Chapter 5: Film theory - Form and Function
p. 470: Semiotics in Film theory
"We now might want to add a fifth stage - especially in England and United States: the academic establishment of semiotics. Since the last seventies semiotics, along with its succesor critical systems, has become a useful tool for academicians interested more in publishing before they persish than in increasing our inderstanding of film theory. Because it is inherently, defiantly abstruse, semiotics is especially dangerous in this regard. In the hands of stylists like Metz, Eco (who later moved on to write popular novels), or Roland Barthes (whose books of essays were their own ends), the tools of semiotics can produce attractive and enlightening discursions. But lesser acolytes can get away with a lot here. Anyone intending to read semiotics should be forewarned: just because you can't understand it doesn't it means anything."
p. 470: Semiotics in Film theory
"We now might want to add a fifth stage - especially in England and United States: the academic establishment of semiotics. Since the last seventies semiotics, along with its succesor critical systems, has become a useful tool for academicians interested more in publishing before they persish than in increasing our inderstanding of film theory. Because it is inherently, defiantly abstruse, semiotics is especially dangerous in this regard. In the hands of stylists like Metz, Eco (who later moved on to write popular novels), or Roland Barthes (whose books of essays were their own ends), the tools of semiotics can produce attractive and enlightening discursions. But lesser acolytes can get away with a lot here. Anyone intending to read semiotics should be forewarned: just because you can't understand it doesn't it means anything."
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