The Thin Red Line
After the debate of expressionism and realism the next major movement in film theory was semiotics. Ever since the beginning of film history theorists have been fond of comparing film with verbal language. It was only until the 50s and 60s that the real study as film as a language could proceed. Semiotics is the study of systems of signs. The French theorist, Christian Metz (Film language: a semiotics of the cinema 1974) used semiotics as a systematic and scientific method to analyse the ways in which film produces meaning. This was in line with the structure list movement in linguistics and literature studies during the sixties and seventies. All the theorists argued that film communicates according to a specific set of grammatical rules.
For semioticians a sign must consist out of two parts: the signifier and the signified. In film the signifier (image) and what is signified (what it represents) are almost identical. A picture bears some direct relationship with what it signifies, a world seldom does. “The power of language systems is that there is a great difference between the signifier and the signified; the power of film is that there is not.” (Metz)
The reason it is so essential to read images well (understand them and break them into codes) is that one has more power over the medium; and therefore one is more effective in translating ones message to film.
Semiotic theory and analysis provide us with the analytical tools to analyze the working of film as a signifying practice. “Semiotics is a logical, often illuminating system that helps to describe how film does what it does.
“The word text refers to the form and content of the message itself which could be in oral, written, or graphic languages; using still and moving images, or using multi media including computers”.
“Text usually refers to a message that has a physical existence of its own.” A text stands detached or separate from the communicator or from the mass media audience. Textual analysis of audio visual codes allows one to analyse a text. The content can be broken down into units or codes. Texts are governed by codes that are basically a set of rules. By comparing, contrasting, and identifying codes one can get the meaning of texts.
In order to understand the type of texts and be visually literate one must understand media literacy. Media literacy is composed of content literacy (what is the message – types of texts), grammar literacy (the way the message is encoded), and medium literacy (the medium and its way of expressing meaning).
There are two approaches, one semiotic and the other cognitive. “The semiotic approach is the analysis of signs and symbols in film, and the relationship between a sign and the meaning communicated.” Signs have denotive and conative meanings and are used as codes. The cognitive approach is subjective as we perceive and describe meanings to that which we perceive on the basis of association. Associations are based on past experiences or assumptions.
Furthermore, all films have an ideological text. The filmmaker has his own point of view and opinion, but so does the audience who can ignore, reiterate or oppose it.
Film denotation and connotation
Film does not only denote a literal meaning. The image is iconic indexical and symbolic in that the interpretation of an image is influenced by cultural and social codes. When understanding an image the viewer uses their own knowledge which is connected to a cultural and ideological background. So apart from the image containing iconic, indexical and symbolic features we must take into account how the viewer understands it.
A further way of understanding the various modes of denotation and connotation in film is categorizing signs into:
The icon: A sign in which the signifier represents the signified meaning mainly by its similarity to it (likeness) e.g. the image of the crocodile is a crocodile. (refer to Semiological Analysis.)
The index: Which measures a quality not because it is identical to it but because it has an inherent relationship to it e.g. the crocodile is an index of a hunter. (refer to Semiological Analysis.)
The symbol: An arbitrary sign in which the signifier has never a direct nor an indexical relationship to the signified, but rather represents it through convention e.g. the crocodile is a symbol of death (refer to Semiological Analysis.)
The paradigmatic / syntagmatic nature of film
The paradigm represents the choice of the filmmaker when formulating a message. The syntagm is the formulated film shot. In order to tell a story, single shots are combined into scenes and scenes into sequences by editing techniques; therefore the paradigm are the production values and the editing is the syntagm. First articulation of meaning: The director’s choice of content of the image. Second articulation of meaning: The way the director portrays the chosen content (camera point of view as a means of creating form). Third articulation of meaning: The way in which the director combines single shots in to sequences and scenes (editing as a means of creating form).
“In truth, the drama of film lies not so much in what is shot, but how it is shot and how it is presented”
Trope is the last element: a logical twist that gives the elements of a sign – the signifier and signified – a new relationship to each other. The trope is therefore the connecting element between denotation and connotation, and makes this sublime scene work.
Terrence Malick ‘The Thin Red Line’
1999 – Winner – Berlin Festival
Literature as a non-filmic code, based on the book: ‘A Thin Red Line’ By James Jones, Collins 1963.
In the book ‘The Thin Red Line’ by James Jones there is an old Middle Western saying: “There is only a thin red line between the sane and the mad.” This relates to the recurring theme of the affects of war on the mind of the individual. The text gives the movie its title and becomes a subtext in Malick’s direction. It allows one to intertextualise between Jones’s writing and the interpretation of Malick.
Overview and scene explanation
This is a film that examines critically the history and affects of war from the point of view of the Americans, from private first class all the way up to general. Codes are used in the scene to create a certain atmosphere of peace and convey a meaning of impending doom. Unlike the book that opens on the Cargo boat, Malick has used the entire scene as a visual metaphor for the movie. The first scene shows two young privates living AWOL with islanders, a patrol boat searches for them which is understood at the end of the scene. They are fighting a war they know little about and are confronting the fear of death. The theme is about the futility of war and the power of authority over the individual. Sub themes include man’s love of humanity destroyed by the ideologies of Government and the thin red line between sanity and madness.
The mis en scene is beautiful and realistic. The décor, the props, and costumes work, borrowing from pictorial codes. The camera’s point of view is never static, searching for compositional strength in showing the location and life-style of the indigenous people. It chooses images like the swimming children in a way similar to how a writer would choose a word. The innovative editing techniques created all of this into a visual poem.
Pictorially it is reminiscent of Gaugin’s Polynesian paintings. Deep Saturated colors, emphasizing the health and happiness, sweat and water glisten off everybody – the deep brown skin of the Islanders against the green jungle. The lighting codes emphasis the ethereal qualities of back-lighting. The paradigmatic meaning created by the amazing use of production codes Malick has applied; his elements of choice and the unexpected tropes syntagmatically edited into visual poetry.
Semiological Analysis
The opening shot is an icon, index and symbol. It is of a crocodile (icon), an index of the hunter that cannot be understood without the dimension of connotation which we realize later when the story develops into one of war. The shot of the crocodile slipping ominously into the water symbolizes the instinct of nature to survive, if necessarily, by killing. It is a metaphor of death, danger, and the hunter; an analogic code that prompts the reader to make mental comparisons. The lighting is low key and the colors murky – the crocodile is almost black and slips into the dark green water. The music is foreboding, prompting the reader to understand the crocodile foreshadows death. When the crocodile is submerged the editor cuts to a static shot of a tree in the jungle with shafts of light spilling through the canopy. The music changes to a ethereal operatic aria, soft and beautiful. The next series of shots shows the dexterity of the cameras point of view as it pans and tilts over the forest scenes. There is a long pan of the overhead canopy of trees with the light occasionally over exposing the film. A crane has been used as the mount for the camera. During these shots the music becomes background to the voice over of a lilting deep-southern drawl – the voice almost hypnotic:
“What is this war in the heart of nature?
Why does nature vie with itself?
This land contends with the sea.
Is there an avenging power in nature?
Not one power, but two.
The text in the first voice over is a poem about war. This text gives us the reference that Malick’s scene is poetry, and sets the tone of self-questioning that Malick searches for. The accent stands as a text as it is Middle Western and the reader makes particular associations with that region.
The editor then cuts to a medium shot of the island child cracking nuts with a stone, the camera’s view point is oberservational and shot from slightly above: The camera never static changing to the movement of the child. The stone used as a tool gives the reader an insight into the cultural and the ideological background of the island natives. The editor then cuts to a group of people sitting on the rocky beach in subdued morning light, to a long shot of the beach that cuts back to a bird’s eye view of the children playing an ancient rock game which is a symbol of tradition. From here Malick takes us to a series of shots underwater of children swimming. At one point one of the children looks into the camera, breaking the fourth wall. The editing is synchronized with the aria, the deep colour of underwater blue giving the connotation of angels.
The camera point of view chosen by Malick is always active and subjective and expresses how he interprets the events. In order to link the underwater shots with the next shot the DOP focuses on the water and then slowly pans to an introduction of the main character sitting in a dug-out canoe. We know he is an American soldier because of the accent of the voice-over and the dog-tag on his shirtless body. His is a slender long-necked southern boy from Virginia observing and mingling with the people. The innovative editing techniques effectively link the individual shots, but are used more as visual metaphors as they are random observations that introduce the viewer to a higher order of thinking. We then go to a long shot of mothers washing their babies which is followed by a private watching in the distance. A second voice-over begins:
“I remember my mother when she was dying.
I was afraid to touch the death in her. “
A shot of kids running and next an ECU of the private talking with his friend. The DOP introduces the next character by focusing on a parrot in his hands (an index of the tropics and a metomic code as it prompts the reader to interpret meaning based on associations.) and then tilts up his body to reveal his face listening. A cut back to the private shows him pausing and thinking followed by a cut taking us back to shots in America of a mother and daughter. These shots are the memories of the private’s life. The code used creates an atmosphere of love and peace conveying a meaning that we select only the most important memories. The mis en scene is a bedroom filled with white linen and antiques. The mother and daughter wear intricately white sewn nighties, a symbol of purity. In one of the shots the daughter touches her mother and an acoustic affect of a beating heart can be heard which a sound metaphor of life is.
The mother is dying and the daughter comes in the form of an angel to fetch her – the heart beat shows that there is life after death as the DOP pans up to the ceiling that turns into a blue sky symbolizing heaven.
The voice-over ends with:
“I just hope I can meet Death the same way.”
Second voice-over is dialogue and stands as a separate text. It refers directly to death foreshadowing a scene where the private does die with dignity. It also lets us understand the choice in production values as the shots are symbolic of love, home and nurture. Throughout the movie Malick returns to flash back memories as a means of re-enforcing the visual metaphor of home, which is a recurring sub-theme in almost all war movies.
The next shot was an ECU of a child’s hands holding hermit crabs; an analogic code of the fragility of life. The music changes to an indigenous song of the tribe and the steady cam follows the private from behind as he enters the village. The mis en scene is the village by a river close to the sea. The huts are made of palm leaves and wood. It is unchanged for years but the occasional modern implement can be seen. The tribes clothes combines western clothes with their own traditional clothes, emphasizing that modernity has touch them. There is a series of medium shots at eye level of a conversation the private has with a mother and child we saw previously in the river. The dialogue is unscripted, improvised and contains a jump cut. The grammar is uncomfortable yet seems realistic. This text allows us to understand the relationship between the two characters, and Malick has used it as a way of introducing a documentary element. The reader associate documentaries with real events and serves as way for Malick to introduce further meaning.
“The kids never fight (dialogue metaphor)
Are you afraid of me?
Yes
Why?
You look of Army
It doesn’t matter
It doesn’t matter.”
The series of shots ends with a smile of the lady, and the music changes to a gentle rhythm as we cut to the private helping to build, playing with the kids, and inside shots of a mother and a daughter cooking. We then jump to an ECU of the private smiling and swimming.
Malick and the editors poetic visual essay covers no specific time frame as it was his intention to state time was of no relevance and to create the illusion that the period could be over days or months. The music again changes as we are introduced to the whole tribe with a long tracking shot, singing and clapping. They follow their leader whom is carrying a book implying religion. This is inter-cut with an ECU of the private and is followed by a silhouetted shot of a tree that has fallen into the sea. On the tree is the second private with kids shot from behind – all of a sudden they move quickly out of the tree as an American patrol boat comes into view in the background of the shot. There is a pan of the kids and the private running, and then cuts to a long shot of the boat (we can hear the roar of the engines) we cut back to the second private quickly approaching the first.
“Patrol boat. American!”
Anxiety is shown in the acting of the characters with their movements being followed by a steady cam. They seem intent on running but realize the futility. The last shot is of the patrol boat anchored, shot from another moving boat that is circling it. There is an evil quality about the sunset, the water almost blood red.
Cut to scene two.
Tags: Film denotation and connotation, Film Semiotics, Semiological Analysis, The paradigmatic / syntagmatic nature of film
