Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film

Christian Metz

Christian Metz

Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film

In: Film and Culture Series

Translated by: Cormac Deane
Afterword by: Dana Polan

Columbia University Press | 2016

https://doi.org/10.7312/metz17366

Overview
Contents

About this book

Christian Metz is best known for applying Saussurean theories of semiology to film analysis. In this book, he uses the concept of enunciation to articulate how films "speak" and explore where this communication occurs. If a film frame contains another frame, which frame do we emphasize? And should we consider this staging an impersonal act of enunciation? Metz builds a novel theory around the placement and subjectivity of screens within screens, which pulls in—and forces him to reassess—his work on authorship, film language, and the position of the spectator. He draws surprising conclusions that presage current writings on digital media. His analysis enriches work on cybernetic emergence, self-assembly, self-reference, hypertext, and texts that self-produce in such a way that the human element disappears. A critical introduction by Cormac Deane bolsters the connection between Metz's findings and nascent digital-media theory, emphasizing Metz's keen anticipation of the methodological and philosophical concerns we wrestle with today.

The late work of an avant-garde theorist adds clarity to the phenomenology of new media.

Author information

Christian Metz (1931–1993) is also the author of Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema; The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema; and Language and Cinema.

Reviews

The moments of poetry, wit, and charming cinephilia scattered throughout make this work as engaging as it is enlightening.... Essential.

Sean Cubitt, Goldsmiths, University of London:
Metz returns to and develops the question of what speaks in the moving image: code, or something else. In meticulous and enlightening readings of films, television shows, and changing ways of watching them, Metz's posthumous text is a true ghost in the machine, a revenant who reopens many of the arguments we thought were closed and makes audiovisual media matter, once more, in every sense of the word

In this splendid new translation.... Metz shines through, avoiding jargon, using richly illustrative examples, and writing with a persuasive voice.Publishers Weekly

Warren Buckland, author of The Cognitive Semiotics of Film:
At long last, Christian Metz's final book, Impersonal Enunciation, is available in English, expertly translated by Cormac Deane. Metz's non-deictic, reflexive theory of enunciation, in which the film text continually references itself, constitutes the culmination of his lifelong semiotic analysis of the cinema.

D. N. Rodowick, University of Chicago:
Metz's generous personality is captured well here, something that no other English translation has accomplished. It is both an extension of Metz's path-breaking work in bringing the concepts and methods of linguistics and psychoanalysis to the study of film, and the articulation of fundamentally new directions in his thought.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
CONTENTS Free access PDF PDF	v
Acknowledgments Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	vii
Translator’s Introduction Cormac Deane Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	ix
BIBLIOGRAPHY Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	xxiv
1. Humanoid Enunciation Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	3
2. The Voice of Address in the Image: The Look to Camera Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	27
3. The Voice of Address Outside the Image: Related Sounds Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	39
4. Written Modes of Address Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	46
5. Secondary Screens, or Squaring the Rectangle Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	52
6. Mirrors Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	60
7. “Exposing the Apparatus” Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	64
8. Film(s) Within Film Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	71
9. Subjective Images, Subjective Sounds, “Point of View” Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	89
10. The I-voice and Related Sounds Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	107
11. The Oriented Objective System: Enunciation and Style Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	121
12. “Neutral” (?) Images and Sounds Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	135
13. (Taking Theoretical Flight) Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	143
Afterword Dana Polan Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	177
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	187
On the Shelf: Works Cited Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	217
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	229

Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film

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