Christian Metz (; December 12, 1931 – September 7, 1993) was a French film theorist, best known for pioneering film semiotics, the application of theories of signification to the cinema. During the 1970s, his work had a major impact on film theory in France, Britain, Latin America, and the United States. As Constance Penley flatly stated in ''Camera Obscura'', "Modern film theory begins with Metz."

Biography

Metz was born in Béziers. He lectured at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS). In 1964, he published the article "Le cinéma : langue ou langage?" ("Cinema: language or language-system?") in the journal ''

Communications Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...

'', and the following books over the next 25 years: ''Essays on the Signification of Cinema'' (1968 and 1973), ''Language and Cinema'' (1971), ''Semiotic Essays'' (1977), ''The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema'' (1977). In ''Film Language: A Semiotics of Cinema'', Metz focuses on narrative structure — proposing the "Grand Syntagmatique", a system for categorizing scenes (known as " syntagms") in films. Metz applied both

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

and

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...

's mirror theory to the cinema, proposing that the reason film is popular as an art form lies in its ability to be both an imperfect reflection of reality and a method to delve into the unconscious dream state. His work has been critiqued by Jean Mitry in 1987 in ''Semiotics and the Analysis of Film'', and virulently so by Jean-François Tarnowski in ''Positif''. In his final work, ''Impersonal Enunciation'', Metz "uses the concept of enunciation to articulate how films 'speak' and explore where this communication occurs, offering critical direction for theorists who struggle with the phenomena of new media." Published in French in 1991, ''Impersonal Enunciation'' received little attention in the English-speaking world until it was translated in 2016, an indicator of a resurgence of interest in Metz as a scholar whose work on multi-screen environments was before its time. Metz died in Paris, aged 61, having taken his own life.

Select bibliography

* ''Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema'' () * ''The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema'' () * ''Language and Cinema'' () * ''Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film'' ()

Biography

Select bibliography

Notes

Further reading