Johannes Ehrat,
Cinema and Semiotic: Peirce and Film Aesthetics, Narration, and Representation.
Toronto studies in semiotics and communication. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
ISBN: 0 8020 3912 x
682pp
US$95.00 (hardcover)
(Review copy supplied by the University of Toronto Press)

This large book serves many purposes: to introduce readers to the pragmatic and semiotic writings of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914); to explore the development and evolution of his theories; to explain or help elucidate to some extent, not only Peirce’s writings, but also pragmatic and semiotic systems; to show how Peirce’s theories and ideas have been misappropriated by comparativists, film theorists, philosophers, and many other kinds of scholars; to enable readers to steer away from notions of film theory concerning aesthetics, narration, and representation in order to discover a film theory that relies on no other kinds of theories, analyses or approaches to interpretation. The list is overwhelming. The book is ambitious, interesting, exciting, and demands a highly interdisciplinary readership; however, it would be accessible to more readers had some of its facets been chipped off before publication. It appears that exploring the development and evolution of Peirce’s theories deserves its own book; but it would also be true to say that readers interested in film theory would appreciate a more concise treatment of how these theories were refined over time. Peirce is difficult to understand, and the main reason his writings are so difficult to grasp is that scholars adapt or appropriate other scholars’ observations of Peirce rather than consult the original works themselves (this game of ‘operator’ has been encountered in many scholarly works that focus on other writers – for instance, studies about Adorno). Earlier publications of Peirce’s writings were also unreliable.

Ehrat begins by explaining that there is no theory native to cinema that can be applied to its problems of meaning or narration. According to the author, borrowing entire theories or mapping selected applications onto film analyses and interpretations have unsatisfactory outcomes that neither advance film theory itself nor improve understanding the meaning of films:

There is no methodology that is ‘native’ to film in the same sense that linguistics is native to language. Comprehension of film cannot thrive on borrowed means. Theory suffers when we adopt methods used for other objects on a metaphorical or analogical basis. This is because we constantly risk overstretching the principle of analogy, the metaphysical point of comparison between the two objects. (4)

At this point, one wonders how understanding and exploring Peirce’s Semiotic would be any different from using any other kinds of approaches labeled as ‘film theories’ (e.g., constructivism, Eco-brand Semiotics, psychoanalysis, or Deleuze’s concepts). The thrust here is not the application of Peirce’s Semiotic to film analysis, but to show that Peirce’s Semiotic in particular can be used as a tool to discover and access a native film theory. The Semiotic responds to three basic questions that relate to central film-theoretical debates: The question of truth (cinematic representation); The question of narration (cinematic representations of time and time itself); and The question of discovery (‘why and how can film induce, beyond representation, the aesthetic processes?’) (5). Ehrat remarks that most ‘film theories’ have neglected the last question.

Writings based on Peirce’s Semiotic fail to give attention to Peirce’s Pragmaticism and his aesthetic. They are attracted to aspects of his Semiotic sign theory or to his use of codes, but the cornerstone of Peirce’s work is his Categories (8). The Categories can be used to grasp behavior and experience; thus they can be used to understand and appropriate the (real) world (50). Despite being dismissed along with Peirce’s Semiotic by some film theorists, Categorical thinking can also be extremely useful for approaching films. The most rudimentary element of Categorical thinking is the identification of difference, which leads to understanding various kinds of relationships. Peirce’s Categories must be universal, complete, and necessary. They must be ‘doable’ either through their usefulness, their ability to be cognized through a sign process, or their ability to allow for exclusion of the inaccessible (50-53). Peirce’s aesthetics are reflected in Ehrat’s description of his Categories. Peirce rejects abstraction or reduction, but has to deal with his notion of completeness:

On the practical basis of pragmatism, this special cognitive behavior is expressed in the apparently paradoxical statement of the Pragmatic Maxim: the perfect understanding of an element must comprise ‘all practical consequences’. Such cognition of total knowledge cannot be concrete; nevertheless it is a necessary practical condition for cognition. (53)

Peirce’s aesthetic also relates continuity and unity to the Categorical requirement of completeness. According to Ehrat, Peirce’s conception of continuity stems from his Pragmaticism. For Peirce, continuity is directed by behavior. In other words, actions unfold because of continuity. He rejects the idea that continuity is based on chains of cause and effect or motive-driven actions (22-23).

In brief (and going against the grain of Peirce’s Semiotic by using abstraction or reduction here), there are three Categories: Firstness, a stage in which a sign is realized as something in itself (70-71); Secondness, a stage in which two signs can be related through opposition or through acting and reacting (72-73); and Thirdness, a stage in which the betweenness or mediation of a dyadic relationship becomes apparent (74-76). Thirdness relies on Secondness, which relies on Firstness. Thirdness cannot occur before Secondness or Firstness. Meaning can be constructed or degenerated with Secondness and with Thirdness. Ehrat cites Peirce’s examples in his explanations of the Categories. Relating film to Peirce’s Categories, Ehrat points out that film has many Firsts because it is full of iconic elements and film is a sign before it narrates (137-38 and 142).

Ehrat discusses the representational and narrative functions of this iconicity throughout the rest of the book. He explores films like Jean-Luc Godard’s Passion (France/Switzerland, 1982) and Je vous salue, Marie/Hail Mary(France/Switzerland, 1985) and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet (Denmark, 1955) – films that possess iconic-versus-narrative challenges for audiences. Several of Alfred Hitchcock’s films are also considered, among others. These analyses demonstrate uses of Peirce’s Categories and aesthetic. For instance, Ehrat discusses narrative time in Ordet and how time or temporality has a role in the film’s iconicity and interpretation; he alludes to Peirce’s aesthetic of continuity discussed earlier in the book (321, 342). Ehrat frequently addresses problems of previous film scholarship in these analyses. He describes Je vous salue, Marie! as “complex enough to challenge any theoretical concept of cinema” (248-49). The complexities are found in the relationship between the film’s narrative and iconicity:

Among its layers are straightforward (and ‘straighbackward’?) narrative parts. There are sheer images that are non-subservient to narrative meaning. There are comments and parallelisms. There is heavy irony. So problems arise: What will enable us to comprehend all these variegate parts? And what makes these parts function as parts of a whole? (249)

He continues by applying ‘the Semiotic method’ to part of this film.  Ehrat also considers other technical elements and how they interact with the narrative. In his discussions about dramatic aesthetic (and dramatic interpretation and meaning), he considers the camera and its relationship between the iconic and the narrative (536-38).

There are several features of this book that will leave a lasting impression on scholars. Ehrat successfully questions some of the problems of film scholarship and shows how scholars have attempted to force films to fit certain kinds of theoretical approaches. He addresses the frustration of unlimited Semiosis as well as other kinds of concepts of cinema that lead to endless parametric analysis. Film scholars will certainly enjoy Ehrat’s discussions about the iconicity of film and how this iconicity relates to Peirce’s Categories. The book should lead to interesting debates about applying Peirce’s Categories to analyzing film narrative, representation, and meaning: Does this approach lead to a truly native cinematic theory or is it another powerful tool for analysis? If other theories or concepts of film are based on misunderstandings of Peirce, why do they still have the potential to lead to an understanding of cinema? Can some of these theories or concepts of film be revised so they adhere more closely to Peirce’s Semiotic and aesthetic?

Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith
Louisiana State University, USA.

Created on: Thursday, 2 March 2006 | Last Updated: 2-Mar-06