The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies Author(s): Stephen Prince Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 16-28 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1213106 . Accessed: 18/02/2014 15:36

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Stephen Prince

The Discourse of Pictures

Iconicity and Film Studies

I n its analysis of images, film theorysince studies as a discipline has tended to frame questions the 1970s has been deeply indebtedto structuralistand about visual meaningand communication. Saussurean-derivedlinguistic models. Indeed, it would Our purpose here is to examine some of these be difficult to overstate the depth and importanceof consequencesand to see how well they squarewith the thisrelationship. As RobertStam has noted,"Semiotics observableevidence about how viewers perceive and in general, and film semiotics in particular,must be comprehendcinematic sequences. We will see that seen.., as local manifestationsof a more widespread currentfilm theory, tracingits lineage from Saussure, linguistic turn."' To speak, for example, about "read- Althusser,and Lacan,has constructedaccounts of the ing" a film, as many film analystsnow do, irrespective ways in which film transmits meaning that are, in of the critical methodology employed to generatethe certain importantrespects, counter to the observable reading, is to index and emphasize this lineage. Like skills, abilities, and reactions of real-worldviewers. books, films are regarded as texts for reading by The viewer, as theorized in these accounts, differs viewers or critics, with the concomitant implication substantiallyfrom his/her real-worldcounterpart. We thatsuch reading activates similar processes of semiotic shallemphasize some of these discrepanciesin orderto decoding. suggest a reorientationof theoreticalfocus. In short,a But does it? To what extent are linguistic models renewed attention to the iconic, mimetic nature of appropriatefor an understandingof how images com- pictorialsigns is warranted,so thatour theoriesmight municate?Film theory since the 1970s has tended to become more sensitive to the unique, constitutive place great emphasis upon what is regarded as the featuresof pictorial-as opposedto linguistic-modes arbitrarynature of the signifier-signifiedrelationship, of communication.(It is importantto note that other that is, upon the purely conventional and symbolic currentsexist in contemporaryfilm theory.Pier Paolo aspect of signs. Whatthis focus has tendedto displace Pasolini and PeterWollen, for example, have offered is an appreciationof the iconic and mimetic aspect of analyses of cinematic signs that are inflected rather certain categories of signs, namely pictorial signs, differentlythan the Saussurean-inspiredaccounts that those most relevantto an understandingof the cinema. this essay examines.2More than20 years ago, Wollen This stressupon the arbitrarynature of semioticcoding stressed the importance of paying attention to the has had enormous consequences for the way film iconic aspectof pictorialsigns. Borrowingfrom Charles

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Peirce's triadic model of the sign, he argued that in images was to open the way for a utilizationof the ideal cinema, iconic and indexical aspects are more power- of differencein cinematicsignification."3 Stressing the ful thansymbolic, andhe pointedout thatsemiologists signifier as a differential construction enabled film have neglectedthe subjectof iconic signs becausethey theoryto emphasizecommunication as discourse,as a are biased in favor of conceptionsof signs as arbitrary culture-boundactivity, relative to and differentially and symbolic.) patternedby the uniquesocial worldsof diversegroups Let me state very clearly at the outset that this of interactants.Signs, whetherlinguistic or cinematic, suggested reorientationis not intendedas a substitute were viewed as culturallyinstantiated: "Sign systems for the very real and necessary work on the role that don't producemeaning outside of the social and cul- cultureplays in film spectatorshipand interpretation. turalcontext from which they have developed."' Culture-boundattitudes do indeed inflect the content This conceptof the sign enabledtheorists to expli- of film narratives,along with their stylistic visualiza- cate many aspects of cinematic coding, from discrete tion, at the point of productionand, again, throughthe optical devices like dissolves or wipes to more com- inferences viewers draw from those narratives.The plex structuressuch as shot/reverse-shotcutting, sub- position this essay takes is not intended as a replace- jective images, and other aspects of point-of-view menteither for the criticalwork of ideological analysis editing. Viewing these devices as symbolic codes and interpretation,or for inquiries into how viewers' permittedtheorists to emphasize the constructionof judgementsabout the natureof a social worlddepicted cinematicdiscourse, that is, the deploymentin film of in film may be shapedby elements of cinematicstruc- an elaboratesemiotic system whose address, and ef- ture. But, in the interest of conducting this kind of fects, could be comprehensible in Althusserian- interpretivework, it is importantto have a clear sense Lacanianterms as the interpellationof subjects.Using of wherecultural variables do and do not enterinto the a symbol system like language, in this view, entails productionof meaning by the cinematic image. Only being positioned-socially, ideologically-in and by when we have a good understandingof those aspectsof the categories which that system has helped create. visual significationwhere culture plays a less determi- Thus film, like language,could be comprehensibleas native role are we likely to be able to constructa clear discourse, as the creationof apparentmeaning where portraitof where it does play a role. Thus, this essay only true relations of difference prevail (due to the certainly does not argue against the role of cultural arbitrarynature of the sign andthe consequentneed for analysis in film interpretation,but it does attemptto it to receive definitiononly in relationto whatit is not, suggest some reasons for caution when employing i.e., to all othersigns). As Althusserand Lacan (and the linguistic categories and models of culturalrelativism film theory they inspired) emphasized, these decep- in film analysis.It is not thatthere are no cases in which tively real constellationsof apparentlyfixed meaning they might profitablybe applied, but ratherthat there could be an excellent site for ideology and for imagi- are some significantaspects of visual communication nary conceptions of the self to take root. Viewed as to which they probablyshould not be applied. discourse, cinema assumed a symbiotic relationship with ideology, becoming an effective vehicle for its transmission.The workof film theorybecame increas- The Linguistic Turn ingly focused on deciphering the ideology at work in Contemporary inside the cinema's deceptive and transparentappear- ance of reality.That appearance of realitywas, further- Film Studies more, suspect for having ideological effects (e.g., naturalizingthat which is historical or cultural,etc.) To it will to trace begin, help briefly the andfor creating ideal andfalse subjectunities.5 Viewed linguisticinfluence on contemporaryfilm theory,after in these terms,film historyis the historyof discourse, which we may questionwhether it suppliesan adequate and the relationbetween film and the worldis a matter accountof images or even, in certaincrucial respects, of representationalconvention. As StephenHeath has of language itself. It is well known that Saussure's written,"That reality, the match of film and world, is account of the sign as having an arbitrary and a matterof representation,and representation is in turn unmotivatedconnection between its structuralcompo- a matterof discourse.... [I]n this sense at least, film is nents has been directlytaken over by many film theo- a series of languages,a history of rists. As codes."'6 Philip Rosen has pointed out, "One effect of Furthermore,an emphasis upon differential and the argumentfor the basic conventionalityof cinematic relationalsignifiers has entailed a denial, or, at best a

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions suspicion,of reference.If signs arearbitrarily related to trary and, taken in isolation, meaningless unit has what they represent,then meaning is at best provi- allowed currenttheory to constructan extended anal- sional, at worst illusory or ideological. Representation ogy withlanguage. Although no one anylonger searches which is non-arbitrarytends to be construedby film for the filmic equivalentof such linguistic featuresas theory in terms of a relationshipof identity between the period or the comma, the debt to Saussureanlin- sign and referent, thus generating a dichotomy of guistics is apparentin the axioms thatthe connections arbitrariness/identity.Semiotic representationis either between cinematicrepresentation and the worldare, in a matterof arbitrarycoding or of identityand transpar- all importantrespects, a matterof historicalor cultural ence, with the latter condition being construednega- coding and convention,that is, that filmic representa- tively in termsof illusion anderror. Identity is regarded tion is a matterof symbolic ratherthan iconic coding as a deceptively false universal, as a part of what is andthat a viewer,rather than perceiving a film,"reads" it. sometimes called the ideology of the visual. "Reading encounters the text as a relation of difference not identity."' Taken a step further, this view regards Problems empirical knowledge about the world as being thor- with oughly mediated by signs, as itself discourse. "The Linguistic Relativity empirical . . . is not 'the real' but the productof the discoursesof the dominantideology."'8 Since the "real" We shall explore some discrepanciesbe- embodiesthe false universalsof ideology, the relations tween these axioms andthe observableevidence about among cinematic signifiers tend to be seen as cultural how viewers perceive and process cinematic images. (and therefore symbolic), rather than as iconic or First, however, it will be helpful to discuss some mimetic. The spectator'sunderstanding of the cinema reservationsregarding the alleged arbitrarinessof the is thereforeexplained as a matterof culturalcondition- linguistic sign and the uses to which film studies has ing and learning. "The spectatorchains together the put this concept.As Devitt and Sterelnyhave recently film's signifierson a culturalgrid of intelligibility-an pointedout, emphasizingthe sign as a relationalentity, ensemble of assumptions and presuppositionsabout defined through relations of difference, presents a the 'real'-into an accountthat makes the film socially problemfor meaning."1This emphasisfails to specify intelligible."'9 how meaningmay ariseor even how lexical borrowing Note the assumptionshere. Language imposes a from otherlanguage systems may occur. When speak- system of relationaldistinctions upon the world,creat- ers borrowterms from another language, they areoften ing culture from the real. One makes entry into lan- doing so in responseto a perceptionthat some thing or guage, or, in Lacanianterms, into the Symbolic order, conditionexists thatneeds a name, althoughat present learningthe culturallypatterned distinctions and, in the it has none or is insufficiently labeled. In such a case, process,being interpellatedas a subject.Film is akinto linguistic skills are deployed in response to non- or languageby virtueof employingrelational, differential extra-linguisticperceptions, a conditionwhich models signifiers.Comprehension of the cinema, then, should of linguistic determinismhave a hardtime accounting likewise be predicated upon cultural conditioning, for. Furthermore,rejecting reference, as Saussurean the upon apprehensionof "culturalgrids of intelligibil- models do, mystifies language acquisition. ity." But, as we will see, the spectator'sunderstanding In a Saussureanview, where meaning is defined of cinematic images seems more immediately expli- throughrelations of difference(e.g., JonathanCuller's cable in terms of mimetic, referentialcoding rather well-known view that understandingthe color brown than via the chains of displaced, arbitrary,and rela- entails graspingthe relationbetween brown and what tional meaning in prevailingtheories. In other words, it is not, i.e., all othercolors), it is difficult to see how this is more a understanding matterof recognitionthan a child ever learns language. As Devitt and Sterelny translation.We will return to this point. Moreover, note, "Wewant to say thata child begins by learninga iconic is representation appropriatelyunderstood in minimal vocabularyand a few rudimentarysyntactic termsof of degrees resemblancerather than the all-or- rules.The child continuesby extendingthese rules.On termsof arbitrarinessor nothing identicality.A photo- a structuralistpicture of language,we cannotsay this. for exhibitsa graph, example, higherdegree of iconicity Vocabularydoes notremain constant across changes in than a line drawing. the system. Each time the child changes the system, in film to Transposed theory units of cinematic everythingchanges. Language learning cannot be repre- structure,the Saussureanview of the sign as an arbi- sented as a cumulativeprocess.""

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Partof the problemhere is thatto specify meaning, to designatelocally importantattributes, such as snow one at times has to step outside the language system, for an arcticcommunity. In suggestingthat representa- and poststructuralmethodologies have been most un- tional images, like other texts, rely upon culturally willing to posit the possibility of doing this. In many determined codes, Nichols, for example, has em- accounts, one cannot get outside representationat all ployed this notion of linguistic relativity,writing that because it is, by definition, determinativeof human "to not know the perceptualcodes maintainedby a thought and experience. It is commonly maintained given cultureis tantamountto being an illiterateinfant that "thereis no absolutemoment withoutsigns, with- wandering through an unintelligible world. (An ex- out language,without, in other words, a whole host of ample would be the utterinability of most membersof mediations between seeing, experience, and knowl- non-Eskimocultures to distinguishthe dozens of dif- edge."12 StephenHeath has noted thatthe referentsof ferentkinds of snow for which the Eskimohas separate cinematicimages exist only in discourse,as represen- words).""8Analogously, Mas'ud Zavarzadehhas as- tationsalready constituted by historyand culture. "The serted that "we understandcolors not because we representeda discourseproduces is grasped,realized, respondto them directly throughour sensory organs, exists as such in the particulardiscursive process of but because the responses of our sensory organs are representation,and it is this that needs first and fore- made meaningful for us by the language. Different most to be interrogated."13 languages make sense of this physical continuumin " This view-that pictorialrepresentations and, be- startlinglydifferent and dissimilarways .... 19 yond them, patternsof humanand social organization In contrastto the Whorf-Sapirhypothesis, how- are the expressions of discursive relations and posi- ever, a classic crossculturalstudy of color terminology tions-is a reformulationof the famous Whorf-Sapir found respondentsplotting the same range of basic hypothesis which suggested that radically different colors on a Munsell color chart irrespective of the language systems might organize the world in unique labels furnishedby their culture.20Experimental data ways for their users. The Whorf-Sapirhypothesis is a were obtainedfrom speakersof 20 languagesand were statementof extreme linguistic relativity,arguing for supplementedwith historicalinformation on 78 addi- the influence of features of linguistic organization tional languages. The researchersfound a universal upon the perceptual habits of a community. It is a inventoryof 11 basic color categories across all lan- relativisticview because it arguesagainst the possibil- guages studied and a fixed evolutionary sequence ity of semanticor perceptualuniversals. As languages governing the order in which languages added new vary, so do the realities they construct.The Whorf- basic color categories. Writing that the allegation of Sapir hypothesis has been a very seductive and influ- arbitrarinessin the way languages segment the color ential one for film studies. Bill Nichols has noted the spectrumis "a gross overstatement,"the researchers relevance of this hypothesis for poststructuralfilm concludedthat "thereferents for the basic color terms theory. "Post-structuralistwork does not regard lan- of all languagesappear to be drawnfrom a set of eleven guage or, by extension, film as the neutralmeans by universal perceptualcategories, and these categories which we understandourselves, others,and our world. become encoded in the history of a given language in Rather, it draws on versions of the Whorf-Sapirhy- a partiallyfixed order.There appears to be no evidence pothesis, which describes a world constructedin, by, to indicatethat differences in complexityof basic color and throughlanguage."'14 lexicons between one language and another reflect BenjaminLee Whorf's study of Indianlanguages perceptualdifferences between the speakersof those led him to emphasize how different languages may languages."21 Different languages can make more or segment the world for theircommunity of speakersin fewer distinctionsaccording to environmentalor cul- divergent ways.15There are some data to support a turalneeds but cannotoverride the biological basis of limited view of this hypothesis.16 Languageundoubt- color perception. edly does modulate our experience of the world. Yet The evidencefurnished by Berlinand Kay on color thereis little evidence to supportthe extremerelativity terminology fails to support the extreme linguistic of the Whorfianview (i.e., that language determines relativity hypothesis that has been so influential for both thoughtand perception)and some clear evidence film studies, and suggests instead the importanceof to counter it.17 Advocates of linguistic relativity, or retaininga conceptof referentialityoutside language to discourse relativity, often supporttheir position with which language may respond.This example can be a reference to color terminology, i.e., to the fact that heuristic one for film theory. Reopening a space for differentcultures have varyingnumbers of color terms principlesof referentialityand iconicity could be a very

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions useful development, enabling our theories to move Despite these objections,Metz neverthelesswent on to closer to observable real-world evidence about how explorefilm structureasparole, in termsof a taxonomy viewers understandthe cinema. Thus, with respect to of segment types. pictures,film theorymight ask if thereis a nonlinguistic, If cinematic meaning is to be developed from a even biological, basis on which visual communication theoreticalbasis originatingwith a Saussureanconcep- might rest. Investigation of this question may help tion of the relativityof the sign, film theorysometimes provide a more secure sense of the methodological seems a little imprecise about the functional and at limits constrainingthe equation of cinema with dis- times invariantnature of communicationalrules. As course. JulianHochberg has recently made this point, noted, film theorytends to view cuttingpatterns, cam- noting, "only when we know where the line lies that era positions, even perspectivally based images as separates ... lower, mandatory cognitive processes culturally relative yet syntactically precise conven- from the higher, elective functions, can we sensibly tions. But, with respect to language (and perceptual formulate explanations-linguistic, psychoanalytic, images), Noam Chomsky points out that "havingac- and so on-that rest on culturaldetermination."22 quired the system of language, the person can (in One final point to note about the concepts of principle)choose to use it or not, as he can choose to linguistic relativityand arbitrarinessoperative in cur- keep to or disregardhis judgements concerning the rent film theory is the extent to which accounts of the position of objects in space. He cannotchoose to have cinema as discourse, analogized with language, con- sentencesmean other than what they do, any morethan structthe analogybased on limitedfeatures rather than he can choose to have objects distributedin perceptual seeing language in more comprehensive terms. The space otherwise than the way they are."25 In other linguist CharlesHockett, for example, seeking to dis- words, if the assumptionsof the Saussurianview, as tinguishhuman language from animal systems of com- applied to pictures, are correct, we should find more munication, formulated a set of 13 design features crossculturalvariation on basic picture recognition uniquely characterizinghuman language.23 Arbitrari- tasks than we in fact do. We will explore this point in ness of the sign was only one of them, and many of the more detail shortly. others, such as prevarication,displacement, and ab- stractness,point to clear differencesbetween the com- municational capabilities of language and pictures, Visual Grammar or suggestingthat analogies with languagemay not be the Narrative Context? best way of explicatingpictorial communication. The design feature of displacement,for example, denotes Chomsky's observationraises the issue of the capability of the language-systemto create mes- grammaticality,which should be centralto questions that sages refer to a time and space outside of the aboutwhether film structureoperates like a language. immediate communicational situation. Pictures, by As noted,Metz's presentationis somewhatambiguous contrast,lack tense and otheraspects of syntaxthat can with respectto grammaticality,but this is an issue that be used to establish remote temporalor spatialcondi- cannot easily be avoided for accounts that seek to tions (the dissolves, wipes, and odd music used to analogize film and language. Film theory has identi- flashbacks in signal Hollywood narrativesare a less fied a number of syntactic elements (e.g., point-of- and flexible powerful means of approximatingthis view editing employing perspectivallybased images, ability).Furthermore, as several scholarshave pointed suture) which are thought to operate as codes with out, pictures cannot express negatives.24 These and discernibleeffects across a range of individualfilms, other differencesbetween pictorial and linguistic mes- thus constitutinga kind of cinematicgrammar. But the toward sages point distinctly different communica- test of ungrammaticality is not often applied (that is, tional modalities. Christian Interestingly, Metz also judgements about the syntactic correctness of given noted some of these fundamental distinctions between filmic constructions). The most thorough and complete and modes of linguistic pictorial communication. He exploration of the application of linguistic principles to out pointed that cinema lacks the double level of problems of film structure is found in the work of John structure in the language (i.e., morphemic and phone- Carroll, who has sought to apply Chomskian transfor- mic and is a levels) one-way system of communication, mational-generative grammar to the cinema.26 unlike where senders and receivers are inter- language, Carroll identifies a series of principles underlying and he that changeable, concluded, therefore, the con- cinema grammar violations of which ostensibly consti- of a is cept language probably inapplicable to film. tute cinematic equivalents of grammatical errors and 20

This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions allegedly give rise to sequencesthat viewers will judge with its conventional usage to bracket and separate to be confusing or unfilmic. These are essentially sections of the narrative,assisting the viewer's parsing continuityediting rules, such as the injunctionthat if an operations.But it is the contextualnarrative informa- actor looks and reacts to anythingoff-frame, the next tion that provides the salient cues about the precise shot will be interpretedby viewers as a subjectiveshot. natureof the narrativeshift. At the Jorgensens',Ethan Carroll describes a sequence from The Birds where and Martyinhabit a differentlandscape. The absence Hitchcock seems to violate this principle, and he re- of snow indicatesa seasonal shift, and Jorgensentells marks that viewers will find this confusing. It is the Ethan that his letter about Brad's death arrived the scene showingTippi Hedren waiting outside the school- previousyear. The viewer's extra-filmicknowledge of house while, behind her, the birds gatheren masse on seasonal patternsand, most importantly,the dialogue the playgroundjungle gym. Hitchcockcuts between a between Ethan and Jorgensen establish the precise shot of Hedren looking off-frame and a shot of the natureof the time shift in a way that the purely visual gatheringflock, as if to imply (by virtueof the cutting code-the fade-cannot. The dominanceof narrative pattern)that she must see it. context over code explains why it would be equally In a recent and thorough review of the issue of permissible-though not in a film of the 1950s-to visual literacy in film and television, Messaris points signal the temporal shift with a straight cut. With out that,while Carrollis technicallycorrect, the salient redundantinformational cues available in the narra- point is that the confusion (not sharedby all viewers) tive, the viewer should be able to follow the flow of is only momentary,because the surroundingcontex- events, permittinga degreeof interchangeabilityin the tual-narrativeinformation makes it clear that the sub- use of codes. Thus, image patternsmay not need to be sequent shot is not a subjective one.27 In other words, as rigidly sequenced as the concept of a "grammar" given the narrativecontext, it would be implausibleto might imply, and the ostensive violation of grammati- assume the charactersees the birds without reacting cal rules may carryless significance (for the viewer's because their deadly nature has already been estab- interpretationalabilities) than is sometimesthought, as lished in the story. Messarispoints out thatone reason the violations of the 180-degreerule in contemporary why notions of grammaticalityare difficultto applyto productionsshould indicate. film is thatnarrative context often overrulescode. "The role of formal conventions in conveying a movie's meaningis generallysubordinate to conventionalstan- dardsof plausibilityor probability('conventional' in Evidence about the sense that the film-makermust be able to assume Empirical them of her/hisaudience).... [T]he viewer's interpre- Image Comprehension tationof edited sequences is largely a matterof cross- referencingpossible interpretationsagainst a broader The foregoingdiscussion has suggestedthat context (i.e., the larger story in the movie itself, to- the linguistic orientationof film theorymay not be the getherwith correspondingsituations from real life and most efficacious for dealing with visual meaning or other movies), ratherthan a matterof 'decoding' for- cinema structure.Currently, the disciplineis undergo- mal devices (e.g., an off-screen look followed by a cut ing some profoundshifts as the Saussureanand Lacan- to a new shot). . . . Interpretationis driven by the ian accountsare contestedby alternativeformulations narrativecontext, not the code."28 advocating perceptually or cognitively based ap- Anotherexample shouldmake this clear, although proaches.The cognitive turnin contemporarytheory this instance does not involve an alleged violation of has openeda space for renewedappraisal of perceptual grammar.In The Searchers, after Ethan and Marty evidence that runs counter to notions of film as lan- discoverthat Lucy has been killed by herIndian abduc- guage and their logical consequence-that viewers tors and Brad, her lover, is killed while charginginto must learn to interpretpictorial displays. Reviewing the Indian camp, the searchers ride into a snowy the resultsof empiricalresearch on the perceptualand landscapewhere Marty despairs of everfinding Debbie. cognitive processing of visual images and narratives Ethan,in reply, makes his famous speech aboutbeing will help clarifysome of the problemsinherent in using a critterthat just keeps coming. Fade out andfade in on concepts of arbitraryor relationalsignifiers to explain the Jorgensens'ranch as Ethanand Martyride up. As principlesof cinematic meaning and communication. a symbolic pictorialdevice thathas no clearanalogy in Contemporarynotions that film is analogous to a real-life visual experience, the fade operatesin accord language are consistent with the speculationsof film

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions theoristsdating from virtuallythe beginningof cinema Empirical research indicates that one basis for history. Boris Eichenbaum, for example, noted that these innateabilities probablylies in the activationby "Filmlanguage is no less conventionalthan any other picturesof perceptualskills (object recognition,depth language.... Cinemahas not only its 'language,' but perspective,etc.) developed in real-worldexperience, also its 'jargon,'rather inaccessible to theuninitiated."29 skills which are then transferredto pictures.Scholars B61laBalkizs suggested that, to be comprehended,the have commonly emphasized that pictures replicate a new "form-language"of cinemarequired of its viewers series of monocular depth cues used in real-world a new sensibility and understanding,without which experience for inferring informationabout the posi- novice viewers would be baffled.30 However, to posit tioning of objects in physical space (e.g., overlap, language-basedmodes of cinematiccommunication is texturedensity gradients,shading, and, in motion pic- to implicitly raise the issue of visual literacyby imply- tures,motion parallax).34 Picture perception, then, seems ing that a period of tutoringwould be logically neces- clearly based on 3D spatialskills transferredto the 2D saryin orderto gaininterpretive mastery of thecinematic representation,and one would expect that the more vocabulary (learning, for example, that a subjective complete the set of cues employed by the picture shot representsthe view of the absentcharacter or that regardingthe spatiallayout of the depictedscene, and the portions of an event elided by continuity editing the more culturallyfamiliar the depicted objects, the nevertheless still occurredwithin the narrative).The greaterthe ease of recognition. If naive viewers can assumption that untutoredor inexperienced viewers perceive still pictures, there is no logical reason for would encounterdifficulties makingsense of unfamil- inferringthat they would have difficultydoing so with iar images finds some apparentconfirmation in the moving pictures,especially since movies will supply existing anecdotal reports of viewers' bewildering the additionalreal-world depth cue of motionparallax. first-time encounterswith motion and still pictures.31 But whatabout the role of culturein visual percep- However, these difficulties are often due less to an tion? As we have seen, culture-bounddeterminations inherentinability of naive viewers to see the pictorial are very importantin language-based film theories objects than to a first-time encounter with a novel which rely on arbitrary,relational signifiers. The move recordingsurface (e.g., paper in the case of still pic- to empirical, perceptually based evidence might be tures) or a culturally unfamiliar depth cue used to unwelcome for linguisticallybased accountsof picto- renderan object in abstractterms (e.g., linearperspec- rial meaning because it can be seen as replacingcul- tive suggesting a straight road in a line drawing). tural categories with biological (and therefore even Moreover, whereanthropologists and field work- ideologically suspect) ones, and because it may sug- ers reportdifficulties with pictureperception, respon- gest thatpictorial and linguistic modalitiesare distinct dents typically are able to integrate figure-ground from each other.With respect to the role of culturein relations rather quickly, resulting in correct picture pictureperception, some evidence does exist for vary- perception.32Viewers who findpicture perception com- ing culturalsusceptibilities to differentvisual illusions pletely impossible under any condition are quite rare (the Mueller-Lyerillusion and the Sander parallelo- and probablyanomalous. gram),perhaps due to variationsin the physical envi- Convincingevidence aboutinherent human abili- ronmentsof differentcultures, but these do not seem to ties to perceive pictures is available from a classic impact basic pictureperception abilities.35 experimentin which the researchersprevented a child In a recent summaryof the existing crosscultural from birth from (their own) seeing pictures until the researchon pictureperception, Deregowski suggests of 19 when it age months, began to actively seek them that relationshipsof culture,perception, and viewing out.33 The child learnedhis vocabularysolely through abilities be conceptualizedin termsof sets of contigu- the use of objects and received no training regarding ous and, at times, overlapping skills.36 Real-world or content. He was pictorial meaning nevertheless able spatial experience may utilize 3D skills that 2D repre- to when tested with a series of 21 recognize, two- sentations do not exploit, such as binocular disparity dimensional line and the drawings photographs, series (using the differences in the images recorded by each of and familiar in his pictured objects (people things eye as a means of inferring information about depth environment). The researchers concluded that the re- and distance). Many real-world perceptual skills, by sults indicate the existence of innate picture perception contrast, do overlap with visual skills relevant for abilities and that, if there are of cultures allegations or picture perception, and some may be influenced by viewers these, it cannot be a matter of not lacking yet varying patterns of cultural organization (e.g., as Segall having learned the of language pictures. et al. point out, respondents from plains or dense jungle 22

This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions environmentsmay demonstrateless sensitivity to lin- Because these sequenceswere relativelysimple in ear perspective when used as a pictorialdepth code). structure(featuring only one pan, zoom, and cut), the Finally, some picturesemploy purelyrepresentational researchersran a second experimentwith more com- codes with no overlap in real-life experience (e.g., plex visual presentationsand longer visual narratives. wipes in film or streakylines used to representspeed in Cinematicmanipulations this time consisted of paral- comics). Obviously, with this last categoryone might lel editing to imply simultaneityof action, subjective expect greater interpretationaldifficulties for naive shots representinga character'sliteral viewpoint, el- viewers, but not inevitably.As our example from The lipses achievedthrough editing that deleted portions of Searchers indicated,narrative contextual information a continuous event or action, and editing to imply a may be used to connect separateimages or events even layout of contiguous spaces (e.g., cutting from an when the optical transitionemployed is a more sym- establishingshot of two buildingsto a shot of a charac- bolic one. ter looking out of a window, then to a reverse-angle What,then, does all of this imply aboutthe need for interiorshot of the characterat the window). This time a period of tutoring implicit in the film-as-language the childrenwere four and seven years old. model? Quite simply, such a period should not be As before, they were asked to recreatecharacter necessary for inferringnarrative relations in standard perspectivesand spatial layouts using the dolls andsets movies (i.e., movies that do not create deliberatenar- thathad appearedin the films. Comparisonsacross all rativeenigmas, in contrastto movies like Last Yearat classes of montage indicated that clear majoritiesin Marienbad).Empirical research with naive viewers (in both age groups made correct inferences of space, most cases young children and, in one unique study, ellipsis, and characterperspective. Inferences of si- inexperiencedadults) offers evidence that the use of multaneityproved difficult for the four-year-olds,but specifically cinematic devices (or, as the film-as-lan- not for the seven-year-olds.Both groupsproved espe- guage paradigmmight term them, symbolic codes), cially skilled at reconstructingimplied actions omitted such as montage, camera movement, or subjective in the edited narratives. shots,do not pose substantialinterpretational obstacles This studyindicates good comprehensionby young for naive viewers provided developmentalrequisites childrenof basic montage techniques, which is what are met (i.e., thatthe viewers have developedsufficient one wouldexpect if interpretationof the visualdisplays real-worldconceptual and cognitive skills that can be drawson a child's developing real-worldvisual skills applied to the film or television medium). A brief and experience. Emphasizingthe status of cinematic review of some of this evidence will help clarify these images as iconic signs having a clear referentialbasis pointsand will providefurther evidence fromwhich to and invitinga transferof real-worldvisual skills to the question the theoreticaland methodological efficacy pictorial display does not deny the existence of me- of groundingfilm theory in conceptions of cinematic dium-specific skills relevant for making sense of a relationshipsinvolving arbitrary,unmotivated signs. motionpicture, but it does reservea moremodest space Young children's comprehensionof an array of for them than would the arbitrary-relationalsignifier cinematic was techniques exploredin a recentstudy by model. Clearly, some film techniquesare more sym- and In Smith,Anderson, Fisher.37 one experiment,they bolic thaniconic and may be coded in a more arbitrary showed three- and five-year-old children brief stop- fashion. Such techniques would invite the viewer's animationvideo sequencesthat employed pans, zooms, applicationof specific, medium-basedcompetencies. and cuts to a present simple story. Another group of For example, the Smith et. al study employed parallel children saw the same stories in sequences with no editing as one categoryof montage. Drawingthe cor- or cameramovement. editing When the childrenwere rect inference from parallelediting is arguablya me- invited to recreate the stories using the dolls and sets dium-specific skill, and, as one would expect, the seen in the no films, differences in story comprehen- largest age differences in the average percentage of sion were observed between the two groups, indicating correct responses showed up there. But, ratherthan that these film techniques seemed to pose few cogni- needing to become proficientat manipulatingan arbi- tive or interpretational problems for these young view- trarily symbolic set of cinematic signifiers, children ers. These were viewers who had seen television before. can generallyinterpret visual displaysinvolving point- It the absence of is, however, age-related differences in of-view editing by transferringto the display their their performance that is striking, especially in light of developing real-world visual skills and the experience. hypothesis that these techniques should require Evidence supporting a developmental view of the in medium-specific learning order to be understood. applicationof real-worldcognitive and perceptual skills

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions to film andtelevision displaysinvolving point-of-view ationof the comprehensibilityand emotional effects of editing is found in Comuntzis-Page's study of the the cinema.Photographic images of people necessarily relationshipbetween children's evolving real-world reproducethat information about facial expressionand perspective-takingskills andtheir ability to infermean- gesturewhich Ray Birdwhistellhas called "kinesics." ing from an edited video sequence.38She found that Birdwhistelland his colleagues studiedthe systematic childrenwho successfully demonstrateda knowledge patterning of body motion within cultures and de- of visual perspectives in actual 3-dimensional situa- signed an elaboratenotational system to transcribeand tions (e.g., childrenwho knew that observerssituated studythe distinctivelypatterned strings of body motion in differentplaces can see differentsides of a common cues (called "kines")that are situationallyarticulated object) were better able to understandthe changing as a communicativeform in everydaylife. Birdwhistell cameraviewpoints of a television presentation.In fact, explicitly rejected the notion that language was the she found thatskill at inferringcharacter relationships most importantchannel of communication,arguing in a 3-dimensionallayout seemed to be a prerequisite insteadfor a conceptionof communicationas a multi- for makingthe properanalogous inferences from the 2- modal, multi-sensoryprocess which included visual dimensionalvideo display.Only childrenwho did well and gesturalas well as auditorychannels.41 He demon- at the formertask also did well on the latter,and clear stratedhow body motions are culturallypatterned in age-relateddifferences between perspective takers and symbolically significant ways that are understoodby nonperspectivetakers were found, supportinga devel- members of a given community whose socialization opmentalview. processes have sensitized them to coded kinesic dis- The research cited thus far has used children to plays. While Birdwhistellemphasized the importance representa populationof relatively unskilledviewers. of cultural context in determining the encoding of However, one unique study of motion picturepercep- specific kinesicpatterns, other researchers have argued tion and interpretationexists using adult viewers who thatsome gesturalexpressions-those on the face, for had little familiaritywith any mass media.39Working example-may function as biologically based pan- witha seminomadic,nonliterate, pastoral tribe in Kenya, culturalsignals for emotion. While all culturesman- a community whose aesthetic expressions concen- date display rules governing who may display which tratedon personaladornment and performance arts, the emotions and when, experimentalevidence furnished researchersshowed adultvillagers two videotapesof a by Paul Ekman and his colleagues has indicatedthat culturallyfamiliar story. One versionwas unedited,the certainfacial displays seem correlatedwith basic cat- other featured 14 cuts with frequent alterations of egories of human emotion and are capable of being close-ups, medium shots, long shots, and zooms. No recognized crossculturally.42 significant differences in ability to recall story infor- The obvious point to be made from this brief mation were found between respondentswho viewed discussion of the work on facial and body motion the edited and uneditedversions. Fragmentationof the communicationis that the motion picturecamera fur- visual scene through point-of-view editing did not nishes an excellent means of recordingthe expressive hinder comprehension,nor did it seem to requirethe meanings carriedby these channels. Birdwhistell,in use of any medium-specific skills. The researchers fact, employed still photographsand motion picture concluded on that, the contrary, continuity editing footageto recordand store the dataused in his analyses. codes thatmanipulate point of view seem to functionas It shouldbe an assertionof the obvious to pointout that "analogsof perceptualprocesses."40 a majorsource of the appeal and power of the movies lies here, in film's ability to capturethe subtletiesand nuancesof socially resonantstreams of kinesic expres- Levels of sions, and not just to passively capture them but, via Iconicity close-ups and other expressive devices, to intensify and emphasize the most salient cues for the viewer' s The evidence reviewed thus far bears on the understanding in cognitive and affective terms of the of to furnish cues capability pictures regarding the meaning of the scenes depicted on screen. (Recent of a scene or situation spatial layout that are analogous studies of acting by James Naremore and Roberta to sources of information found in real- commonly Pearson have emphasized the way that different perfor- world visual It also experience. bears mentioning, mance traditions code expressive behavior and how however, that another level of iconic information typi- film technique may be used to frame and emphasize cally exists in pictures which is central to a consider- this coding.43) The relational-arbitrary signifier hy- 24

This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions pothesis has tended to draw attentionaway from this be cautiousin speakingabout the discourseof pictures: clear source of iconic meaning in motion pictures, "The analyst must recognize that the very fact of despite its obvious importancein helping to explicate talking aboutnarration requires a re-presentationof it the crossculturalappeal and power of the movies. by verbalor othermeans which may captureonly some of its features."46The concept of the relational,arbi- trarysignifier would seem most applicableto pictures here, in the languageof analysis which is employed to The Discourse of Pictures intellectuallymanipulate pictorial representations. Fur- thermore,while empiricalevidence indicates that view- What do these studies and avenues of re- ers easily and readily make the requiredinferences searchtell us aboutcinematic codes and the appropri- necessaryto sequencea series of picturesinto a coher- ateness of defining them, as currentfilm theory does, ent narrative,even to the extent of inferringinforma- as a series of relational differences among arbitrary tion about situations not directly pictured,47several signs? The empirical evidence clearly suggests that scholars have argued that these inferences are orga- pictorial identificationskills do not develop from an nized on a conceptualand propositional-but not nec- extendedperiod of exposure to significationand con- essarily a linguistic-basis. Pylyshyn, for example, sequentlearning, as do language skills, and thatthis is suggested that "Suchconcepts and predicatesmay be probablydue to the fact thatmost realisticpictures are perceptuallywell defined without having any explicit isomorphicwith correspondingreal-world visual dis- naturallanguage label. plays, unlike symbolic signs, which have a more arbi- Thus we may have a concept correspondingto the traryrelationship to whatthey represent.Furthermore, equivalence class of certain sounds or visual patterns via the technologies of motion picture recording,the without an explicit verbal label for it. Such a view camerais able to reproducein clearlyrecognizable and implies that we can have mental concepts or ways of even intensifiedform the familiarstreams of facial and abstractingfrom our sense data which are beyond the body motion cues which symbolically encode the reach of our currentstock of words, but for which we meaningsof the social situationsportrayed on screen. could develop a vocabulary if communicatingsuch These cues should be readily understoodby cinema concepts became important."48Linguistic models, in viewers, just as they are in real-worldvisual experi- other words, are not requisite for explaining how we ence. If the distinctionsbetween iconic and symbolic respondto andmake sense out of pictorialinformation, modes that we have been emphasizing are really rel- noreven for describinghow we encode visual informa- evant to differences between pictures and language, tion for longtermmemory storage such that it can be then one would expect iconic modes to be processed subsequentlyreaccessed.49 more readilythan symbolic ones, especially by young As noted, arbitrary-relationalsignifier models are children, and existing research lends supportto this most applicablewhere the discoursebeing examinedis idea.44 language-basedrather than strictly pictorial. In this Thus, it is not clear how the concept of the rela- respect, it follows that theories about ideology and tional, arbitrarysignifier might apply to cinematic ideological effects arebest formulatednot with regard images or, for that matter,to any iconic image. Cer- to pictures sui generis (e.g., as has been done with tainly, as Hockett indicated, few communicational perspective-basedimages) or with such machines for signs are completely iconic, since a state of total seeing as the camera and projector,but rather as a iconicity would imply that the sign was completely matterof the contentof a given film andits modulation fromits referent.45 indistinguishable Nevertheless,pic- via techniquesof cinematicstyle. As Noe1 Carrollhas torialsigns do bearclear structuralsimilarities to their remarked,ideological design needs to be examined referents,with the attendantconsequences for percep- film by film, on an individual case-by-case basis. tion and comprehensionthat we have just reviewed. Because theoriesabout linguistic structure do not seem The linguistic model has proven to be a very powerful to be directly applicable to pictures, they therefore for the of paradigm analysis images and larger film form an insufficient basis for groundinga critiqueof structures dramatic (e.g., scenes) in partbecause that cinematicdiscourse or theplace of ideology in pictorial analysis is typically conductedvia words. When film images. scholars analyze images, visual informationis trans- Proponentsof the applicationof the Saussurean lated into verbal description,one modality is substi- lineage to cinema studies might reply that the tutedfor another.But, as Braniganhas noted,one must poststructuralattention to textuality and discourse as

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions culturallyrelative constructs provides a frameworkfor have to learnthe symbolicmeanings of basic cinematic investigating ideology and the cultural or political structure, and that, logically, because discourse is polyvalence of a given text. That the poststructural culture-bound,the appealof the mediumshould be too. methodology works in this way is undoubtedlytrue. Film theoryhas dealt with these problemsby pointing But, unfortunately,what tends to be displaced are to the transparencyeffect of the cinema or to the issues of how cinema is able to communicate illusionism of the photographicimage based on what crossculturally(i.e., attain global popularity)and the are regardedas the culture-boundand symbolic con- even more basic questions of what makes the cinema ventions of perspective. But, as this article has sug- intelligible to its viewers. Not all cultures organize gested, some importantgaps and contradictionsare libidinaland psychic energy in the same way, and one found between these formulations, the Saussurean would not thereforewish to posit Lacaniancategories lineage, andthe empiricalevidence regardingpictorial as basic mechanisms explicating the means of cin- recognition and visual communication.Unless film ematiccommunication. Yet all culturescurrently stud- theory can reconceptualizethe cinema as an iconic, ied do demonstrate clear pictorial and cinematic ratherthan as a purelysymbolic, mode of communica- perceptionabilities. Moreover, these abilities are shared tion, it is difficult to see how these serious theoretical with a varietyof animals.5Picture recognition abilities gaps may be closed. We need to recovera recognition have been demonstrated across a wide range of of the analogicalcomponent of pictorialsigns. Rather nonhuman subjects-primates, birds, fish, reptiles, than dealing with this component in metaphorical even insects. These include unlearned,spontaneous terms (e.g., via transparencyeffects, subjectposition- responses to still and motion pictures as well as re- ing in the discourseof the Imaginary,or illusionism), sponses thatare the resultof conditioning.Recognition an appreciationof the isomorphic relations between of objects by nonhuman subjects has been demon- pictorial signs and their referents,and attentionto the strated across different classes of pictorial media- differencesbetween pictorial and linguistic modes of black-and-whiteand color photographs,high-contrast communication,can help invigorate film theory by photographs,film and videotape, even line drawings. reconnectingit to the observable experiences of real Comprehensionof filmed events has been elicited, as viewers. well as the formationand pickup of object-class con- As noted at the beginning of this essay, the inten- cepts from pictures (e.g., as in the ability of pigeons, tion here is not to remove culturalconsiderations from trainedto recognize humanfigures in slides of various questions about film viewing and interpretation.Cul- environments, to transfer this ability and the class ture clearly enters into the inferences viewers draw of concept "humanbeing" to sets of slides they had from cinematicimages and narrativeswhere meaning never seen before). may be constructedin termsof the intellectualhorizons Positing arbitrarysignifiers and unconsciouspro- providedby class, race, gender, and similarvariables. cesses of the mind seems to deflect the ability of But it has been the contentionof this essay thatculture cinema studies to grapplewith some of the most basic plays a less decisive role at the level of comprehension about questions cinema, namely, how are viewers discussedherein. Furthermore, only by knowingwhere able to make crossculturally sense of the medium and cultural considerationsshade off into what may be what is the necessary biological basis of pictorial moreproperly termed physiological or cognitive capa- communicationthat makes it so effective for human bilities are we likely to be able to apply cultural and nonhuman subjects alike. As Noe1 Carroll has analyses in fruitfuland relevantways. This approach recently suggested, emphasizing the way that film can help theoryexplicate the intelligibilityand power structureworks to secure the cognitive clarity of the of the movies in ways that are responsive to, and for experience the viewer can give us a basis for grounded in, the observable experiences of actual explaining the attractivenessand appeal, and perhaps viewers. even the emotional power, of the medium.51 Furthermore,emphasizing the cinematic code as * StephenPrince teaches in the an arbitrary,unmotivated sign places film theoryin the CommunicationStudies Department uncomfortable position of implying certain conse- of Virginia Tech. He is the Book quences for the real-worldviewer that are contraryto Review Editorof Film Quarterly. the observable evidence, namely, that cinematic im- ages should not function in ways that are isomorphic with theirreal-world counterparts, that viewers should

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NOTES 19. Zavarzadeh, Seeing Films Politically, p. 102. 20. Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (Berkeley, CA: University of thanks to Carl for an earlier version My Plantinga reading California Press, 1969). of this and essay offering helpful suggestions. 21. Ibid., pp. 4-5. 22. Julian Hochberg, "The Perception of Moving Images," 1. RobertStam, "Film and Language: From Metz to Bakhtin," Iris, no. 9 (Spring, 1989), p. 41. in The Cinematic Text: Methods and Approaches, ed. R. 23. See Charles F. Hockett, "Logical Considerations in the Barton Palmer (New York: AMS Press, 1989), p. 277. Study of Animal Communication," in The View from 2. See Pier Paolo Pasolini, Heretical Empiricism, ed. Louise Language: Selected Essays 1948-1974 (Athens, GA: Uni- K. Barnett, trans. Ben Lawton and Louise K. Barnett versity of Georgia Press, 1977), pp. 124-62. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988) and Peter 24. Sol Worth, "Pictures Can't Say Ain't," in Film/Culture, Wollen, Signs and Meaning in the Cinema (Bloomington: ed. Sari Thomas (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1982), Indiana University Press, 1976), especially pp. 116-54. pp. 97-109, and EdwardBranigan, "HereIs a Picture of No 3. Philip Rosen, ed., Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology (New Revolver," WideAngle 8, no. 34 (1986), pp. 8-17. York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 3. 25. Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language (New York: 4. "Introduction,"in Explorations in Film Theory: Selected Pantheon, 1975), p. 71. Essays from Cine-Tracts, ed. Ron Burnett (Bloomington: 26. See John M. Carroll, Toward a Structural Psychology of Indiana University Press, 1991), p. xv. Cinema (New York: Mouton, 1980). 5. In the influential analyses of Jean-Louis Baudry, these 27. Paul Messaris, Visual Literacy: How Images Make Sense functions are a consequence of the machinery of camera (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, forthcoming). and projector, irrespective of the content and subjects that 28. Ibid. are filmed. See "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cin- 29. Boris Eichenbaum, "Cinema Stylistics," in Russian For- ematographic Apparatus"and "The Apparatus:Metapsy- malist Film Theory, ed. Herbert Eagle (Ann Arbor, MI: chological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in the University of Michigan Press, 1981), p. 77. Cinema," in Rosen, ed., Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, 30. B6la Balhzs, Theoryofthe Film (New York: Dover, 1970), pp. 286-318. p. 34. 6. Stephen Heath, Questions of Cinema (New York: 31. See the accounts in Balhizs,Theory of the Film, pp. 34-35, Macmillan, 1981), p. 26. andJ. B. Deregowski, "Real Space and RepresentedSpace: 7. D. N. Rodowick, The Difficulty of Difference: Psycho- Cross-Cultural Perspectives," in Behavioral and Brain analysis, Sexual Difference and Film Theory (New York: Sciences 12 (1989), pp. 56-59. Routledge, 1991), p. 138. 32. Messaris also makes this point. 8. Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, Seeing Films Politically (Albany: 33. Julian Hochberg and Virginia Brooks, "PicturePerception State University of New York Press, 1991), p. x. as an Unlearned Ability: A Study of One Child's Perfor- 9. Ibid, p. 11. mance," American Journal of Psychology 74, no. 4 (Dec. 10. Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny, Language and Reality 1962), pp. 624-28. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), pp. 215-18. 34. Discussing these cues, David Bordwell points out that 11. 216. Ibid, p. cinematic images also routinely distort or alter them (e.g., 12. Burnett, Explorations in Film Theory, p. xvii. through the effects of different focal length lenses, etc.). 13. Heath, Questions of Cinema, p. 191. David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film (Madison, 14. in Movies "Introduction," and Methods, vol. 2, ed. Bill WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 107-10. Nichols (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 35. See Marshall H. Segall, Donald T. Campbell, and Melville 16. 1986), p. J. Herskovits, The Influence of Culture on Visual Percep- 15. The relevant essays explicating this position can be found tion (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966). in Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of 36. Deregowski, "Real Space," pp. 69-72. Benjamin Lee Whorf, ed. John B. Carroll (Cambridge, 37. Robin Smith, Daniel R. Anderson, and Catherine Fischer, MA: MIT Press, 1984). "Young Children's Comprehension of Montage," Child 16. See, forexample, JohnB. Carrolland Joseph B. Casagrande, Development 56 (1985), pp. 962-71. "The Function of Language Classifications in Behavior," 38. Georgette Comuntzis-Page, "Changing Viewpoints in in in Readings Social Psychology, ed. EleanorE. Maccoby, Visual Presentations: A Young Child's Point of View," Theodore M. Newcomb, and Eugene L. Hartley (New paper presented at Eastern Communication Association York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1958), pp. 18-31. It Convention, Baltimore, 1988. should be noted, however, that the results of this study, 39. Renee Hobbs, Richard Frost, Arthur Davis, and John while some of the Whorfian offering support view, are Stauffer, "How First-Time Viewers Comprehend Editing nevertheless mixed and somewhat inconsistent. Conventions," Journal of Communication 38 (1988), pp. 17. For a review of evidence bearing on strong and weak 50-60. versions of Whorfian hypothesis, see Earl Hunt and Franca 40. Ibid., p. 58. "The Whorfian Agnoli, Hypothesis: A Cognitive Psychol- 41. See Ray L. Birdwhistell, Kinesics and Context (Philadel- ogy Perspective," Psychological Review 98, no. 3 (1991), phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970). 377-89. pp. 42. See Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, "Constants 18. Bill Nichols, and the Ideology Image (Bloomington: Indi- Across Cultures in the Face and Emotion," Journal of ana Press, 26. University 1981), p. Personality and Social Psychology 17, no. 2 (1971), pp.

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This content downloaded from 128.173.125.76 on Tue, 18 Feb 2014 15:36:20 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 124-29, and Paul Ekman, "Expression and the Nature of Emotion," inApproaches to Emotion, ed. Klaus R. Scherer and Paul Ekman (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence ErlbaumAsso- Expanded 2nd Edition! ciation, 1984), pp. 319-43. The latter volume is especially useful for containing a range of theoretical positions, often Film Style & Technology: competing, on the nature and expression of emotion and History& Analysis the ways it may be culturally coded. 43. See James in the Cinema CA: Naremore,Acting (Berkeley, BarrySalt University of California Press, 1988) and RobertaPearson, Gestures: The of Performance Eloquent Transformation * The first and only history of film style Style in the Griffith Biograph Films (Berkeley, CA: Uni- versity of California Press, 1992). * A new practical approach to film theory and 44. See S. L. Calvert, A. C. Huston, B. A. Watkins, and J. C. film analysis to Television Wright, "The Effects of Selective Attention * 30% New discoveries and Child bigger! insights! Forms on Children's Comprehension of Content," Thousands more films examined! Twice as Development 53 (1982), pp. 601-10, and D. S. Hayes and much on the 1907-13 period! D. W. Bimrnbaum,"Preschoolers' Retention of Televised Events: Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?,"Develop- * Still the only source for what really happened mental Psychology 16 (1980), pp. 410-16. in the first 25 years. 45. Hockett, Considerations in the Study of Animal "Logical * Also now full on the 'seventies and Communication," p. 143. chapters 'eighties. 46. Branigan, "Here Is a Picture of No Revolver," p. 11. 47. See Patricia Baggett, "Memory for Explicit and Implicit "marvellous"-Ray Durgnat;"capital importance"- Ernest Information in Picture Stories," Journal of Verbal Learn- Callenbach;"indispensable"- Jonathan Rosenbaum. and Verbal Behavior 14 (1975), 538-48. ing pp. $34.95 in the USA from SAMUELFRENCH 48. Zenon W. Pylyshyn, "What the Mind's Eye Tells the Mind's Brain:A Critique of Mental Imagery,"Psychologi- 7623 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90046 cal Bulletin no. 1 7. 80, (July 1973), p. phone: (213) 876-0570 49. However, with regard to certain categories of pictures- ex- namely, relatively ambiguous ones-some evidence STARWORD ists to indicate that linguistic cues may influence the recollection of details of pictorial form. See the classic study by L. Carmichael, H. P. Hogan, and A. A. Walter, "An Experimental Study of the Effect of Language on the Reproduction of Visually Perceived Form," Journal of Experimental Psychology 15 (1932), pp. 73-86, and the replication by W. C. H. Prentice, "Visual Recognition of Verbally Labelled Figures,"American Journal ofPsychol- ogy 67 (1954), pp. 315-20. 50. For a review of picture-perception research involving * * animals, see Patrick A. Cabe, "Picture Perception in Nonhuman Subjects," in The Perception of Pictures, vol. 2, ed. Margaret A. Hagen (New York: Academic Press, 1980), pp. 305-43. Writers in York: Columbia "FromaFitzgeraldto 51. Noel Carroll, Mystifying Movies (New Dos Passos to Press, University 1988). ingway, a crewHem-ly of the H ood, majorwriters of our ollyw time lived and worked 1928-1940 Copying notice: Authorization to photocopy items for fora spacein wood.... Holly- internalor use, or the internal or use of They all Richard Fine personal personal had somethingto say clients, is the of the Univer- specific granted by Regents and RichardFine puts With a new preface sity of California for libraries and other users registered it all togetherin a with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) Transac- book that capturesthe Alice-in-Wonderlandpersona that the base fee of of this never-neverland. -Stages tional Reporting Service, provided the of as the $1.00 is to CCC, 27 By placing legend Nollywood per copy paid directly Congress destroyerof writersin a culturaland historiccontext, Street, Salem, MA 01970. For permission to photocopy Fine shows that it was not the talentof thesewriters materials for classroom use, call CCC's APS Customer that was underattack, but ratherthe professionof Service Department at (508) 744-3350 or fax them at authorshipas they understoodit. 40 b&wphotographs 216 pp. Paper:1-56098-263-2P $14.95 (508) 745-9379. Smithsonian Studies in the History ofFilm and Television j] SMITHSONIANINSTITUTION PRESS Dept.900 * BlueRidge Summit, PA 17294-0900* 800/782-4612

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