The first counterarguments concerning the comparison between cinema and a systematic linguistic structure were articulated by Christian Metz in his 1964 article Cinema: langue or langage? (42/2)1. One of the primary motivations for investigating the structure of cinematic language was the remarkable sophistication of this predominantly visual medium and its distinctive mechanism for storytelling.
In his article, Metz questioned whether cinema should be understood as an artistic mode of expression (langage) or as a structured language system (langue). His inquiry reflects the recognition of cinema as a powerful artistic force—one capable of prompting the fundamental question of whether linguistic science could be legitimately applied to the analysis of a predominantly “iconic” medium.
- 2
Filmolinguistics, whose origins Metz attributed to the convergence of linguistics and cinephilia, explored such questions as: Is cinema a language system (langue) or merely an artistic language (langage)? (Metz’s 1964 article “Cinema: langue or language?” was the founding essay within this current of inquiry.) Is it legitimate to use linguistics to study an “iconic” medium like film? If it is, is there any equivalent in the cinema to the linguistic sign? If there is a cinematic sign, is the relation between signifier and signified “motivated” or “arbitrary,” like the linguistic sign? (For Saussure the relation between signifier and signified is “arbitrary,” not only in the sense that individual signs exhibit no intrinsic link between signifier and signified, but also in the sense that each language, in order to make meaning, “arbitrarily” divides the continuum of both sound and sense.)
(Structure>images>Language)
Film Theory: An Introduction
by Robert Stam ↩︎
Leave a Reply