Filmmakers often face creative challenges in transforming textual narratives into cinematic language. One such challenge is adaptation from a rich literary medium like a play to a film-a medium that relies less on verbal expositions and... more
Filmmakers often face creative challenges in transforming textual narratives into cinematic language. One such challenge is adaptation from a rich literary medium like a play to a film-a medium that relies less on verbal expositions and more on visual cues. In this regard, cinematographic techniques like Unity, Balance, Contrast, Colour etc. in composition and staging help with the encoding of the narrative and the subtext into the medium along with a metaphoric interpretation of the text. Rudolph Arnheim's seminal work, 'Art and Visual Perception' (1974), laid the foundation for bridging the gap between principles of visual design and gestalt psychology. Taking from Arnheim's work, linguist Mark Johnson, in his 'The Body in the Mind', expanded on the metaphoric implications of embodied image schemata by using everyday experiences. In this paper, we analyze how the principles of visual perception are presented in director Kirsten Sheridan's film 'Disco Pigs'(2001). Referencing the work of Arnheim on visual perception and Johnson's theories of Conceptual Metaphors and the image schemata, the paper highlights Sheridan's cinematic approach in bringing depth to the story telling by allowing layers of subtext and emotion in the moving frame. The paper will illustrate the Balance Schema, through a visual analysis of the film compositions and the story/theme.
