Tsang Semiotics and Documentary Film

The Living Sign in the Cinema
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61451-411-4
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 210 Seiten

Reihe: ISSN

Semiotics and Documentary Film: The Living Sign in the Cinema engages with very vital problems posed by Peirce's philosophy in an innovative and inter-disciplinary fashion by examining how documentary film practice can engage with the question of emergent human agency within a wider biosphere shared by human animals and non-human animals alike.
The book is in many ways a celebration of human inquiry, taking liberally from Peirce's semeiotic and parallel ideas within recent visual anthropology. Through an analysis of the work of three renowned filmmakers - Jon Jost, Johan Van der Keuken, and Rithy Panh - Semiotics and Documentary Film: The Living Sign in the Cinema reasserts human agency within a global age, dominated by philosophical scepticism and an unquestioning subservience to mechanistic military techno-culture.
The author argues that an approach to documentary inquiry, broadly derived from Peirce's sign theory, phenomenology, and overall philosophical outlook, has strong advantages over atemporal formal approaches derived from Saussurean semiology.
Nevertheless, this project is also both critical and self-critical. It also bears direct testament to the many tumultuous and life-destroying events of the late 20th century and reminds us of the moral and philosophical problems which we are still grappling with in the early 21st century. Hence - the Living Sign.

Zielgruppe

Researchers in Documentary Studies, Visual Anthropology, Film Philosophy, and Cultural Studies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tsang, Hing

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgattungen, Filmgenre
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Semiotik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Acknowledgements;7
2;Abstract;8
3;List of tables and figures;11
4;Notes on citations and tables;11
5;Preface;13
6;1 Peirce’s Semeiotic and the Living Sign;19
6.1;1.1 What is a Sign?;19
6.2;1.2 One, two, three: a few sundry notes on triads, phenomenology, and the categories;26
6.3;1.3 Nine sign divisions and ten sign classes;31
6.4;1.4 The Decalogue: how signs grow;34
6.5;1.5 A Body Awakes;39
6.6;1.6 Icons, Photography, and Mimicry;41
6.7;1.7 Dialogue, index, and dynamic object;43
6.8;1.8 Habit and the growth of the symbol;50
6.9;1.9 Inner dialogue, self-control, and dissent;53
7;2 Parallel Developments and Divergences;59
7.1;2.1 New Dialogues;59
7.2;2.2 Documentary as Text?;67
7.3;2.3 Theorising Practice;74
8;3 Rupture, Dissent, and Conflict in the Cinema of Jon Jost;79
8.1;3.1 Introduction;79
8.2;3.2 Me, You, and We in Jon Jost’s Speaking Directly;81
8.2.1;3.2.1 Violence and Authority;86
8.2.2;3.2.2 Inner dialogue and semeiotic autonomy;89
8.3;3.3 London Brief: Conformity and War;93
8.4;3.4 Passages: Apage and Sacrifice;100
9;4 War and biophilia in the cinema of Johan van der Keuken;111
9.1;4.1 Introduction;111
9.2;4.2 Herman Slobbe: the pain of growth;115
9.3;4.3 Ecology and self-control in the The Flat Jungle;122
9.3.1;4.3.1 Greed and Animosity;129
9.4;4.4 Face Value: Love and Death in the City;133
9.4.1;4.4.1 History as Outward Clash;139
9.4.2;4.4.2 Global War and Media;142
9.4.3;4.4.3 Love Cycles;144
10;5 Terror and love in the cinema of Rithy Panh;154
10.1;5.1 Introduction;154
10.2;5.2 Love, chance, and hope in The Land of the Wandering Souls;158
10.3;5.3 Self-cultivation and Reconstruction in S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine;170
11;Conclusion;191
12;References;197
13;Index;207

Über Autor(innen)

Hing Tsang, University Campus Suffolk, UK.