for each spectator: a film constitutes a spectator’s ‘version’ of the director’s
film; in it the semantic and social values held by the spectator are combined
with the (un)reality and diegetic world of the film.
As outlined previously, one of the ways to understand the qualities of
the image nowadays is to observe the image, not as simple imitation of
reality, but as a creation of reality. According to Barthes (1964: 1-11), the
image is basically a reconstruction and it does not intend to achieve the
representation of reality; it is not a reproduction, it is a simulacrum. In this
sense, Barthes questions visual representations, examining the possibilities of
the copy to produce true systems of signs and not merely the aggregation of
symbols. Barthes is interested in analyzing how cinema operates as a
language, and, to this end, differentiates three levels of the message, all of
which are present in the image:
1. The linguistic: articulated in denotation and connotation
2. The iconic: constituted by a series of discontinuous signs
3. Symbolic: the correspondence of signified and signifier which
produces meaning and is strongly codified. This is the place where we can
find the ideological sense of the message.
In short, Linguistic, Iconic and Symbolic elements of cinema create the
(un)reality of films. The specific nature of each one, and the interaction of
all of them together, will create a more or less (un)real representation of
reality, a representation that is simultaneously communicable. Christian Metz
(1982) believes that cinema is indeed a language. It is a language because it
has a text and a meaningful discourse; but it is language without a code, with
the ability of communicating (un)reality without the constraints of
typographic media. Metz reduces the importance of iconography in cinema to
a marginal level, focusing on simple evidence such as ‘good cowboys wear
white shirts and bad cowboys wear black shirts’. Metz follows the same line
as Saussure, who perceives in the signs an arbitrary condition that makes
them fundamental in communicating cinematic (un)reality. In fact, in the
symbol there is always a code: it is not absolutely open and the relationship
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