手、钻戒、闲话交锋的影像杂沓，一时间难以分辨是谁的手拿着谁的牌，搭着谁的话，碰了谁 的牌，吃了谁的上家，胡了谁的庄。这种电影语言与文化语言的完美搭配，让《色?戒》从一开场就引人入胜，让观众立即进入悬疑片的心理准备状态──不确定中 的焦虑与兴奋，也让《色，戒》同时拥有了电影语言、电影类型的「全球性」与特定华文殊异文化的「在地性」。

于是有时车子开在路上，你会错以为是希区考克的悬疑谍报片，一会又以为是五○年代的黑色电影，转个身却又像是老好莱坞的浪漫通俗剧。李安不愧 是李安，这种运「镜」帷幄的大将之风，稳健中见细腻，平凡中见功力。只有李安才有这等电影语言的娴熟，这般电影类型的出入自如。于是《色，戒》从快到慢的 影像节奏，配合着由外到内、由表面练达油滑的交际人情到赤身裸体接触的心理挣扎，给出了一个完全「去熟悉化」了的老上海，法国Alexandre Desplat幽沉的电影配乐，墨西哥Rodrigo Prieto光影层次的摄影，再加上香港朴若木平实而不夸张不过度风格化的美术构成，让镜头前的「老上海」有一种特意搭构出来的「假」，假得既熟悉又诡 异、既本土又异国、既真实又如梦境，假得恰到好处，假得正好假戏真做。

但这些镜头语言与文化细节掌握的成功，只能让《色，戒》从一部中规中矩的电影，升级成为一部上等之作，而真正让《色，戒》可以脱颖而出成为一 部上上之作的关键，就在《色，戒》最受争议的大胆露骨床戏。有的导演拍床戏是为了噱头与票房卖点，有的导演拍床戏是前卫反判的一种姿态，《色，戒》中的床 戏却是让《色，戒》之所以成立的最重要关键。李安的尺度开放，不在于让梁朝伟与汤唯全裸上阵，而在于第一场床戏就用了S/M「虐恋」作为全片床戏的基调。 原本明明是麦太太按捺下易先生，走到较远的椅子边，打算演一出宽衣解带的诱惑戏码，哪知易先生一个箭步向前，扳倒大学生王佳芝伪装的麦太太，抽出皮带，绑 住她的双手，推倒在床上，强行进入。这种突如其来、反客为主的暴烈，吓坏了业余玩票的女特工，当然也吓坏了戏院里正襟危坐的观众。有必要这样S/M吗？就 剧情的合理度而言，S/M凸显了易先生作为情报头子的无感，必须藉由如此暴力的强度，才能在猎人与猎物、掌控与被掌控、占有与被占有的肉体权力关系中，既 重复也纾解各种血腥刑求所造成的内在扭曲。

但仅以这样的角度去理解《色，戒》中的S/M，绝对是不够的。《色，戒》中的S/M，除了要展现权力的掌控，「行房」作为「刑房」的一种扭曲 变形，除了要彻底摧毁既定的道德体系与价值系统，更是要在逼搏出身体暴乱情欲的最高强度中，展露出身体最内部、最极端、最赤裸、最柔软的敏感与脆弱，这样 的「性爱」才有「致命性」，会让人在最紧要的关键时刻，一时心软怜爱而迷迷糊糊地赔上了性命。在片中这样的「致命性」，让女大学生王佳芝茫然困惑，无助却 又迷恋，一次鼓起了勇气，向同学邝裕民与重庆派来的上级指导员老吴坦承自己的无法把持，越往她身体里头钻的老易，就越往她心里头钻。这露骨的不吐不快，让 两个大男人目瞪口呆，无言以对。他们不懂也不能懂，易先生与麦太太则似懂非懂，却深陷其中，欲仙欲死。身体的交易，带出了情欲的高潮，而体液的交换，带出 了灵魂的交缠。于是几场重要的床戏，透过镜位、景框与剪接的精准安排，透过梁朝伟与汤唯的投入演出，我们看到的不再只是肉体横陈，不再只是变换中的姿势与 体位，而是那种击溃所有防线所有自我保护后无助的肉体亲密贴合，有如婴儿般脆弱卷缩的相互依偎。这是王佳芝的「意乱情迷」，也是易先生的「易乱情谜」。动 荡大时代中的彷徨无助，都转化成情欲强度的极私密、极脆弱、极癫狂。《色，戒》中情欲影像的强度，传达了极暴戾即温柔，极狂喜即致命的无所遁逃。

「到女人心里的路通过阴道」

然而如此这般肉体情欲的暴乱，会是张爱玲吗？短篇小说《色，戒》成稿于五○年代，张爱玲多次大修大改，一九七七年发表于《皇冠》杂志，一九八 三年收录于《惘然记》出版。二三十年的时间过去了，张爱玲究竟琢磨出怎样一个版本的《色，戒》，来铺陈涉世未深的天真女大学生，下了台没下装，想演一出美 人杀汉奸的戏码，却因自己一时的意乱情迷而功败垂成。这其中的反讽我们懂，张爱玲用色与戒之间的逗点，疏离了我们惯常对「色戒」等同于「戒女色」的认知， 《色，戒》既是美色与钻戒的连结，也是本应由男汉奸犯下的色戒转移到了女特务自身所犯下的色戒，色不迷人人自迷，美人计中的美人反倒中了计。张爱玲在《倾 城之恋》中曾说，「一个女人上了男人的当，就该死；女人给当给男人上，那更是淫妇；如果一个人想给当给男人上而失败了，反而上了人家的当，那是双料的淫 恶，杀了她也还污了刀」。就这点观之，王佳芝想给汉奸当上却上了汉奸的当，就算迷迷糊糊给枪毙了，似乎也难博得同情。

但小说《色，戒》中有破绽，有陷阱，因为其中所涉及的真正缘由与转折我们却不懂，好好一个女大学生为何会爱上一脸「鼠相」的中年汉奸，为了粉 红钻戒而感动？为了任务不惜失身而懊恼而混乱而寻觅救赎？是人海茫茫无依无靠的恋父情结？还是单纯因为灯光下易先生的睫毛有如「米色的蛾翅」而生出温柔怜 惜之心？就第一个层次而言，我们不懂是因为张爱玲让王佳芝到死也没弄懂自己到底是哪里出了问题，但就第二个层次而言，我们不懂是因为张爱玲也不懂，或者不 想完全弄懂，而尽在文字里穿插藏闪。而小说《色，戒》的文字犹疑，正是电影《色?戒》影像游移的最佳切入点，让李安拍出了张爱玲没有写出来的《色，戒》， 不是无中生有，而是打开文字的绉褶，用影像探访文字的潜意识，那不干不净不彻底的情欲纠缠。

因而看完电影《色，戒》后，再回过头来看张爱玲的小说《色，戒》，就懂得李安懂得张爱玲懂得却没说清楚讲明白的那个部份。小说中三处曲笔，隐 隐带出王佳芝与易先生的肉体暧昧情欲。第一处点出王佳芝逐渐丰满的乳房，「『两年前也还没有这样嚜，』他扪着吻着她的时候轻声说。他头偎在她胸前，没看见 她脸上一红」。第二处则是两人共乘一车，「一坐定下来，他就抱着胳膊，一只肘弯正抵在她乳房最肥满的南半球外缘。这是他的惯技，表面上端坐，暗中却在蚀骨 销魂，一阵阵麻上来」。短短几句，强烈的身体官能情欲，明说是易先生，又暗指王佳芝，十足暧昧。第三处则是一连串正经八百的引述，先以一句英文俗谚「权力 是一种春药」，作为王佳芝自我心理分析的开场，接着又引谚语「到男人心里去的路通到胃」，指男人好吃，要掌握男人的心，先要掌握男人的胃。但真正要带出的 重点，却是紧接在下面的那句「到女人心里的路通过阴道」。

此惊世骇俗的话语既出，防卫机制立即启动，百般遮掩，先是考据此语出自某位民初精通英文的名学者，曾以茶壶茶杯的比喻，替中国人妻妾制度辩护 （暗指辜鸿铭），接着又执意不相信名学者会说出如此下作的话语，再接着质疑是什么样女人的心会如此不堪，要不是「老了倒贴的风尘女人」，就是「风流寡 妇」，并以自己做为反证，为达成任务而跟同学梁闰生发生性关系后，就只有更讨厌他的份。但否认后的否认，曲笔后的曲笔，又回到了核心问体的揭露，「那，难 道她有点爱上了老易？她不信，但是也无法斩钉截铁的说不是，因为没恋爱过，不知道怎么样就算是爱上了」，就这样一路由性逃到了爱，又由爱逃到了缺乏经验无 从评断。有答案了吗？当然还是没有答案，但依旧不忘加上一笔，再次撇清关系，「跟老易在一起那两次总是那么提心吊胆，要处处留神，哪还去问自己觉得怎 样」。此地无银三百两，我王佳芝可不是喜欢惊险刺激、耽溺于鱼水之欢的女人。

但我们必须说整篇《色，戒》中最大胆最下作最荒唐的一句话，就是「到女人心里的路通过阴道」，也是张爱玲要一再撇清、一再否认的一句话，当然 也就成了最富玄机、最深藏不露的一句话，而好巧不巧，李安的《色，戒》就拍足了这句话，提供了不仅女性版本的王佳芝，也提供了男性版本的易先生（男人的心 终究不是通过胃的问题）。《色，戒》的暧昧不仅在于忠奸难分，更在于情色难离，没有大彻大悟，黑白分明，汉贼不两立，没有情是情，色是色，作戏是作戏，真 实人生是真实人生。张爱玲冷眼嘲讽了爱国的浪漫与幼稚， 却又在民族大义的框架下，偷渡小眉小眼、小情小爱的谍报版性幻想，但在带出身体情欲真实困惑的同时，还是点到为止，非礼勿视。李安则是腼腆探问「色易守， 情难防」的无解，只因色就是情的后门，钻到身体里的就能钻到心里，色与情一线之隔，一体两面，而《色，戒》之所以惊心动魄，就是在那肉体缠缚中，动了真 情。

小说中的结尾，易先生为求自保立即处决了那群大学生，事后想起王佳芝，尚不免自鸣得意，说她生是他的人，死是他的鬼。电影中的结尾，那群大学 生被带到空旷的南矿场，一字排开的大远景，没有慷慨赴义，引刀成一快的「悲壮」，只有一种无情大时代青春生命的「苍凉」，又可笑又可怜，临到尽头都还迷糊 的悲哀。而易先生回到家中，面对王佳芝的空床，厅堂里喧哗谈笑声依旧，只是暗影遮黑了他的双眼。

「因为懂得，所以慈悲」，张爱玲冷，让易先生终究旁观者清，李安温情，让易先生依旧当局者迷。在这一点上，张爱玲毕竟是张爱玲，李安毕竟还是李安。

第一篇评论的立足点，乃是说这个电影对原著的改动，乃是放大了“男人在性方面的美感和优越”，并且推而广之，指出这个乃是致命缺陷，是对原著悲剧意识的抹杀，是动摇了原著的根本价值。

几乎是必然的，接下来她对于片中激情戏提出质问，这些火爆场面是否必须？

为了要回答这个问题，首先要反问一句，对什么必须？

如果仅仅是交代他们上床了，甚或仅是暗示一下，他们鱼水甚欢，和目前的局面有什么不同？

显然，上文作者看来，一部电影，首先是要讲一个故事。如果不幸这个故事有一个文学的源泉，那么电影又必须忠实于这个源泉。

这等于是说，张爱玲是个女作者，所以小说自然是从女性的角度来看问题的，虽然李安是个男的，但是既然张爱玲写小说在先，因此，将故事改成男性角度，那是不妥的。

从故事的角度，当然没有什么不同，甚至删去还要更好，因为第一，“这些镜头对深化悲剧主题是没什么意义的。”这就是说，我们首先认定那里有一个悲剧主题，等着我们去用镜头来“深化” 。“深化”，何等CCTV的语言！

第二，上文作者认为，如果不是用来深化悲剧主题，那么这些镜头也许还有些教育意义，但是现在大家都是成年人了，对这个问题已经有了“大体清楚”的认识，不用李安来开导我们。

其实不拍省去大家辛苦，李导演拍床上戏也没什么经验，你以为他容易吗？100个小时拍出来十分钟的内容。

一个故事，不管有什么悲剧意识，不能用来代替影像对人的感染力。

我从这些场面看到的东西跟这个故事一点关系都没有，但是也一样很有意思，让我觉得值回票价。

如果故事很好，讲给我听其实就很不错，实在没有必要再影院浪费两个多小时的时间。

一部电影，讲述了他预先设定要讲述的，其实只是一般。

倘能讲出一些原先没有料到的东西，这才是神来之笔。

也许因为虚构的东西力量都是有限，故事再完美，那也只是故事。

我年纪也不小了，这些年什么什么荒唐玩意没见过，但是这些场面仍然能让我目瞪口呆，就证明他们不是一般意义上的性场面。他们和其他一些性场面，在叙事层面上可以置换，但是在影像的影响力方面，完全不可以置换。

说句不恭敬的话，这个片子其他的地方，再好也就是平平，能忍住不笑，就算是客气的了。

但是这一轮性场面下来，真的是让我肃然起敬。

回到作者的质疑，这些火爆场面是否必须？对这个问题我的回答是这样的，不仅必须，而且，很有可能就是这个电影的价值所在。

编剧的缺陷，其实真是已经见怪不改了。说句不好听的话，谁在乎？

原先我自己是最看重故事的逻辑性，细节的真实，结构的完整等等。但自从我注意到很多人看电影都在意这个，不由得对这些东西在电影艺术的地位产生怀疑。

电影不是戏剧，电影是影像的艺术。

对故事的要求，最好是适可而止。

但是如果说电影是影像的艺术，那么这个“影像的艺术”目的在哪里？他所要说的，是不是要和故事的目标重合？第二篇评论的观点说这些床戏“是要在逼搏出身体暴乱情欲的最高强度中，展露出身体最内部、最极端、最赤裸、最柔软的敏感与脆弱”，这个我觉得说得很好。如果说这就是这部电影影像上的目标，那么故事，完全可以理解为第二位的，是为了这个目标服务，是一个Context，一个借口。从另一个角度来看，在色情片中常见的肉体横陈之所以没有这样的效果，一个固然是因为这些肉体都遵循完全可以预期的仪式，更重要就是因为没有提供动机。体液交换固然是很有意思，但是为什么要花那么大的气力，冒那么大的风险，去做这些没有任何成果的事情？情是何物？欲又是何物？人在何种程度上是动物性的，何时又不是？这些问题，我觉得比讲一个故事，或者是某上海文人的老故事，显然是更有价值。

色戒里的床戏说明了什么问题，我不准备正面阐述。首先，因为这不是一个可以充分阐述的问题。其次，每个人从这里面看到了什么，很有可能是完全不一样的。就是我自己，若是二十年前看到这个，多半也是有不同的想法，更有可能完全不知道他想说什么。是什么在影响着一个人对这个影像的理解呢？我想，应该是他，或者她，对男人和女人本质的认识。女人是什么，这个对男人而言不是一个自明的问题。最最影响理性对一个类似问题的探究的，就是一个思考的个体自身的欲望不幸地指向他思考的对象。这个欲望是坚决的，然而也是盲目的。因为这个欲望将自身奉为最终的目标，所以他拒绝提供任何动机。一个正常的男人在酒吧里看见一个漂亮女人，荷尔蒙被激发，随之而来的动作都是下意识的，坚决，然而盲目。一个男人成长的历程，并不包含对这个欲望的任何深入了解。他所需要知道，也即是他逐渐习得的，是一个仪式—如何让异性接受自己，如何在异性面前展现自己，等等。简而言之，男性在女性面前的动作，是一个试错法的结果，其所依据的主要方法，乃是黑箱观察。女性的方面的情况更为复杂，更为微妙，我没有什么发言权，但种种迹象表明，女性在男性面前的表现是先验而非习得，也就是说，不依赖於女性对男性心理的理解。一个女人对男人的体验，除了跟这个男人相关的具体细节，直接指向她对自己身体的认识。

这些和色戒有什么关系？我觉得，张爱玲，抑或是李安，对这个故事的把握都基于这同一个认识—女人的收敛性。正因为她收敛，所以她不可解。理性探究的结果，撞上一睹不可逾越的墙—身体。不仅是女人撞上这堵墙，男人何尝不是！所以床戏，其实是货真价实的“戏肉”。色戒好就好在为床戏提供了一些似是而非的动机（叙事），然而真相的呈现粉碎了这些所谓的动机，让他们成为无足轻重的虚构。什么真相？我不能说，李安具体是这样这样来构造这些床戏的，因此就取得了那样那样的效果。如果可以如此归纳，那么别人大可以重复这个配方，还有什么真相可言？李安所展现的性，恰恰是没有任何意识形态在背后的，纯粹的性。说这个是一场交易，那岂不是低估了李安。这些个镜头之所以震撼，恰恰是因为他让我意识到，我们所司空见惯的性场面，其实都是那么地不纯，服从于种种叙事的无聊目的，受制于种种思想的狭隘局限。在这些影像面前，我的大脑成为一片空白，一种类似于性高潮时所体验的空白。也正是因为大脑被腾空，所以影像得以注入，并且挥之不去。