Film Discourse

Contents: Prefice; 1. Discoursive strategies; 2. Fictionality and document; 3. Film kinds and their characteristics; 4. Literature, film script, cinema; 5. Working manners inside television; 6. Television vs. film (the nature of television and the nature of film); 7. Customs and habits / Intex of names / Subject index / Bibliography / About the author / History of publishing

This study primarily attempts at examining the mind style of the leading character in the 1997 film As Good as It Gets performed by Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall, a novelist who is characterized as a misanthrope, and suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The main aim of this paper is to examine the mind-modeling of the character's mind for his unique odd mind style. This can be achieved by applying both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The adopted methodology is based basically on McIntyre and Archer (2010) and McIntyre (2015); it shares some of the perspectives that require using Wmatrix (Rayson, 2008) to perform the quantitative analysis in order to validate the qualitative data. However, this study, does not aim to measure consistency. This paper aims at: first, verifying the usefulness of one of the corpus tools in understanding the deviant mind of the character. Second, analyzing key semantic domains of the speech of the main character as well as the keywords used by him. In addition to that, the researcher tries to benefit from cognitive linguistics schema theory in understanding the odd mind style of the character.

Meunier's reflections upon the differences between the "home-movie attitude," the "documentary attitude," and the "fiction attitude" can help to develop a theory of reference in cinematic discourse. Such a theory needs to take into account three fundamental ideas. First, reference is not constituted by the film alone but results from an interaction between film and viewer. Second, there are different kinds of objects (or entities with different "modes of being") that are referred to. These two ideas can be drawn more or less directly from Meunier's argument. The third idea is less obvious but logically implied: it is based on a differentiation between three dimensions of meaning: intensional (with an 's'), extensional, and referential meaning, all of which co-exist phenomenologically.

Busca comprender cómo se manifiestan y qué expresan las representaciones de lo grotesco en el discurso fílmico de Caídos del cielo. Interpreta la película en relación a la realidad referida en su discurso fílmico y la comprende como representación cinematográfica de una nación. Plantea la siguiente hipótesis: las representaciones de lo grotesco en el discurso fílmico de Caídos del cielo se manifiestan de acuerdo a una estética realista con presencia de lo simbólico y expresan aquellas relaciones conflictivas a nivel social, cultural y afectivo experimentadas por la nación peruana en el espacio urbano de Lima hacia fines de la década de 1980. Utiliza una metodología ad-hoc que comprende la recontextualización de la realidad referida en el discurso fílmico y la fenomenología del discurso fílmico. Emplea como herramientas metodológicas a la fenomenología de los símbolos del imaginario donde se considera la vía semántica y a la genealogía de la representación del otro-femenino en la modernidad.

This paper explores the linguistic representations of minority groups in Turkey in post-1990s Turkish cinema. It aims to identify how the uses of multilingualism and translation promote diversity and respect for difference, thereby reworking the monolingualist mindset, which prevailed in Turkey until the late 1990s. The monolingualist mindset is characterised by a suspicion of other languages and those who speak them, and aims for linguistic homogeneity. Therefore, there is an underlying tension between everyday linguistic practices of multilingual people and the monolingualist mindset. This paper argues that the linguistic representation of the ‘other’ varies in each multilingual film in line with its engagement with this tension. Four films examined here are Sonbahar (Autumn, 2008), Nefes (Breath, 2009), Ben Gördüm (Min Dît: the Children of Diyarbakır, 2009), and Jîn (2013). Chris Wahl’s distinction between genuine polyglot films and those which incorporate multilingualism without any contribution to character or plot development serves a reference point in discussing the differences in the functions of multilingualism in each film. The analysis investigates a) what symbolic values are assigned to particular languages through the temporal and spatial contexts of use, b) how the characters speaking these languages are depicted in the story, and c) whether multilingual interactions are accompanied by extra- or intra-diegetic interpreting techniques. The findings suggest that these films constitute ‘genuine polyglot films’ and champion the recognition of linguistic difference to the degree that they unmark the ‘marked’ status of minority languages and problematize the asymmetrical relationship between the majority and minority languages.

Even though ludologists suggest that in the videogames studies
film theory, like narratology, semiology and some other theories, should be narrowed down and functionally subordinated to the ludic aspect, this paper builds on an assumption that film theory is applicable to some types and some aspects or segments of videogames.
Unlike films, where the viewer has to discern the type
of film discourse and the kind of attention the particular film calls for, so as to understand what is important for the film’s meaning; in videogames the activities of the user/viewer are governed foremost by the rules of the game. It is partly because of that pragmatic functionality that possibilities of visual presentation in videogames are limited and less fluid in comparison to those found in film. On the other hand, the predetermination of scenes and their sequential nature allow for the discussion of cinematic discourse in relation to videogames, even though videogame discourse sharply differs from that in film. In other words, scene parameters in videogames are determined by both game rules and assets of
cinematic discourse. From four modes of cinematic discourse –
description and narration (scenic discourses) and argumentation and poetic discourse (interpretive discourses) – the poetic one seems to be the most arguable and least present, even in non-interactive, cinematic segments of games. Games demand activity that is opposite to poetic, contemplative moods – constant activity, incessant reactions on visual surroundings. However, examples laid out in this paper and their analysis show that poetic mode of
cinematic discourse is present in videogame kinematics, and that poetization (“poeticizing” = adding poetic values to the other types of discourse, mostly description and narration), can be recognized even in interactive, playable segments of videogames. Example of poetic mode of cinematic discourse in this paper is taken from the opening cinematic of Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 6, which is compared to the short experimental films of Norman McLaren, and from Blade Runner (Virgin Interactive, 1997), game based on Ridley Scott’s 1982 film.

В данной статье рассматривается интертекстуальность функционально-прагматических единиц кинотекста кинозаголовков, синопсисов и слоганов кинофильма, являющихся непосредственной частью семиотического пространства кинотекста. Цель данной работы-доказать присутствие интертекстуальных связей в функционально-прагматических единицах кинотекста и подробно рассмотреть внутреннюю интертекстуальность данного класса единиц. Прагматическая направленность кинозаголовка, синопсиса и слогана кинофильма, основной задачей которых является привлечение как можно больше представителей целевой аудитории к просмотру кинофильма, во многом обусловливает характер интертекстуальных аллюзий, встречающихся в данных единицах кинотекста. В ходе исследования нами были сделаны следующие выводы: наиболее приемлемой для анализа интертекстуальности функционально-прагматических единиц кинотекста является теория транстекстуальности Ж. Женетта, посредством которой интертекстуальность кинозаголовка, синопсиса и слогана необходимо рассматривать на основе паратекстуальности, метатекстуальности и гипертекстуальности. Интертекстуальность функционально-прагматических единиц кино-текста заключается во взаимодействии кинозаголовка, синопсиса и слогана кинофильма с прецедентными текстами и событиями, а также в межтекстовой связи внутри класса данных единиц. Внутренняя интертекстуальность кинозаголовка, синопсиса и слогана реализуется посред-ством эхо-фраз заголовка и слогана кинофильма в его синопсисе, а также между частями синопсиса кинопроизведения. Внутренняя интертекстуальность класса функционально-прагматических единиц позволяет кинозаголовку, синопсису и слогану кинопроизведения обеспечить выполнение их основной функции-привлечение к просмотру кинофильма как можно большее число представителей целевой аудитории кинокартины. Ценность данного исследования заключается в комплексном осмыслении интертекстуальности функционально-прагматических единиц кинотекста, а также выявлении их взаимодействия между собой. Ключевые слова: кинодискурс, кинотекст функционально-прагматические единицы кинотекста, кинозаголовок, синопсис, слоган, интертекстуальность