Film Discourse Interpretation: Towards a New Paradigm for Multimodal Film Analysis

284 Pages·2013·7.653 MB·English

by  Janina Wildfeuer

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ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN MULTIMODALITY i m ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN MULTIMODALITY
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Edited by Kay L. O’Halloran, National University of Singapore e r
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Multimodal Studies In
t
Exploring Issues and Domains e
r
Kay L. O’Halloran and Bradley A. Smith p
r
e
t
Multimodality, Cognition, and Experimental Literature a
t
Alison Gibbons i
o
n
Multimodality in Practice
Investigating Theory-in-practice-through-methodology
Sigrid Norris
Multimodal Film Analysis
How Films Mean
John Bateman and Karl-Heinrich Schmidt
Multimodality and Social Semiosis
Communication, Meaning-Making, and Learning in the Work of Gunther Kress
Edited by Margit Böck and Norbert Pachler
Spoken and Written Discourse in Online Interactions
Film Discourse Interpretation
A Multimodal Approach
Maria Grazia Sindoni
Towards a New Paradigm for Multimodal
Critical Multimodal Studies of Popular Discourse
Edited by Emilia Djonov and Sumin Zhao
Film Analysis
Film Discourse Interpretation
Towards a New Paradigm for Multimodal Film Analysis
Janina Wildfeuer
Janina Wildfeuer
www.routledge.com
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Film Discourse Interpretation
This book contributes to the analysis of film from a multimodal and
textual perspective by extending formal semantics into the realm of
multimodal discourse analysis. It accounts for both the inferential as
wellasintersemioticmeaning-makingprocessesinfilmicdiscourseand
therefore addresses one of the main questions that have been asked
within film theory and multimodal analysis: How do we understand
film and multimodal texts? The book offers an analytical answer to
this question by providing a systematic tool for the description of
this comprehension process. It aims to advance knowledge of the
variousresourcesinfilmictexts,thewaystheresourcesworktogetherin
constructing meaning and the ways people understand this meaning
construction. This new approach to film interpretation is thus able to
remodelandimprovetheclassicalparadigmoffilmtextanalysis.
Janina Wildfeuer is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Faculty of
LinguisticsandLiteraryScienceatBremenUniversity,Germany.
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229x152 HB
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RoutledgeStudiesinMultimodality
EditedbyKayL.O’Halloran,NationalUniversityofSingapore
1. NewPerspectivesonNarrativeandMultimodality
EditedbyRuthPage
2. MultimodalStudies
ExploringIssuesandDomains
KayL.O’HalloranandBradleyA.Smith
3. Multimodality,Cognition,andExperimentalLiterature
AlisonGibbons
4. MultimodalityinPractice
InvestigatingTheory-in-practice-through-methodology
SigridNorris
5. MultimodalFilmAnalysis
HowFilmsMean
JohnBatemanandKarl-HeinrichSchmidt
6. MultimodalityandSocialSemiosis
Communication,Meaning-Making,andLearningintheWorkof
GuntherKress
EditedbyMargitBo¨ckandNorbertPachler
7. SpokenandWrittenDiscourseinOnlineInteractions
AMultimodalApproach
MariaGraziaSindoni
8. CriticalMultimodalStudiesofPopularDiscourse
EditedbyEmiliaDjonovandSuminZhao
9. FilmDiscourseInterpretation
TowardsaNewParadigmforMultimodalFilmAnalysis
JaninaWildfeuer
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Film Discourse Interpretation
Towards a New Paradigm for
Multimodal Film Analysis
JaninaWildfeuer
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Firstpublished2014
byRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUK
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
(cid:2)c 2014Taylor&Francis
TherightofJaninaWildfeuertobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyherinaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,Designs
andPatentsAct1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilizedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,nowknown
orhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinanyinforma-
tionstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers.
TrademarkNotice
:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered
trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintentto
infringe.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Wildfeuer,Janina,1984-
Film discourse interpretation: towards a new paradigm for multimodal film
analysis/JaninaWildfeuer.
pagescm.–(RoutledgeStudiesinMultimodality;#9)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1. Motion pictures and language. 2. Motion pictures—Philosophy. 3. Motion
pictures—Semiotics.4.Discourseanalysis.5.Modality(Linguistics) I.Title.
PN1995.4.W552013
791.4301–dc23
2013017446
ISBN:978-0-415-84115-3(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-76662-0(ebk)
TypesetinPalatino
bytheauthor,JaninaWildfeuer
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This publication was handed in as a dissertation to the PhD Commit-
teefortheDegreeofDoctorofPhilosophyatBremenUniversity,Germany.
Academicsupervisor:Prof.JohnA.Bateman
Academicsupervisor:Prof.WolfgangWildgen
ThecolloquiumtookplaceonJune26,2012.
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 MakingSenseofFilm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 InvestigatingFilmicTextuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 ExploringFilmicNarrative. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4 TowardstheLogicofFilmDiscourseInterpretation . . . . 14
1.5 OrganisationoftheBook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 TheLogicofFilmDiscourseInterpretation 21
2.1 RelationalMeaning-MakinginFilm . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2 ModelofAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2.1 The Analytical Vocabulary for Multimodal Film
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.2.2 TheFormalFrameworkforFilmDiscourseAnalysis 36
2.2.3 TheLogicalFormofDiscourseSegments . . . . . . 53
2.2.4 TheExperimentalSetofFilmDiscourseRelations . 59
2.2.5 TheSyntaxforSegmentedFilmDiscourseRepresen-
tationStructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.2.6 GlueLanguageandDiscourseUpdateinFilmicDis-
course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.3 ConclusionofChapter2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3 Analysis 87
3.1 TheLivesofOthers(2006) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.1.1 SummaryoftheExtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.1.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.1.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.2 VanillaSky(2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
3.2.1 SummaryoftheExtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.2.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.2.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.3 Ame´lie(2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.3.1 SummaryoftheExtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.3.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.3.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
3.4 RequiemforaDream(2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
3.4.1 SummaryoftheExtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
3.4.2 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
3.4.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
3.5 ConclusionofChapter3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
vi
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Contents vii
4 MultimodalNarrativeConstructioninFilmicText 167
4.1 TheFunctionalFrameworkforMultimodalFilmAnalysis 170
4.2 TheStrataofFilmDiscourseInterpretation . . . . . . . . . 178
4.2.1 IntersemioticMeaningConstructioninFilmicDis-
course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
4.2.2 MetafunctionalDiversification . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
4.2.3 KnowledgeSourcesforBuildingLogicalForms . . 186
4.2.4 Summary:AStratificationalViewofFilmicLogical
Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
4.3 TheNarrativeLogicofFilmInterpretation . . . . . . . . . 192
4.4 Towards a Paradigmatic Organisation of Film Discourse
Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
4.5 Conclusion:CommonSenseinMultimodalFilmAnalysis. 200
5 ConclusionsandOutlook 202
5.1 AMethodforConstructingLogicalFormsofFilmicDis-
course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
5.2 TowardsNewPerspectivesofAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . 204
5.3 TowardsBridgingtheGapsinFilmTheory . . . . . . . . . 207
5.4 MovingontoaComprehensiveFilmTheory . . . . . . . . 210
A Transcriptions 212
A.1 WORDS(Everynone,2010) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
A.2 TheLivesofOthers(HenckelvonDonnersmarck,2006) . . 227
A.3 VanillaSky(Crowe,2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
A.4 Ame´lie(Jeunet,2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
A.5 RequiemforaDream(Aronofsky,2000) . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Filmography 265
Bibliography 266
Index 274
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1 Introduction
“Notthesmallestadvancecanbemadeinknowledge
beyondthestageofvacantstaring,withoutmakingan
abductionateverystep.”(Peirce,HartshorneandWeiss
1979:8.238)
Thisbookprovidesaframeworkforthesystematicexaminationoffilmin-
terpretationfromalinguisticperspective.Itaimsatadetaileddescription
ofhowcoherenceandstructureastextualqualitiesoffilmguidetherecip-
ients’meaning-makingprocessduringreceptionandevokeinterpretive
inferencesasthegroundingelementsofnarrativecomprehension.
Meaninginfilmarisesoutofthemultipleinteractionofvariousmodali-
tiessuchasimages,sounds,music,gestures,cameraeffects,etc.,which
arestringedtogetherbyfilmeditinginachronological,linearorder.The
interplayofthemodalitiesresultsinanarrativetextwhosecomprehen-
sionandinterpretationrequiresthespectator’sactiveparticipation.Asa
dynamicallyunfoldingdiscourse,thecombinationsofresourceschange
intimeandspaceandcontinuallyproducemeaningfulsequenceswhich
havetobeanalysedduringtheirprogression.Thisanalysisisinthesame
waydynamicandprogressiveinthatittriestofindconnectionsbetween
filmicdevicesandtoconstructtheunfoldingdiscoursestructureofthe
textbymeansofinferencesandabductivereasoning.Filminterpretation
isthusanactiveprocessofrelationalmeaning-makingandinferringits
propositionalcontentintermsofassumptionsandhypotheses,whichthe
recipientmakesaccordingtoconcretecueswithinthetext.
Contemporaryapproachestofilmanalysishavenotyetsucceededin
systematicallydefininganddescribinghowfilmicdevicesareintersemi-
oticallycombinedtonarrativestructures.Thisbookinvestigatesexactly
how this interpretation process takes place with regard to the overall
coherence of the text. On the basis of recent theories in functional and
formaldiscoursesemantics,itassumesacertainlogicoffilmdiscourseinter-
pretationwhich,ontheonehand,takesinferentialstrategiesanddefeasible
reasoningasafundamentformakingmeaning,but,ontheotherhand,
offersdistinctconstraintstocontroltheinterpretation.Therefore,thisbook
developsamethodforconstructingthelogicalformoffilmicdiscourse
whichgivesevidenceforthefilm’sstructureandcoherenceandelucidates
theideaofitsgeneraltextuality.
Thenotionoffilmastexttodaycanbeseenasanewstartingpointfor
investigation that bridges the gap between general approaches to film
interpretation on the one hand and modern linguistic analysis of how
meaninginmultimodaltextsiscreatedontheother.Whereastraditional
1
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