Film Discourse Interpretation Janina Wildfeuer Bremen Institute for Transmedial Textuality Research Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Science Bremen University

2 What is it about? How do we understand films? How do we construct meanings out of the interplay of the various modalities in filmic text?

3 „Understanding film…“ analysis of the semantic content analysis of the dynamic unfolding text/discourse analysis of information processing guided

4 Filmic Meaning Construction "Understanding is mediated by transformative acts, both "bottom-up" – mandatory, automatic psychological processes - and "top-down" – conceptual, strategic ones. The sensory data of the film at hand furnish the materials out of which inferential processes of perception and cognition build meanings. Meaning are not found but made. […] Comprehension and interpretation thus involve the construction of meaning out of textual cues. In this respect, meaning-making is a psychological and social activity fundamentally akin to other cognitive processes.” (Bordwell 1989: 3)

5 Inferential View on Text/Discourse How do we understand what is going on in sentences and texts? –We just work out ‘what is going on’... (traditional pragmatics) –We ask for clear textual cues that provide explicit guidance about how interpretation is to proceed.

6 Discourse Mechanisms for Language

7 Linguistic Examples of Discourse Relations Paul arrived. Max greeted him. –If we add b into a discourse interpretation then we might deduce that b adds to a narrative –If Narration (a, b) then a happens before b temporal sequence: Narration event aevent b

8 Linguistic Examples of Discourse Relations Max fell. Paul pushed him. - If we are adding b into a discourse interpretation and b causes a then we might deduce that b is an explanation of a causal relation: Explanation event aevent b

9 What kind of structure is text structure? discursive, not syntactic defeasible/ abductive (Peirce) / non-monotonic Formal and functional models of discourse semantics Kamp, Asher & Lascarides, Martin, Polanyi, Webber

10 Theory of Film Comprehension T HEORIE DES F ILMVERSTEHENS L OGIC OF F ILM D ISCOURSE I NTERPRETATION 1. level of identification and arrangement of the meaning-making entities 2. level of coherence and structure 1. logic 2. logic constructing logical forms of discourse relating the logical forms via discourse relations Wildfeuer 2013

11 2 Steps of Film Discourse Interpretation 1. ask for the multimodal construction of narrative events in the film: intersemiosis of the various resources 2. ask for the combination of these events into a coherent structure via inferring discourse relations

12 Film Discourse Interpretation 1. step: Interpreting Narrative Events of the Filmic Discourse level of identification and arrangement of the meaning-making entities

13 1. Step: Interpreting Narrative Events

14 1. Step: Interpreting Narrative Events

15 Film Discourse Interpretation 2. step: Inferring Discourse Relations between the Events level of coherence and structure

16 Logic of Film Discourse Interpretation (Wildfeuer 2013)

17 Discourse Relations in Film temporal sequence

18 Discourse Relations in Film causality

19 2 Steps of Film Discourse Interpretation 1. ask for the multimodal construction of narrative events in the film: intersemiosis of the various resources 2. ask for the combination of these events into a coherent structure via inferring discourse relations 1 2

20 What for…? work out how filmic material constructs meaning work out clear textual cues within the artefact = semantic basis further interpretations

21 What for…? work out how filmic material constructs meaning work out clear textual cues within the artefact = semantic basis interpretations

22 Example: El Vendedor de Humo (Maestro, 2012) available online:

23 El Vendedor de Humo

24 El Vendedor de Humo

25 El Vendedor de Humo

26 El Vendedor de Humo

27 Causality in Film

28 What for…? analysis of the propositional/semantic content analysis of topics in the text evaluation of topics questions of genre, style, aesthetics etc.? analysis interpretation

29 What for…? Website German Film Academy, „Classic Movies in School“ | willkommen/aktuelles/meldung.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=279&cHash= 0594f5ed6d2c84f69fc632cbcb | willkommen/aktuelles/meldung.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=279&cHash= 0594f5ed6d2c84f69fc632cbcb682811

30 Thank you very much for your attention! || ||