Notes on Christian Metz, Textuality, & You, the Living

Specificity – is cinema a language vs other semiotic systems (Not interested in the artistic aspects on the cinema). What are the materials of expression, what are the codes and sub-codes of cinema, how does cinema create meaning, what is specific (codes) to cinema vs non-specific codes to cinema. Codes: editing, subcodes: shot sequence, montage, Shot/reverse shot. Codes: lighting, subcodes: expressionistic, natural. What is more specific to cinema? Spatial and temporal color, Technicolor of the 50s. Film history is the history of subcodes, Problems for STAM: does not engage social issues, too formalist. Problems for Bordwell: not historical enough. Marks of discourse: the story isn’t telling itself. Narrative discourse (narrative cues)= systems – selection/organization of… “Voices”, products of signifying strategies/codes. *camerawork – dialogue (spoken/v.o.) *music *lighting. Levels of narrative: Primary narrator, Secondary narrator (internal)

You, the Living (Andersson, 2007) and Levels of Narration (Neupert) - Sound in You, the Living, couterpoint to the bleak world, happy upbeat music and sad world. Nondiegetic and diegetic music. “Narrative” *order of scenes/vignettes/mini-narratives, is there a 1^st level narrator? Macro narrative, begins with “I’ve dreamt bombers are coming,” ends with the bombers coming. *From Benny weeping about the electric chair to an old woman being reminded about everything she hates, what is the alternative to the electric chair, being so old you don’t remember anything? 2 functional families at the end but it’s all pointless because the bombers are coming. 1^st narrator provides opening and closure, the film foregrounds what spectators do. Story fragmented by narrative discourse. Opening up a bunch of narratives but none are resolved.