Sacha-Samuel Debard Film, Language and Meaning: a Linguistic Approach to Understanding Filmic Meaning ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEBARD Sacha-Samuel. Film, Language and Meaning: a Linguistic Approach to Understanding Filmic Meaning, sous la direction de Denis Jamet. - Lyon: Université Jean Moulin (Lyon 3), 2018. Mémoire soutenu le 25/06/2018. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Document diffusé sous le contrat Creative Commons « Paternité – pas d’utilisation commerciale - pas de modification » : vous êtes libre de le reproduire, de le distribuer et de le communiquer au public à condition d’en mentionner le nom de l’auteur et de ne pas le modifier, le transformer, l’adapter ni l’utiliser à des fins commerciales. Master Langues Littératures et Cultures Étrangères et Régionales : Études Anglophones 2017-2018 Sacha-Samuel DEBARD Mémoire réalisé sous la direction de Monsieur le Professeur Denis JAMET I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Prof. Denis Jamet of the English department at Université Jean Moulin Lyon III. The door to Prof. Jamet’s office was always open whenever I faced some issues or had a question about my research or writing. He consistently allowed this paper to be my own work, but steered me in the right direction whenever he thought I needed it. This thesis would not have been possible if I had not met Stéphane Charrière, my former film analysis teacher and present editor-in-chief, who taught me how to consider cinema with a critical eye. I am grateful to Friar Emmanuel-Marie for the numerous tips and methods he gave me to sharpen my discernment and improve my focus, especially during the early stages. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues, especially Christophe Coupé and Agathe Peragin who were there at the genesis of this thesis and have provided, in many ways, their support during the writing of my thesis. Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my family, who has been supporting me from the very beginning of this thesis, and is still supporting me. Sacha-Samuel Debard II III TABLE OF CONTENT 0. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 1 1. LINGUISTIC THEORIES ON CINEMA .............................................................................................. 5 1.1 Film Theory in the 20th Century ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.1.1 The ideological approach .................................................................................................................. 5 1.1.2 Modern and Cognitive Film Theories .......................................................................................... 8 1.2 First Modern and Cognitive approaches on film. ...................................................................................... 9 1.2.1 Metz and the Grande Syntagmatique ............................................................................................ 9 1.2.2 Cognitive Film Theory ..................................................................................................................... 13 1.2.3 Transformational Generative Grammar and Film ............................................................... 17 1.3 Enunciation and Multimodality ..................................................................................................................... 20 1.3.1 Filmic Enunciation ............................................................................................................................ 20 1.3.2 Multimodality ..................................................................................................................................... 29 2 METHODOLOGY AND CORPUS ...................................................................................................... 39 2.1 Methodology : main factors ............................................................................................................................. 39 2.1.1 Diegesis, Fabula, Syuzhet and Deixis ......................................................................................... 39 2.1.2 Relevance and cognitive activity................................................................................................. 41 2.1.3 References to other arts and references to cinema ............................................................ 43 2.2 The hexadimensional pattern (6-dimension pattern) ......................................................................... 45 2.2.1 First Dimension: the shot ............................................................................................................... 45 2.2.2 Second dimension: the frame ....................................................................................................... 49 2.2.3 Third dimension: the montage .................................................................................................... 55 2.2.4 Fourth dimension: the sequence ................................................................................................ 60 2.2.5 Fifth dimension: film in co-text ................................................................................................... 63 2.2.6 Sixth dimension: film in context ................................................................................................. 65 IV 2.3 Corpus: Twin Peaks .............................................................................................................................................. 69 2.3.1 Context ................................................................................................................................................... 69 2.3.2 Main Plot ............................................................................................................................................... 70 3 CORPUS ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................ 77 3.1 Twin Peaks, the original series ....................................................................................................................... 77 3.1.1 Opening credits .................................................................................................................................. 77 3.1.2 Establishing the universe: deixis and conventions in season one ................................ 78 3.1.3 Extending the genre: the supernatural in season two ....................................................... 84 3.2 Twin Peaks : Fire Walk with me .................................................................................................................... 91 3.2.1 Opening credits .................................................................................................................................. 91 3.2.2 Expanding the universe in part one: Theresa Banks .......................................................... 92 3.2.3 Supernatural in the syuzhet: Philip Jeffries ............................................................................ 94 3.2.4 Uncovering the unknown in part two: Laura Palmer ......................................................... 97 3.3 Twin Peaks: The Return ................................................................................................................................... 101 3.3.1 Waiting for The Return: the written works ..........................................................................101 3.3.2 Twenty-five years later: the opening sequence ..................................................................102 3.3.3 Back to Twin Peaks: the pilot ......................................................................................................104 3.3.4 Electricity, childhood and David Lynch: the recurring themes ....................................107 4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 113 5 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................... 117 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................................. 127 7 APPENDIX ......................................................................................................................................... 131 8 INDEX ................................................................................................................................................. 133 1 0. INTRODUCTION Through millennia, the evolution of language has permitted humanity to communicate ideas and concepts to posterity. While the oral transmission faced many shortcomings, submitted to the mental capacities and the life expectancies of the individuals, the written mode quickly became the best guarantee for the posterity. The early modes of writing were mimetic, pictograms, whose signifier and signified were the same: the picture of a buffalo signified a buffalo. Then, the evolution of language became more abstract, to the extent of making minimal units (alphabet) whose organization made words (signifiers)