Terms:
Comprehension: finding apparent, manifest, or direct meanings; the development of referential and explicit meaning
Interpretation: revealing hidden, nonobvious meanings; a culmination of implicit and symptomatic meaning
Reading: interpretation of literary texts
Perceiver: one who makes meaning through comprehension and interpretation
Theory: system of propositions that claims to explain the nature and functions of cinema
Exegesis: commentary or explaination
Rule: norm or convention,
Diegesis: world of finite place and time
Fabula: ongoing story
Critics use four types of constructed meaning:
I The perceiver may create an extended environment in which the movie takes place and critiques it from within that environment. This is the "referential " meaning. If the film is set in the real world, the perceiver takes into account everything known about the world: global politics, arms races and embargoes, warring countries. If the film is set in an imaginary world or one beyond firsthand knowledge, Starship Troopers for example, the perceiver constructs a world based on the information given in the film (bugs are the sworn enemies of humans, humans must join the armed forces to become citizens) and using the known world to fill in the holes.
II The perceiver may determine the main idea of the movie, the "explicit" meaning. The perceiver decides what the core of the film is from her own perspective. While one might see the crux of Saving Private Ryan as war is hell', another might see it as saving one saves us all.' Referential and explicit meaning are grouped together as the "literal" meaning.
III The perceiver may find deeper or "implicit" meaning within the film. In Peeping Tom, the referential meaning could be the period of time over which Mark makes his documentary and the subject of that documentary, the explicit meaning might be that child abuse destroys the minds of those who endure it, and the implicit meaning is that when we watch movies, we become voyeurs. The implicit meaning may also be marked by an anomaly within the movie.
IV Finally, the perceiver may discern a subconscious or "symptomatic" meaning to the movie, an undercurrent within the movie that has more to do with the director's life or societal concerns than with the movie itself. Roman Polanski directed a 1971 version of MacBeth after his wife was murdered by a follower of Charles Manson. His film exudes a preoccupation with brutality and violence as a result.
What may be explicit to one perceiver might be symptomatic to another. What one might consider an anomaly with implicit meaning may be nothing more than trivia. In Pulp Fiction, Ving Rames wore a band-aid on the back of his neck. Some critics believed this was meant to show that the devil had taken his soul. When asked about the meaning of the band-aid, director Quentin Tarantino responded that Rames had a cut on his neck and they covered it with a band-aid.
Criticism today
Criticism has evolved from inferred symbolizm in Homer into various ideological approaches. One may interpret a film from a feminist perspective or a Christian one. One can conduct ethnic studies through film viewing. Not only does Glory show racial hatred in the US during the Civil War, it also shows that the white majority is finally willing to admit to the racial injustice by making a main stream movie of this sort.
By Maria Collins 6/24/99