Film language

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Under film language is understood in the film studies those means of expression that are in the film uses to convey to the audience on visual and audible way content. It is assumed that film is a form of language and that audiovisual formats can be understood as texts and thus analyzed. Since films tell stories with images and sounds, which, from a semiotic point of view, are meaningful and thus complex sign structures, they can be understood as links between signs and thus as texts. Films do not represent a language like English or French because there is no grammar and no vocabulary in the sense of a foreign language. However, like a language, films exercise communication functions by means of codes and characters. It follows that the medium of film can be viewed as language, but not as a language system. A far-reaching system of codes defines how the viewer arrives at a meaning. The film-specific code of the montage defines z. B. determines which settings follow one another, resulting in a story for the viewer.

The lighting code, which is not film-specific and comes from the field of general culture, creates a certain atmosphere out of several possible and thus gives the film scenario meaning. The same applies to the code of the image content, which comes from the field of theater and determines who and what is shown in which place, which also creates meaning. By linking or interplaying a large number of possible codes, the end product, the film, which evokes an effect and contains meaning, is created. The effect and meaning of a film can be analyzed by looking at individual codes in the context of their interaction with others; they cannot be viewed individually because they only create effect and meaning together.

elements

  • Image level: Mise-en-scène , image detail, setting size, cut , exposure, coloring, production design , costumes
  • Sound level: origin (on / off), source (noise, language, music), sound-image montage
  • Cinematic storytelling: narrative perspectives, exposition
  • Time organization: narrative time vs. Telling time, different time levels
  • Movie quote

literature

  • James Monaco: Understanding Film , Hamburg 1992, p. 148, p. 417f.
  • Bernard F. Dick: The Anatomy of Film , New York 1978
  • Louis Gianetti: Understanding Movies , Englewood Cliffs 1976
  • Roy Huss / Norman Silverstein: The Film Experience , New York 1968
  • Vladimir Nilsen: Cinema as Graphic Art , Reprint, New York 1973
  • Raymond R. Spottiswoode: A Grammar of Film , Berkeley 1950
  • Ralph Stephenson / JRDebrix: The Cinema as Art , Harmondsworth 1965
  • Werner Kamp & Manfred Rüsel: On dealing with film , people and knowledge , Berlin 1998
  • Alice Bienk: film language. Introduction to interactive film analysis , Schüren, Marburg 2006
  • Helmut Schanze (Ed.), Susanne Pütz: Metzler Lexicon Media Theory, Media Studies. Approaches, people, basic concepts. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-476-01761-3 .
  • Jürgen Kühnel: Introduction to film analysis. Part 1: The characters of the film. 3rd edition, Universi, Siegen 2008 ISBN 3-936533-13-X
    • dsb .: Part 2: Dramaturgy of the feature film. ibid. 2nd edition 2007 ISBN 3936533164