ESSAIS SUR LA SIGNIFICATION AU CINEMA

Published originally in two volumes, Essais sur la signification au cinéma is the fundamental work on the history of cinematic thought written by Christian Metz (1931-1993).
Volume I (1968) marks the initial phase in Christian Metz' effort to found a semiological approach to the cinematic experience : he is the first author to consider both the modes of thought inspired by modern linguistics and the aesthetic tradition of thought on the concept of « cinematic language ».
Volume II (1972) completes those analyses, while recalling their origins. A first section consisting of articles written prior to 1968 (thus before the author's enterprise), describes how this new approach, still too often (and inaccurately) referred to today as « semiology », closely — and in a particularly unprecedented way — hinges upon prior knowledge of cinematic thought.
In a second section, through a set of self-critical breakthroughs and reversals, continuations and changes in direction, the reader will see the outline on this « second semiology » emerge that subsequently aroused the author's interest (excess, non-renunciation), and would later play a part in Le signifiant imaginaire [ The Imaginary Signifier] (1977).

Christian Metz, the major theorist of the semiological approach to cinematic experience in France, was born in 1931. He has notably published Le Signifiant imaginaire.