Christian Metz (theorist)

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Christian Metz
Born 12 December 1931
Béziers
Died 7 September 1993 (aged 61)
Paris
Cause of death Suicide
Academic background
Influences Ferdinand de Saussure
Academic work
School or tradition Film semiotics
Institutions School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS)
Main interests Film studies, media studies
Notable works Language and Cinema
The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema
Notable ideas Film semiotics

Christian Metz (French: [mɛts]; 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.[1]
As Constance Penley flatly stated in Camera Obscura, "Modern film theory begins
with Metz."[2]
Contents

1 Biography
2 Select bibliography
3 Notes
4 Further reading

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 Cinema, langue or parole? ("cinema, language or

speech") in the journal Communications, 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's psychology and Jacques Lacan'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.[3]

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."[4]
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.[5]
Select bibliography

Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema (ISBN 0-226-52130-3)

The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (ISBN 0-253-20380-5)
Language and Cinema (ISBN 90-279-2682-4)
Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film (ISBN 0-231-17367-9)

Notes

Chateau, Dominique; Lefebvre, Martin (2014-05-01). "Dance and Fetish: Phenomenology

and Metz's Epistemological Shift". October. 148: 103–132. doi:10.1162/OCTO_a_00177.
ISSN 0162-2870. S2CID 57559768.
Metz, Christian (2016-03-29). Buckland, Warren; Fairfax, Daniel (eds.).
Conversations with Christian Metz: Selected interviews on film theory (1970-1991).
Amsterdam: Wageningen Academic Publishers. p. 12. ISBN 978-90-485-2673-4. OCLC
1018944950.
Mitry, Jean (2000). Semiotics and the Analysis of Film. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press. ISBN 0-253-33733-X. OCLC 44755128.
Metz, Christian (2016). Impersonal enunciation, or the place of film. Translated by
Deane, Cormac. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54064-3. OCLC
936117850.
Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy (1994). "Tribute to Christian Metz". Discourse. Wayne State
University Press. 16 (3): 3–5.