Christian Metz and the Codes of Cinema

Film Theory in Media History

Film Theory in Media History explores the epistemological and theoretical

foundations of the study of film through texts by classical authors as well as
anthologies and monographs on key issues and developments in film theory.
Adopting a historical perspective, but with a firm eye to the further development
of the field, the series provides a platform for ground-breaking new research into
film theory and media history and features high-profile editorial projects that
offfer resources for teaching and scholarship. Combining the book form with
open access online publishing the series reaches the broadest possible audience
of scholars, students, and other readers with a passion for film and theory.

Series editors
Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany), Weihong
Bao (University of California, Berkeley, United States), Dr. Trond Lundemo
(Stockholm University, Sweden).

Editorial Board Members

Dudley Andrew, Yale University, United States
Raymond Bellour, CNRS Paris, France
Chris Berry, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom
Francesco Casetti, Yale University, United States
Thomas Elsaesser, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Jane Gaines, Columbia University, United States
Andre Gaudreault, University of Montreal, Canada
Gertrud Koch, Free University of Berlin, Germany
John MacKay, Yale University, United States
Markus Nornes, University of Michigan, United States
Patricia Pisters, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Leonardo Quaresima, University of Udine, Italy
David Rodowick, University of Chicago, United States
Philip Rosen, Brown University, United States
Petr Szczepanik, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic
Brian Winston, Lincoln University, United Kingdom

Film Theory in Media History is published in cooperation with the Permanent

Seminar for the History of Film Theories.
 Christian Metz and
the Codes of Cinema
Film Semiology and Beyond

Edited by
Margrit Trhler and Guido Kirsten

Amsterdam University Press

Cover design: Krispin He / Suzan Beijer
Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout

Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by
the University of Chicago Press.

ISBN 978 90 8964 892 1

e-ISBN 90 4852 756 4
DOI 10.5117/9789089648921
NUR 670

Creative Commons License CC BY NC ND

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0)

All authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam, 2018

Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of
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in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise).
 Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 9

Editorial Note 11

1. Christian Metz and Film Semiology 15

Dynamics within and on the Edges of the Model: An Introduction
Margrit Trhler

I Metz and the Tradition of Film Theory

2. Two Ways of Thinking 69

Raymond Bellour

3. Christian Metz and his Theoretical Legacy 83

Michel Marie

4. Christian Metz for Today 91

Roger Odin

5. Thinking Cinema 115

Christian Metz and/in the Tradition of Film Theory
Frank Kessler

6. Barthes Early Film Semiology and the Legacy

of Filmology in Metz 127
Guido Kirsten

II Questions of Form and Aesthetics

7. Christian Metz and Aesthetics 147

Martin Lefebvre

8. Christian Metz and Modern Cinema 185

Francesco Casetti
9. Christian Metz, Editing, and Forms of Alternation 201
Andr Gaudreault and Philippe Gauthier

III Specificities of the Cinematic Code

and the Imaginary

10. Between Classical and Postclassical Theory 227

Metz on Specificity Then and Now
Philip Rosen

11. Cyber-Metz? 251

The Notion of Code in the Writings of Christian Metz
Selim Krichane

12. Yes, the Image Lies Beyond Analogy 273

Understanding Metz with Cartier-Bresson
Marc Vernet

13. The Cinematic Signifier and the Imaginary 285

Mary Ann Doane

14. Fetishism and Scepticism, or the Two Worlds

of Christian Metz and Stanley Cavell 301
D.N. Rodowick

IV Narration, Enunciation, Cinephilia

15. Cinema: Image or Narrative? 327

Anne Goliot-Lt

16. Semiotics, Science, and Cinephilia 351

Christian Metzs Last Book, Lnonciation impersonnelle
Dana Polan

17. Theorize, he says 369

Christian Metz and the Question of Enunciation:
A Theory in (Speech) Acts
Alain Boillat
18. Personal Enunciation: Presences of Absences 391
Dominique Bluher

19. Metz with Deleuze 415

From Film-Philosophy to Film Theory and Back Again
Nico Baumbach

Two Interviews with Christian Metz

20. Thirty Years After 435

Elena Dagrada

21. The Semiology of Cinema? It Is Necessary to Continue! 439

A Conversation with Christian Metz
Elena Dagrada and Guglielmo Pescatore

22. Flashback to Winter 1990 455

Margrit Trhler

23. I Never Expected Semiology to Thrill the Masses 459

Interview with Christian Metz
Dominique Blher and Margrit Trhler

Postscript

Conclusion (handwritten note by Christian Metz) 475

Index Names 477

Index Film Titles 483

 Acknowledgments

The editors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the following
people:
Roger Odin, Martin Lefebvre, Rosemarie Meyer, Anne Lt-Goliot,
Dominique Bluher, and David N. Rodowick who enthusiastically encouraged the
idea of a conference as an homage to Christian Metz from the very beginning.
Christian Metzs son, Michal Metz, and Michle Lacoste, Metzs life
companion of many years, who also gave us all their support and partici-
pated in the conference; and Michal especially for his permission to print
photos and facsimiles from Metzs estate in this volume.
Once again, Martin Lefebvre, who lent his support with all kinds of
information, assistance, and advice, sharing his in-depth knowledge of the
unpublished writings, notes, and correspondence from the Fonds Christian
Metz at the Bibliothque du film (BiFi) in Paris.
Julia Zutavern and Eva Lipecki for their discreet and competent help in
organizing the conference.
Robert Riesinger, who was unfortunately unable to attend the conference,
for his interest in our project and for the exchange of ideas prior to the event.
Susie Trenka and Adrian Seward, translator and proofreader respec-
tively, for their substantial contributions in preparing and completing this
volume, as well as Henry M. Taylor for his competent translations during
the conference.
Lorenz Vollenweider for his willingness to conduct research in libraries
and online.
All employees of the Department of Film Studies at the University of
Zurich for their many small and large services and courtesies as well as
their commitment behind the scenes.
Furthermore, we would like to thank the following institutions for their
financial support of the conference and of the publication of this book:
The Swiss Society for Cultural Theory and Semiotics (SSCS)
The Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHS)
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
The French Embassy in Switzerland
Hochschulstiftung der Universitt Zrich
The Doctoral programme Film, Photography, and Other Visual Media
(swissuniversities / University of Zurich, Graduate Campus / University of
Lausanne)
The Masters programme of the Swiss Cinema Network
10 CHRISTIAN ME TZ AND THE CODES OF CINEMA

Last but not least, our thanks go to Amsterdam University Press, especially
Maryse Elliott and Jeroen Sondervan, and the series editors of Film Theory
in Media History, Vinzenz Hediger, Weihong Bao, and Trond Lundemo.
 Editorial Note

The editors of this volume would like to point out some terminological
inconsistencies and editorial decisions. Several fundamental concepts in
the field of film semiology possess a certain terminological fuzziness.
This is partly due to the difffering epistemological discourses in the French
and English-speaking worlds. In part, it also goes back to various historical
translations of Metzs works or, beyond that, of linguistic and philosophical
reference works. This has resulted in the authors in this volume sometimes
using diffferent terms for the same concept. To avoid confusion, we would
like to briefly explain some of the central terms.
The first instance of such a floating terminology concerns the word pair
semiology/semiotics. The distinction is based on two schools of thought
established by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1838-1914)
and the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Their respective
theories of signs, which were developed simultaneously, difffer in the two
scholars specific approaches: Peirces general semiotics is rooted in logic
and epistemology, while the structuralist focus of Saussures semiology
addresses language (especially verbal language).
When the International Association for Semiotic Studies (Association
Internationale de Smiotique, IASS-AIS) was founded in Paris in 1969, se-
miotics was offficially determined as the general term. However, especially
in France (and also in film studies), the term semiology has remained
common for all (inter)disciplinary approaches that consider themselves
to be part of the Saussurian structuralist tradition (Claude Lvi-Strauss,
Roland Barthes, Grard Genette, Christian Metz, and others). It has also
served to mark its distinction from the structural semantics of A.J. Grei-
mas and the Ecole smiotique de Paris. In the English-speaking world, the
term semiotics is more common. The editors of this volume have decided
against harmonizing the usage. Thus, while both terms appear in the texts
of this book, the authors primarily use them to refer to Metzs structuralist
tradition. Where this is not the case, the connection to the approaches of
Peirce or Greimas is either clear from the context or explicitly referred to
by the authors.
Another term that might lead to confusion is apparatus. Here, the prob-
lem is largely due to those English translations where Jean-Louis Baudrys
and Metzs dispositif are consistently translated as apparatus. However, in
his text Le dispositif (1975), Baudry made a clear distinction: In a general
way, we distinguish the basic apparatus, which is made up of the ensemble
12 CHRISTIAN ME TZ AND THE CODES OF CINEMA

of operations and technologies that are necessary to produce a film and

to project it, from the dispositive, which concerns only the projection and
includes the subject to whom the projection is addressed. (Communica-
tions 23 [1975], 56-72, [pp.58-59], our translation). The two aspects of the
cinematic institution, which are thus translated into English as apparatus,
are additionally blurred by the fact that apparatus theory has become a
common umbrella term for ideological critiques of cinema.
However, there is an increasing emphasis on the distinction between ap-
paratus and dispositive, as evidenced by Frank Kesslers Notes on dispositif
[http://www.frankkessler.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Dispositif-Notes.
pdf], or by the volume Cin-Dispositives edited by Franois Albera and Maria
Tortajada (Amsterdam University Press, 2015). In the present volume, the
terms apparatus and dispositive are both meant in the sense of Baudrys
dispositive when they refer to Metzs Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The
Imaginary Signifier (trans. by Celia Britton and others, Basingstoke &
London: Macmillan, 1982 [1977]).1 By contrast, in his last book Lnonciation
impersonelle ou le site du film (Paris: Mridiens Klincksieck, 1991), Metz
himself often uses dispositif for what belongs to Baudrys basic apparatus
for instance, the camera as in the chapter Exposing the Apparatus
(Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film, trans. by Cormac Deane, New
York: Columbia University Press, 2016, pp.64-70). Thus, the term apparatus
is appropriate in this case.
Another unresolved translation issue has resulted in the synonymous
use of matter of expression and material of expression. The concept, intro-
duced into the structuralist debate by the Danish linguist Louis Hjelmslev
in Omkring sprogteoriens grundlggelse (Copenhagen, 1943), was translated
into English as expression-purport (Prolegomena to a Theory of Language,
trans. by Francis J. Whitfield, Baltimore: Indiana University Publications
in Anthropology and Linguistics 1953). Metz, who productively adopted
the concept for his film semiology, uses the French translation matire
dexpression in order to describe the pre-semiotic, amorphous, physical
continuum constituting the five physical foundations of the cinematic
language (these five elements are: moving photographic image, dialogue,
noise, music, and written materials). Of the two English phrases, matter of
expression is the more commonly used, but quotations from Language and
Cinema (trans. by Donna Jean Umiker-Sebeok, The Hague/Paris: Mouton

1 The American edition, which was published in the same year (Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 1982), has turned around the title and subtitle: The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis
and Cinema, but the translation and pagination are identical.
EDITORIAL NOTE 13

1974 [1971]) sometimes also include material of expression. The same applies
to matter of content and material of content. (The editors wish to thank
Martin Lefebvre for these explanations with regard to Hjelmslev.)
The Grand Syntagmatique (where Metz isolates eight principal syntag-
matic figures of narrative cinema) was translated as The Large Syntagmatic
Category in Film Language (Film Language. A Semiotics of the Cinema,
trans. by Michael Taylor, New York: Oxford University Press, 1974 [1968]).
However, this phrase never established itself. The authors in this volume
use Grand Syntagmatique (whether capitalized or not), or sometimes the
original French expression grande syntagmatique.
The final note relates to a diffferent level and concerns Metzs final work,
Lnonciation impersonnelle ou le site du film (1991). Until the books first
integral English translation by Cormac Deane (Impersonal Enunciation,
or the Place of Film, New York: Columbia University Press, 2016; afterword
by Dana Polan), which evolved simultaneously with this volume and was
published in February 2016, only individual chapters from the book were
available in English. Therefore, in most contributions to this volume, the
authors or translators themselves have translated quotes directly from the
French original. Some authors also refer to Metzs essay, published prior to
the book in Vertigo (1 [1987], pp.13-34), which corresponds more or less to the
first chapter of the 1991 book and which was available in an English version:
The Impersonal Enunciation or the Site of Film (In the margin of recent
works or enunciation in cinema), trans. by Batrice Durand-Sendrail with
Kristen Brookes, New Literary History, 22/3 (1991), pp.747-72; reprinted in
The Film Spectator: From Sign to Mind, ed. by Warren Buckland (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 1995), pp.140-63.
Figure 1.1 Portrait of Christian Metz (undated)