Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313 December 2013, Vol. 3, No.

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May Zindel

DA VID

PUBLISHING

Metaphor in Cinema Revisited

Alberto J. L. Carrillo Cann, Vctor Gerardo Rivas Lpez,
Benemrita Universidad Autnoma de Puebla

Universidad de las Amricas Puebla

The theory of rhetorical figures in cinema is highly problematic, besides it can be considered as outdated as the semiotic theory of cinema,1 yet it is convenient to reexamine the idea of cinematographic metaphor in order to throw some light on the dominant idea of cinema as narrative medium. In this paper we will examine: (1) the supposedly existing metaphor of urban and industrial man as sheep at the beginning of Chaplins film Modern Times; and (2) the sequence of the awakening stone lion in Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin as metaphor of the proletarian revolt against czarism. We will arrive to the notion of a purely metaphoric film, which together with Zavattinis ideal film showing 90 minutes in the life of a man to whom nothing happens, will helps us draw some conclusions about montage and narrativity in cinema. Especially interesting in this connection is the fact that symbolical shots as the mentioned ones are like description in literature, that is, they have nothing to do neither with the time of the story nor with the time of the discourse. Keywords: metaphor, mental state, rhetorical figure, illusion

1. The Notion of Rhetorical Figures in Cinema

The first problem to address here is the mere notion of rhetorical figures in cinema.2 From the very beginning, this idea is very debatable, since rhetorical figures proper are not a visual but a verbal phenomenon. So the only way to say that there are rhetorical images is to postulate that some images generate mental states corresponding to those ones generated by verbal figures. In the case of a cinematographic sequence purportedly being rhetorical, one has to demonstrate that the shots constituting the sequence lead the viewer to the same mental state as a verbal rhetorical figure does, a rhetorical figure proper. We will consider here only the case of metaphor.

2. The Metaphorical Mental State

The famous metaphor Achilles is a lion, can be seen first as a proposition and second as a mental state corresponding to that proposition.3 Interesting here is the structure of such a mental content, for it does not correspond to the straightforward predicative structure of a proposition like Achilles is a brave warrior or
Alberto J. L. Carrillo Cann, Ph.D., Institute of Philosophy, Freie Universitt; full professor, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Benemrita Universidad Autnoma de Puebla, Mxico; main research fields: Aesthetics, Media Theory, and Cognitive Science. Email: acarrillo_mx@prodigy.net.mx. Vctor Gerardo Rivas Lpez, Ph.D., Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Benemrita Universidad Autnoma de Puebla, Mxico; main research fields: Aesthetics, and Philosophy. Email: cupio_dissolvi@prodigy.net.mx. May Zindel, Ph.D. candidate, Creation and Culture Theory, Universidad de las Amricas Puebla, Mxico; main research fields: Aesthetics, and Cultural Theory. Email: zindel007@hotmail.com.

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Kaiser is a dog. In grasping the metaphor Achilles is a lion, one does not believe that Achilles is a lion, yet one does not simply reject the proposition as a false one. Rejecting a proposition P, that is, not believing that P is the case, is a completely different mental state. Let us name the mental state corresponding to the understanding of a metaphor the metaphorical mental state.4 In the case of the proposition Achilles is a lion, one does not believe, that Achilles is a lion, one knows for sure that this is not the case, yet one does not merely reject the proposition as false. On the contrary one accepts the proposition knowing, believing that it is not the case that Achilles was a lion. We interpret the situation as follows. In hearing (reading) that Achilles is a lion, one understands the proposition and knows that what it means is false, but based on experience one finds with ease a translation for it that does make sense. Ones experience allows almost automatically to find a translation of the proposition which makes sense: Achilles is a courageous warrior, or some paraphrase, a proposition which one does not reject but on the contrary to which one might agree, that is, one may believe that Achilles is (was) a brave warrior. So the metaphorical mental state comprises at least three aspects: (1) understanding the metaphorical proposition and knowing that it is false; (2) almost instantaneously translating that proposition into some other proposition to which one can agree, and finally; and (3) being somewhat both surprised and more or less delighted by the relationship between the original, metaphorical proposition and its translation to which one agrees. Two propositional mental contents and at least a feeling constitute the metaphorical mental state. The mental state has the structure without believing that P is the case, delightfully accepting P because one found the translation Q of P to which one may agree. Of course, the delight involved can vary greatly but it must exist.

3. The Cinematographic Metaphor

In the case of Modern Times, Christian Metz popularized the idea that the two opening shots of the film constitute a cinematographic metaphor, the metaphor namely that modern man is a sheepor some paraphrase of the same semantic content.5 According to Metz, the first shot showing a moving herd of sheep and the second one showing crowded people coming out from the subway constitute a filmic metaphor, but this is impossible without the viewer having a mental state with a content corresponding to the semantic structure of that proposition. Yet, in this case the signifiers, as Metz calls the shots, are not propositions but images. Nevertheless, if there is a cinematographic metaphor corresponding to whatever filmic sequence, the sequence must generate the metaphorical mental state, and this supposes some metaphorical proposition or the corresponding mental state generated in the mind of the viewer not by an utterance or a written sentence but merely by the shots constituting the sequence. In this case, the sequence of the two shots may lead a mature viewer to the simile modern man is like sheep or modern people are like sheep, but it is implausible that the shots lead to the metaphor modern man is a sheep man since what the viewer does is to grasp a visual similarity on the basis that both shots do have a clearly common visual pattern. What the viewer could express but merely thinks is, at most, that modern man is like sheep, nothing more.6 The sequence generates a mental content that corresponds to a simile not to a metaphor, and the modern theory of metaphor clearly distinguishes between simile and metaphor by not considering metaphor as an elliptic simile. Summarizing, Metz contention that the opening sequence in Modern Times is a metaphor is a misinterpretation of the situation. The same must be said from most other Metz examples of cinematographic metaphor. Nevertheless, there is a special case that must be considered separately.

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4. The Rising Lion in Battleship Potemkin

Metz considers another famous sequence as a metaphoric one.7 It is the sequence showing the attack of the revolting sailors onto a building, presumably of the czarist government, using the cannons of the battleship, and in between three consecutive shots showing the sculptures of a sleeping lion, of a lion lying with open eyes, and, finally, the sculpture of a rising lion. Those three shots generate the illusion of an awakening and rising stone lion, and this illusion together with the rest of the sequence leads to the mental content with the semantic structure a lion is awakening, where one does not merely think of a lion, be it one of stone nor a real one, but of the Russian people or Russian working class. In this case, there is no comparison of shots on the basis of some visual pattern. First of all, the idea of awakening as liberating from one frame of consciousness to another is already a verbal metaphorand the same is true of the idea of a rising people. In fact, the situation can be interpreted as a visual resort to well-known verbal metaphors by means of association of ideas and memory.8 Yet, one cannot completely discard the case of viewers who do not know the mentioned verbal metaphors at all and for the very first time arrive to the mental state with the semantic structure a lion is awakening or a lion is rising. This case would correspond to true metaphoric mental states. Comparing such propositions with the metaphor Achilles is a lion, a clear difference becomes evident. In the last case one deals with the metaphorically applied predicate is a lion, whereas in the former case one does metaphorically think of the subject lion instead of the subject Russian people or the Russian working class. In other words, the discussed sequence in Battleship Potemkin implies the metaphorical mental state Russian people are a lion that awakens or Russian people are an awakening lion, or Russian people are an awakening and rising lion. At any case, the mental state having the semantic structure a lion is awakening is very interesting since the viewer knows that stone lions are just stones: they simply cannot change suddenly, they neither awaken nor rise. Obviously, that mental content in itself is not a metaphor, it is an illusionand the viewer knows it. Already a single stone lion is, like every figurative statue, a cultural plastic object leading the viewer to a plastic illusion, and the sequence of the three shots leads the viewer to a dynamic illusion of a moving lion. Yet moving or not, the isolated sequence of the stone lions leads only to an illusion, and has nothing to do with a metaphorical mental state. It is first the context of the whole sequence including the attack of the battleship Potemkin on the czarist building that what given the illusion of the moving stone lion leads to the metaphorical mental state Russian people are an awakening lion or, shortly, a lion awakens, where a lion means Russian people.

5. The Structures of the Mental States in Both Cases

In the case of the opening sequence in Modern Times, the viewer sees first a herd of sheep and then crowded people; insofar as those shots constitute the very beginning of the film, the viewer does not have elements of an hypothetical fictitious story told by the film, but only two documentary shots, that is, the viewer has the perceptual beliefs corresponding to the moving herd and to the moving people.9 On this basis, a mature viewer involuntarily compares the shots grasping the common visual pattern, and arrives to the mental state corresponding to the simile modern man is like sheep. The sequence, thus, implies at least the following mental contents: (1) the sensory representations corresponding to both shots; (2) the corresponding perceptual beliefsnon sensory but conceptual representations;10 and (3) the mental state corresponding to the discussed simile.

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In the case of the movie Battleship Potemkin, the viewer sees several shots of the artillery attack onto the czarist building and in between the three shots showing the lions. In this case, the sequence forms part of a chain of events imaginarily linked in a causal way. Besides, the shots are not documentary shots but shots showing a content created on purpose for the camera. Such shots do not lead to the perceptual belief corresponding to real events but to aesthetical beliefs of the kind proper to any figurative object or representation of an event, that is, the viewer sees something but he does not believe that what he sees is a real fact. Such beliefs are aesthetic illusionsnot mere deceiving epistemic illusions as are the optical ones.11 By means of the aesthetic imagination such illusions become part of a fictional causal chain of eventsof a story. So (1) visual stimuli, the shots, lead to (2) aesthetic illusions, and these (3) lead to the aesthetic imagination of a storya fragment of a story: the reveling Russian sailors attacking the czarist government, what on its part belongs to the story of a peoples revolt. Of course, all that does not need the sequence of the lions. The sequence of the three lion statues does not belong at all in the so-called diegetic or fictional world of the film. In the story imagined on the basis of the film there are no lions at all. Besides, the viewer is confronted with a moving stone lion, which the viewer knows that it does not exist at all, neither as a single stone lion, much less as a moving stone lion. So there are additional elements in the whole series of mental states relating to the sequence: (4) the stimuli corresponding to each stone lion; (5) the aesthetic illusions of three stone lionsas is normal in observing a figurative sculpture whatever; and (6) the epistemic illusion of a single moving stone lion. These last three elements by themselves do not have anything to do with the story of the sailors attack and of the peoples revolt, and before we go on to examine the relationship between the elements (1)-(3), and on the other hand, the elements (4)-(6), it is of interest to examine the element (6), namely the epistemic illusion of a single moving stone lion. First of all, it should be clear that a stone lion, moving or not, based on visual stimuli, is an aesthetic illusion: certainly, it is not real, but neither is it mere imagination, for the viewer sees something instead of simply imagining it. In fact, there is a complicated relationship between the elements (5) and (6). The three aesthetic illusions of each one of the lionsone sees a lion, but it is only a sculpted stone, one does not see a real lion at alltaken together lead to the composed epistemic illusion of a (6.a) single lion (6.b) moving: awakening and rising. Just the fact that the viewer knows for sure that he sees mere stone lions and that he suffers a mere (epistemic) illusion, since there is no rising stone lion at all, is basic for generating (7) the mental state having the semantic content Russian people are an awakening lion in its full metaphoric sense, that is, as the structure delightfully accepting that Russian people are an awakening lion (P), because one found Russian people begin a revolt (Q) as a translation of P one can agree with. In this case, there is no comparison of visual patterns, but only the almost instantaneous and automatic association of positively valued properties symbolized by a lion: force, autonomy, grandeur, power, with the revolting people. Of course the association is not sequential and full developed, but fleeting and vague, yet in principle it is there. In this case, the sequence really generates a metaphoric mental state.

6. Conclusion: A Pure Metaphoric Film and Narrative

Both the discussed simile and the metaphor seem to be possible basically because neither the herd of sheep nor the lions belong to the diegetic world of the corresponding movies. The exteriority of both elements as to the fictional contexts in which they appear, leads the viewer not to narrative but symbolic mental states. In fact neither the story in Modern Times nor the one in Battleship Potemkin adds anything to its dramaticcausal or
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logicalstructure by showing the sheep and the lions, as is the case of descriptions in literature, even if descriptions are far from having any symbolic role. In general, the notoriety of some shots because they fall completely out of the diegetic world of the corresponding film, is just the contrary of what is called invisible montage, a kind of edition which follows a perfectly understandable logic according to the story and its setting. Contrarily, figurative shots lead to symbolic montage (Bazin 2005a, 32). Obviously it belongs to a very special kind of cinema12 in which the filmmaker takes the story, at least partly, as a pretext for leading the viewer to some reasoning, what is just the case of both Modern Times and Battleship Potemkin. Theoretically, a purely metaphorical film would be an assembly of sequences generating in the viewer mental states corresponding to metaphors (or simile) but lacking any story whatever. One would recognize the metaphorical or rhetorical shots in such a film, only because they would be relatively bizarre images, frequently having non-human contentsnatural objects or elements. The whole montage constituting the film would posses no causal logic and would lack also any narrative. In semiotics terms, it would be no text, no discourse. The filmmaker would substitute a succession of reasoning lacking any logic proper to a causal story for such a story. Zavattinis ideal film consisting of a single continuous shot showing 90 minutes in the life of a man, to whom nothing happens, lacks also any causal logic and thus, any story proper; it would be only a sequence of incidents (Bazin 2005b, 89 ff.), yet such incidents would involve the same single character and would have thus a basic unity, if not the logical unity of a casual, dramatic story. Contrarily, the purely metaphoric film would have no unity at allat most it would posses a thematic unity in its symbolism. Both extreme forms of film would be, for quite different reasons, very different from a common, so-called narrative filmand also from a film dominated by spectacular images without symbolic content but characterized only by things never seen before.

Notes
1. For an informative exposition about the semiotic theory of cinema see: Bordwell (1989, 369-398). 2. For a previous discussion about the problematic topic of cinematographic figures, see Carrillo Cann et al. (2012, 37-51); See also Carrillo Cann, Alberto J. L. et al. Are There Rhetorical Figures in Cinema? (Forthcoming). 3. See Benzon and Hays (1987, 59-80). 4. For a discussion of the metaphorical mental state see Carrillo Cann et al. (2012). 5. See: Metz, Psychoanalysis and Cinema. The Imaginary Signifier 183-196. 6. About this see Carrillo Cann et al. (2012); See Metz (1997, 189). 7. See Metz (1991, 37). 8. In fact, that could be also the case for the opening sequence in Modern Times if it were plausible that the mental state of the viewer were corresponding to the proposition modern men are sheep men instead of the simile modern men are like sheep. 9. Supposing that one sees the situation that P, then the corresponding perceptual belief is just, believing that P (is the case). In our discussion, the viewer believes, for instance, that there is a herd of sheep. 10. For the concepts of sensory and conceptual representation, see Dretske (1982, 3-39). 11. For a detailed discussion of the concepts aesthetic belief, aesthetic illusion, aesthetic imagination, and epistemic illusion as deception, see: Carrillo Cann et al. (2012, 677-687). 12. Already Bazin points out that such a [] clever device would be unthinkable in any film after 1932. (2005a, 32)

Works Cited
Bazin, Andr. What is Cinema? Vol. 1. California: U of California P, 2005a. Print. `

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---. What is Cinema? Vol. 2. California: U of California P, 2005b. Print. Benzon, William L., and David Glenn Hays. Metaphor, Recognition, and Neural Process. The American Journal of Semiotics 5.1 (1987): 59-80. Web. 30 June. 2013. Bordwell, David. Historical Poetics of Cinema. The Cinematic Text. Methods and Approaches. Ed. R. Barton Palmer. New York: AMS Press, 1989. 369-98. Carrillo Cann,Alberto J. L. et al. Are There Rhetorical Figures in Cinema? (Forthcoming). ---. Metz and the Rhetorical Figures in Cinema. Semiosis VIII.15 (2012): 37-51. Print. ---. The Tension Between New Media and Narratology. The Case of Cinema. Philosophy Study Journal 2.9 (2012): 677-87. Print. Dretske, Fred. Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1982.. Metz, Christian. Film Language. A Semiotics of Cinema. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1991. ---. Psychoanalysis and Cinema. The Imaginary Signifier. London: McMillan Press, 1997.