Christian Metz's Film Semiotics Part 2: Syntagmatic vs Paradigmatic

[@landonOD66]

Not all heroes wear capes. ✊🏻

[@sokol8444]

Some of them just are brilliant teachers :)! Thank you Jordan, fantastic videos you create!!!!

[@victoriaq9172]

Thank you for exposing this so well! I’ve been struggling to understand paradigmatic and syntagmatic for a while but you’ve helped me so much!

[@kollisoraya2938]

Excellent explanation, very clear thank you very much

[@ifuekob-a4313]

you are a legend for this! 🙌🙌

[@filmandmediastudieschannel]

thank you!

[@danyramos8139]

Brilliant analysis. Thank you so much for uploading this

[@SantanuMandal-bl2nq]

Thank you so much prof, its so helpful! Cant thanks enough! Take love ❤

[@seun-ohm]

Awesome!

[@ladafranulovic8340]

will there be another episode of Metz, for example on imaginary signifier?

[@filmandmediastudieschannel]

at some point very likely!

[@ladafranulovic8340]

Looking forward to it!

[@MariaFernanda-lv3lm]

I love you LOL 😂 you saved my life!

[@craigjohnson4063]

what's an example of a film that doesn't follow these patterns?

[@SoroushMohammadi-j8x]

Thank you for the great content I am writing a master thesis in which I am trying to analyze Andrei Tarkovsky’s films with Christian Metz’s theory and I would be grateful if I get the chance to exchange ideas with you. Let me know if I can have the honor✌🏻

[@BENJAMÍNCAMILOSAAVEDRA]

Hi, I have a doubt. I am doing work on choosing and analyzing an autonomous segment. And I wanted to know if this "kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWK7ZZ2lmtt7qcU" could be considered an alternative sintagma.

[@mirnaynay]

my exam grade will be thanking u

[@lisaxia5288]

lol looks like we are taking the same exam

[@mirnaynay]

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[@lisaxia5288]

@@mirnaynay right haha still looking ans for b1

[@BabakBahmani]

Thank you🌱, but I think you just missed to compare the smallest linguistic unit which is a phoneme, to the smallest filmic unit which is a frame full of different information. Or maybe I didn't pay attention carefully. wish you the best🥀

[@filmandmediastudieschannel]

Thanks for the comment. Does Christian Metz mean to compare phonemes to frames in his text? If so, please let me know! In my memory of the text, Metz's hypothesis about film's analogousness to language hinges on a comparison between shots and words, not frames and phonemes (though it's possible he mentions the latter and I don't remember). Keep in mind that my aim in the video is simply to summarize the claims of the text, not to put forth my own claims. I agree that a linguist would not put forth a 'word' as the smallest linguistic unit, but rather a phoneme. And indeed somebody could also argue that a frame, not a shot, is the smallest unit of film. But in my opinion it actually makes a lot of sense why Metz chooses to analogize shots and words. Happy to discuss further if you're interested.

[@BabakBahmani]

@@filmandmediastudieschannel Well, I am not sure myself, because I've read the Persian translation of the book, and in that translation it was told Vaaj (phoneme) and Frame, but just recently a a friend of mine brought me the English book. But anyway I am not an expert. But you are. And I'm so happy to learning from you. And it's not a complimentary. I really mean that, you are the BEST.🌻

[@filmandmediastudieschannel]

@@BabakBahmani That's very interesting, Babak. I just revisited the chapter and Metz does in fact, in the English translation, mention frames and phonemes, but it seems clear that the primary analogy that he's investigating is shots and words. This passage here is illuminating: The “shot”-an already complex unit, which must be studied-remains an indispensable reference for the time being, in somewhat the same way that the “word” was during a period of linguistic research. It might be somewhat adventurous to compare the shot to the taxeme, in Louis Hjelmslev’s sense, but one can consider that it constitutes the largest minimum segment (the expression is borrowed from André Martinet), since at least one shot is required to make a film, or part of a film-in the same way, a linguistic statement must be made up of at least one phoneme. To isolate several shots from a sequence is still, perhaps, to analyze the sequence; to remove several frames from a shot is to destroy the shot. If the shot is not the smallest unit of filmic signification (for a single shot may convey several informational elements), it is at least the smallest unit of the filmic chain.

[@BabakBahmani]

@@filmandmediastudieschannel 🙏thank you, that was really helpful.

[@arthurflegenheimer7060]

Interesting thought. I think the video mainly deals with the syntagmatic relations that shots assume when cut in a certain way, it's about the syntax of film, and your comment relates to the semantics of the shot. To identify the analogue of phonemes, then, you'd have to identify minimal pairs of shots and the essential feature that distinguishes them on a paradigmatic level. Would it be frames? I think it would be the objects that populate the shot and their composition. The criss-cross-ness of feet walking signifies the simultaneity of the scenes, that they walk in opposite directions can mean that they will meet, the closeup of feet maybe that they're strangers and the hero going left-right and the villain going right-left establishes their roles -- but what exctly in the shot makes it the shot it is, as opposed to a car chase, a meet-cute, a jump scare, a woman pressing her palm up to a rainy window pane? When you identify the defining feature and find two shots in two categories delimited by precisely that feature: there you go, the film phoneme.