How films are patterns of interrelated signs

Authors note: This was written for a university assignment. The only changes made are fixing one grammatical error and the opening sentence note referencing the question asked by the lecturer. Hope you enjoy!

This essay will discuss how films are patterns of interrelated signs constructed by the filmmaker to guide the viewer through the narrative. This statement looks to analyse the visual tools a filmmaker can utilise in order to convey a meaningful and rich story using semiotics, the study of visual signs and their meanings.

Two of the ways to understand a visual text is through signifier which is the physical object an audience sees and signified which is the information an audience extrapolates from seeing it.

These can be further categorised into Icon, Indices and Symbols (Wollen, 1969:) which helps to look more deeply at the visual medium. Icon means that what is shown on screen is what it is. The example used by Wollen is that of a portrait of a man. It is something that resembles what it looks to depict. Index is the information that is fed to an audience based on the icon. If the audience sees a big man in a leather jacket with tattoos, scars and muscles then it is assumed that the man must be scary and threatening. The third category is symbols and this relates to the abstract elements of a sign. This relates to an audience’s knowledge of the signs and is also what leads to differing opinions. It is heavily tied to a viewers own understanding of what is being seen and creates a very personal point of view of the mise-en-scène. Red to one person may mean the character is full of rage yet to another person is means that character is full of passion.

Units of meaning are another form of signifier and signified and is when a filmmaker adds in small pieces of information to create a 3-dimensional character instead of just a blank slate (Edgar et al., 2010). It is the act of using dialogue, actions, wardrobe and more to contextualise the depiction of someone for an audience’s understanding.

Actions as a unit of meaning usually equates to a character’s moral code and what their view is on consequentialism, which is the branch of ethics looking at how the morality of a decision should be judged, based on the consequences of the actions taken. (Consequentialism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2019).

Ethan hunt in Mission Impossible: Fallout (McQuarry, 2018) has to decide between saving an injured police officer, blowing his cover, or to let the police officer die, keeping Hunt safe. If he lets the police officer die it tells the audience he is a man who will do whatever it takes in order to get the job done with an ‘ends justify the means’ mentality such as Ozymandias in Watchmen (Snyder, 2009) who is willing to kill thousands to save millions. Instead Ethan saves the cop showing that his moral code is that of ethical altruism where he puts other peoples ‘happiness’, or in this case life, above his own. This simple action shows the audience exactly what type of person Ethan Hunt is.

In Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992) the director uses the diner scene to tell us about Mr. Pink who refuses to tip, unlike the rest of the gang. This shows he doesn’t care about others. This attitude is what gets him the diamonds at the end of the film as his want for the diamonds outweighs his want to help the rest of the team. This subtle bit of dialogue sets up his personality, motivations, and moral code as well as being a humorous and memorable moment in the film.

How a character presents themselves tells the audience a lot about them. Do they wear expensive pieces of clothing designed to showcase an extravagant lifestyle or are they spending the story in a tattered and dirtied potato sack?

The Fisher King (Gilliam, 1991) uses costuming effectively for Robin Williams character throughout. He starts off homeless which is shown through the clothes he wears which is dirty and unappealing. However later on in the film he dawns a white suit that makes him look more approachable and cleaner. This is all done to tell the audience not just who he is but also shows a form of transition.

Denotation and connotation is a deeper utilisation of signifier and signified. Denotation is an object and connotation is what the object implies. For example, a gun denotes a gun ie it is what it is however the connotation is that of violence. If a character takes out a gun then the connotation is that someone will get shot with it. The rose in Beauty and the Beast (Tousdale, Wise, 1991) denotes a flower and connotes love.

Metaphors are used to give an object meaning through its connection to another object or idea. The film 2046 (Kar-Wai, 2004) uses the stories, about a man who falls in love with a robot who he can never truly be with, as a metaphor for the emotional affair the characters are having with each other. The metaphor tells the audience about the film whilst also being visually stunning.

Metonymy looks to take a concept and make it into a short and digestible word or phrase. For example, saying “Hollywood” is used as a metonym for the film industry. An extension of Metonymy is Synecdoche where one small person or object represent a much larger and broader person, object or theme. For example, the film parasite (Joon-Ho, 2019) utilises synecdoche as it uses the rich family to represent the upper classes and the main characters represent the lower classes. It uses the synecdoche of the characters to discuss a larger theme of classism.

The five codes (Barthes, 1975) was devised as a way to look at the relationship that mise-en-scène, character, dialogue and shot composition has with an audiences understanding of a story. The five codes are enigma, connotative, action, symbolic and cultural. These are all similar yet distinctive elements which enhance the audiences understanding of a text.

The enigma code is used to full effect during The Thing (Carpenter, 1982) during the scene where they burn the blood. The characters, along with the viewer, don’t know who the shapeshifter is and so the tension rises. All that is known is there is a creature in the room, and it will be revealed soon however the questions of “Who is it? When will it be revealed? Are the characters able to kill the creature?” still linger. These active questions are what make the scene rich with mystery and horror.

The proairetic code states that tension can be built by the action of the characters in a scene. If a swordsman draws their blade and points it at another character then tension is being built by the action of the blade instead of a mystery since the audience knows what has happened and there is an obvious implication of what will happen next. An example of this is in The Departed (Scorcese, 2006) where Jack Nicholson’s character takes out a gun to threaten Leonardo DiCaprio. The audience knows that DiCaprio is an undercover cop and there is a constant tension around whether or not he’ll be discovered, so the moment that a gun is taken out puts the audience on edge as to whether or not the gun will be used.

Connotative is what gives a character or setting meaning through items such as clothing, gestures, speech or movement. It suggests a character’s status not through the story they are thrown into but rather how they act during the story. Gatsby (Fitzgerald, 1925) throws massive parties in a huge mansion which connotes money and power whilst George Wilson lives in an ashy and grey flat above a garage which connotes he does not have much, if any, wealth to his name.

The symbolic code is when the audience grasp a simple idea like good and evil through easy-to read mise-en-scène, costuming and other visual elements. In Star Wars (Lucas, 1977) the audience immediately knows that Darth Vader is a villain when he is first shown. This is done through his costuming being dark, tall and menacing as well as him being surrounded by imperial stormtroopers. These small bits of information are used to symbolically show the audience that Darth Vader is not only a bad person but also a force to be reckoned with.

The cultural code discusses how a text uses an audience’s knowledge of their own culture to connect to the film. It is a very common code in modern film and tv with the rise of ‘nerd culture’ where media constantly repeats moments from the past in order to garner a positive reaction from fans of the referenced content. For example, the rise of spoof films such as Superhero Movie (Mazin, 2008) uses references to popular films at the time for comedic effect, however these jokes would only make sense to an audience who has seen the cultural aspects being parodied.

To conclude, Films are indeed patterns of interrelated signs that guides a viewer through a narrative. This is shown by the different methods detailed above which includes semiotics, unit of meaning, denotation and connotation, metaphor, metonym and the 5 codes. By looking at and analysing the different visual motifs it is shown that filmmakers use full use of the frame for the viewer to look at and understand the broader story of not just the plot being told but also of the individual characters and world.

Written by Stewart McConnell

Bibliography

Barthes, R., Miller, R., & Howard, R. (1975, January 1). S/Z: An Essay. Hill and Wang.

Edgar, R., Marland, J., & Rawle, S. (2010, June 4). Basics Film-Making 04: The Language of Film (First Edition). AVA Publishing.

Fitzgerald, S. F. (1925, January 1). The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition. Chump Change.

Wollen, Peter (1969) Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. London: Secker & Warburg/BFI

Consequentialism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) (2019): [online] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/ [abgerufen am 04.10.2022].

Films mentioned

Beauty and the Beast. 1991. [film] Directed by G. Trousdale, Kirk Wise. United States: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

The Departed. (2006) [film] Directed by M. Scorcese. United States: Warner Bros.

The Fisher King. 1991. [film] Directed by T. Gilliam. United States: Tri-Star Pictures

The Grand Budapest Hotel. (2014. [film] Directed by W. Anderson. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Inception. 2010 [film] Directed by C. Nolan. United States: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Mission Impossible: Fallout. 2018. [film] Directed by C. McQuarry. United States: Paramount.

Parasite. 2019. [film] Directed by B. Joon-Ho. Korea: CJ Entertainment.

Reservoir Dogs. 1992. [film] Directed by Q. Tarantino. United States: Miramax Films

Star Wars. 1977 [film] Directed by G. Lucas. United States: 20th Century Fox.

Superhero Movie. (2008) [film] Directed by C. Mazin. United States: Dimension Films.

The Thing. 1982. [film] Directed by J Carpenter. United States: Universal Pictures

Tokyo!. (2008) [film] Directed by L. Carax, M. Gondry, B. Joon-Ho. France: Liberation Entertainment.