Perspectives on Apparatus Theory

A New Kind Of Mirror...

Paula Murphy's "Psychoanalysis and Film Theory Part 1: A New Kind Of Mirror" discussed on a specific topic on Apparatus Theory. It explained the role of Karl Marx and Louis Althusser, the contributions of semiotics, the debates surrounding apparatus theory and the gaze, and finally the input of feminism.   

This blog will emphasize more on Apparatus Theory and the views of Karl Marx, Apparatus theorists such as Jacques Lacan and Christian Metz, and Semiotics

WHAT IS APPARATUS THEORY?

Before further discussing on the different theorist's point of views, one must understand what Apparatus Theory is. According to Wikipedia, Apparatus Theory is derived partly from Marxist film theory, semiotics, and psychoanalysis. It was a dominant theory within cinema studies during the 1970s. It maintains that cinema is by nature ideological because its mechanics of representation are ideological. Its mechanics of representation include the camera and editing. The central position of the spectator within the perspective of the composition is also ideological. Apparatus theory also argues that cinema maintains the dominant ideology of the culture within the viewer. Ideology is not imposed on cinema, but is part of its nature. Apparatus theory follows an institutional model of spectatorship.

MARXIST FILM THEORY

Marxist film criticism is based on Karl Marx's theoretical ideas. Marxism argues that society is capatilist and that majority of people work for the rich. Simply, it is a conflict theory where the poor is powerless from the rich or elite. Hence, Marxist critics are wary of how cinema support dominant ideology. Cinema, as a new kind of mirror, attack ideology by discussing political subject, operate 'against-the-grain' subvert message through form, set out to attack but end up endorsing ideology, and appear to endorse ideology but show critique thru fissures and cracks.

PSYCHOANALYTIC FILM THEORY

Psychoanalysis influenced cinema during 1970's and 1980's. The theory analyzes films from the perspective of psychoanalysis, generally the works of Jacques Lacan. Lacanian film theory understands the gaze as it appears in the mirror stage and as it fucntions in the process of ideological interpellation. Interpellation takes place through ideological state apparatuses (ISA’s): family, religion, education, media, etc. That is, the gaze represents a point of identification, an ideological operation in which the spectator invests her/himself in the filmic image. Film is an imaginary deception, a lure blinding us to an underlying symbolic structure. The gaze is a fucntion of the imaginary, the key to  the imaginary deception that takes place in the cinema.

CHRISTIAN METZ AND SEMIOTICS

Metz is best known for pioneering the application of Ferdinand de Saussure's theories of semiology to film. He proposed 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. Cinema, despite not being a langue if based in the Saussurian sense, is still considered a language. Metz defends that cinema can be viewed in a lingustic point of view. He emphasized that cinema is a duplication of reality. Though intercommunication does not take place in cinema, Metz explained that natural language could be likened to narrative syntax of cinema. His analysis has further made an clearer view upon understanding a film's construction.

“The study of the cinema as an art – the study of cinematographic expressiveness – can therefore be conducted according to methods derived from linguistics...through its procedures of denotation, the cinema is a specific language” - Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of Cinema (1974)

We watch film and the way we perceive everyday reality are fundamentally similar, in that both are determined by conventions or codes. Reality is itself a complex system of signs interpreted by members of the culture in exactly the same way as cinema. According to semiotic theory, signs are everywhere and everything is a sign - words, images, sounds, and absence of them - in short, anything from which some meaning may be generated. 

Structuralism and Semiotics

STRUCTURALISM: Defined.

1.  a theoretical paradigm in sociology, anthropology and linguistics positing that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. - (Wikipedia) 
2. the name that is given to a wide range of discourses that study underlying structures of signification. Signification occurs wherever there is a meaningful event or in the practice of some meaningful action. Hence the phrase, "signifying practices." A meaningful event might include any of following: writing or reading a text... - (John William Philips) 
3. the doctrine that structure is more important than function

STRUCTURALIST FILM THEORY 

Basically, it emphasizes how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication. Structuralism looks at a film or any other "text" as a signifying system, a set of patterns or relationships within the work. The meaning of a work (or a body of work) comes not so much from inherent meanings of its individual elements, as from how they interrelate within a "formal system."

Ferdinand de Saussure & his contribution

 Structuralism first comes to prominence as a specific discourse with the work of a Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed a branch of linguistics called "Structural Linguistics." There Saussure sought to provide the foundations for a modern linguistics, but he also proposed that the conceptual framework he developed might be applied to a general science of signs—"semiology." According to Saussure, Structuralist Film Theory refers to how films convery meanung through the use of codes & conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication.

SEMIOTICS: Definition, Origin, Proponent

 According to French literary critic and semiologist Roland Barthes, semiotics isn't a theory, a discipline, a school, nor a science but an "adventure". It is all about deciphering and interpreting both verbal and non-verbal signs. Semiotics (or Semiology) is defined as the study of social production of meaning from sign systems and it is the analysis that can stand for something else.

Barthes described the Semiotic Theory as the explanation of myth. He said that myth is the connotative meaning that signs carry whenever they go. Myth makes what is cultural seem natural. Furthermore, Barthes said that social meanings could be classified through clothes, lifestyle choices, and advertisement.

SEMIOTICS as a form of Structuralism

Semiology uses the concept of codes to discuss conventional ways that things are done in texts. Codes are cultural phenomena because they are learned.

There are various categories of codes:

1. Cultural codes include the way that texts signify, for example, beliefs about gender, social class, and authority. 
2. Technical codes, in film, describe the ways we have learned to "read" visual information, include such things as continuity editing, point of view and reaction shots, cross-shooting and over-shoulder shooting, dissolves, and montage. Technical codes involve both techniques of making movies and, for viewers, learned ways of seeing them. Technical codes have thematic implications as well: for example, a dissolve suggests a connection between two otherwise-unrelated images; a tilted composition suggests undertainty or danger.

Genre, Plot, Film Techniques: Relevance to Structuralist Film Theory

Genre, considered as a set of conventional patterns within a basic formula, is a particular focus of structural criticism. Plot structures (storylines such as the thriller, the falsely-accused man, young lovers overcoming obstacles to marriage, or the search for hidden treasure) are recurring story patterns and are often a defining characteristic of a genre. Structuralist theorists have also analyzed plot patterns found in fairy tales and other traditional narratives (such as the heroic quest or the sleeping beauty) as these appear in contemporary narratives. Film techniques such as subjective (point-of-view) shooting can also be analyzed as structural elements.