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the question of ideology and its relation to filmic texts has gained prominence among rhetorical film theorists and critics (e.g., Charland, Crowley, Hariman, McKerrow, Ono and Sloop, Strine). Janice Hocker Rushing and Thomas Frentz, for example, have explored this problem in their efforts to integrate ideology and archetype. Likewise, while identifying means to investigate the rhetorical dimen-sions of popular culture, Barry Brummett also has advocated ideological analy-ses of filmic texts.¹

Although there is much to admire in the recent achievements of rhetorical film theorists and critics, this fact does not militate against the need for further inquiry regarding the relations between rhetoric, cinema, and ideology. Accord-ingly, my concern here is to establish sites of substantial convergence between rhetorical film theory and a body of film theory expressly committed to ideo-logical exegeses of cinema-contemporary film theory.² Because such an endeavor must be grounded in the early discourses fundamental to contemporary film theory, I begin with the germinal and exceedingly influential treatises of Chris-tian Metz.³

In this essay, I examine Metz’s early work and his conceptualization of rheto-ric. After providing a brief overview of Metz’s project, I find that within his ini-tial semiotic theory, rhetoric assumes multiple roles: It is at once synonymous with a “strict” or normative grammar, with disposition, and with connotative operations. I then determine that, although he appears to actualize several di-mensions of this overdetermined concept, Metz tacitly reifies rhetoric both in-sofar as its second definition adjoins its first and inin-sofar as its third definition is effaced, in the last analysis, by other aspects of his theory.

This exegesis of Metz’s work, then, detects the often implicit, contradictory, and problematic means through which he delimits his early description of rheto-ric. In the same moment, I ascertain that two bases for supplementing Metz’s limited view of rhetoric can be found, ironically, in the very definitions of rhetoric that Metz invokes and yet substantially enervates—flexibility and connotation.

I do not deny, however, that Metz’s inventory of cinematic structures (the “Grande Syntagmatique”) and the narrow definition of rhetoric it comprises are useful to rhetorical film theorists. Rather, by recuperating and rethinking the concepts of flexibility and connotation in relation to rhetoric and by attending to contem-porary film theorists’ critiques of Metz’s work, I not only develop additional means to enrich rhetorical film theorists’ and critics’ ideological inquiries but also situate the subject of rhetoric squarely within the early debates concerning cin-ematic representation and realism.

Specifically, while reconsidering and invigorating Metz’s early views pertain-ing to rhetoric in these ways, I reveal that they furnish rhetorical film theorists and critics with the means to apprehend and discuss the representational import of cinematic structures that underwrite the spatial and temporal organization of filmic narratives, with the means to consider the ideological ramifications of those structures in realist, fiction films, and with the means to conceptualize rhetori-cal resistance through his notion of flexibility. More importantly, by reanimat-ing the links that Metz has forged between rhetoric and connotation, I ascertain that he also offers rhetorical film critics the means to investigate the ways that filmic writing articulates filmic images, while reinforcing, extending, or re-vising prevailing cultural codes and ideologies.

Metz’s Early Cine-Semiotics

Central to the theses of his book Film Language⁴ is Metz’s characterization of cinema as a language without a langue (). As opposed to a language system comprising “signs used for intercommunication,” cinema, according to Metz, is one-way communication comprising a partial system that incorporates “very few true signs” (). Explaining this claim, Metz asserts that, due to its iconic nature, the cinematic image does not manifest the double articulation necessary to a full-fledged language system or langue (–, ). Filmic images are likened instead to sentences or events and, in turn, are understood to be the minimal units of cinematic narrative (, –, ).⁵ This description of the cinematic image, intensified by the conviction that cinematic movement and temporality subor-dinate individual images to narrative, prompts Metz to emphasize and to inves-tigate the various mechanisms of spatial and temporal organization that typify realist, fiction films (, ).

Specifically, Metz advances the Grande Syntagmatique,⁶ an inventory of re-lations between shots. The Grande Syntagmatique designates eight varieties of autonomous segments: the autonomous shot, the parallel syntagma, the bracket syntagma, the descriptive syntagma, the alternate syntagma, the scene, the episodic

sequence, and the ordinary sequence (Film –, –). Each constituent of the Grande Syntagmatique provides a partial answer to the principal question that guides Metz’s semiotic inquiry: “How does the cinema indicate successivity, precession, temporal breaks, causality, adversative relationships, consequence, spatial proximity, or distance, etc.?” (). In other words, the Grande Syntag-matique identifies the ways that realist, fiction films function as narrative.

Metz’s statement that cinematic language differs from languages encompass-ing langues introduces several additional claims, many of which are tied concep-tually to his concern with narrative. Referring to the aforementioned discrepancy, he both contrasts cinema with ordinary, daily communication (such as that used in conversation) and associates cinema with literature (–, ). These com-parisons then lead him to underscore cinema’s rhetorical and poetic qualities (,

–).

Concurrently, Metz posits that the cinema is an “art that tends toward a lan-guage” and that the language of cinema is “a language of art” (Film , , ).

Art, for Metz, is linked with composition and connotation. When he equates cinema (“the art of images”) with literature (“the art of words”), therefore, he does so not only by remarking that both are “driven upward” via connotation but also by subtly associating both with “arrangement” or “ordering” (Film , –, ).

Concomitantly, because he considers art, connotation, and ordering to be cru-cial features of cinema, his cine-semiotics stresses filmic discourse, which he deems a “rich message with a poor code”—speech rather than langue (Film , –).⁷ In spite of Metz’s assertions to the contrary, the opposition he poses between langue and discourse is not unequivocal. Given his overall purposes, Metz cannot help but to ascribe grammatical qualities to cinematic language. Accordingly, Metz eventually discounts many of his claims pertaining to cinema’s artistic and conno-tative attributes. Both of these tendencies impinge upon his thoughts about rhetoric.

Syntax, Grammar, Dispositio, and Rhetoric

Metz asserts that, as they established and standardized the narrative functions of various cinematic figures, the earliest filmmakers introduced and conventional-ized a cinematic syntax (Film , ). He consequently maintains that cine-semiotics should be rooted in the study of syntactics (Film ). Because he both emphasizes cinematic narrative and insists that cinema does not comprise a langue, however, he must modulate the meaning of the term syntax. Nevertheless, as he does so, he minimizes and restricts the effects of his revised interpretation.

In much the same way, and by means of a series of moves that are not unre-lated to his treatment of syntax, Metz similarly tempers the definition of gram-mar as it pertains to the Grande Syntagmatique. Through correspondences with two ostensibly different conceptions of rhetoric, Metz introduces a subtle dis-tinction between the idea of a normative grammar and the character of the Grande Syntagmatique—a distinction that, on the whole, he does not uphold in any substantial way.

Metz subsumes cinematic syntax, described as “a certain number of filmic constructions,” under the broader category of syntagmatics, which he regards as the guarantor of discursive intelligibility (Film , , ). Syntagmatic arrange-ments of images and visual elearrange-ments are important to Metz because, as signifiers of narrative and filmic denotation, they furnish the infrastructure for cine-semi-ology (Film , –).

The overall movement from syntax to syntagmatics not only incorporates denotations that constitute the temporal and spatial aspects of narrative plots but also introduces a pivotal tension between semantics and syntactics. Even though the semantic pole is crucial to his project, Metz ultimately resolves this theoretical tension in favor of syntax (and, eventually, grammar). He does so by radically restricting the semantic impulses of his theory in two ways: first, by reasserting the primacy of cinematic signifiers (constituents of the Grande Syntagmatique), and second, by emphasizing the “literalness” of plot over and above the “artistic effects” that also contribute to filmic narratives (Film , –). Syntagmatics, therefore, do not supplement or transform traditional definitions of syntax as much as become substantially equivalent to them.

Just as Metz endeavors to alter and yet to retain cinematic syntax, he aims to modify and also to sustain cinematic grammar. Moreover, I propose that the tension between syntax and semantics, which mirrors the precarious balance between langue and language in Metz’s work, fuels the complex relationship that emerges between grammar and rhetoric (Film ). The terms of this relation-ship can be discerned in the following:

Cinema has never had either a grammar or syntax in the precise linguistic sense of these terms [. . .] rather it has always obeyed, and today still obeys, a certain number of fundamental semiological laws [. . .] that are extremely difficult to isolate, but whose models are to be sought in general linguis-tics, or general semiolinguis-tics, and not in the grammar or normative rhetorics of specific languages. (Film –)

Here, he draws a distinction between the general cinematic laws of ordering or composition, which exist on a level prior to the differentiation of verbal languages from other semiotic systems, and the normative rules of rhetorics that are pre-sumably analogous with idiomatic grammar (Film ).

Elsewhere, a second view of rhetoric, one aligned with Metz’s own formations rather than opposed to them, appears as he explains cinematic grammar. “The grammar of cinema,” he resolves, “is a rhetoric rather than a true grammar” (Film

). In this context, he proposes that his second definition of rhetoric allows for both an almost unlimited freedom regarding the internal composition of mini-mal cinematic units and a relative degree of freedom concerning the ordering of those units (Film , ).

Metz’s corresponding interest in syntagmatic arrangements causes him to address rhetoric exclusively in terms of the classical concept dispositio.

Discuss-ing dispositio, he circumvents the fact that it is conceived fundamentally with respect to a speaker’s needs in relation both to the particular subject matter and to the specific audience at hand. As a result, Metz not only restricts rhetoric by conflating it with a narrow definition of dispositio but also expedites the trans-formation of rhetoric into a sort of semiotic code.

Using “judiciary discourse” as an example, Metz both defines rhetoric as the

“determined ordering of undetermined elements” (images) and facilitates links between rhetoric and narration (Film –, –).⁸ In conjunction with the initial transformation from rhetoric to syntagmatics, this second metamorpho-sis from rhetoric to narration equates rhetoric with the semiometamorpho-sis of cinematic narrative proposed by Metz’s Grande Syntagmatique, neglects processes of per-suasion or influence, and returns rhetoric to the realm of grammatical precepts and structures. Thus, Metz concludes that “this rhetoric I have just mentioned is also, in other aspects, a grammar” (Film ).

In sum, Metz writes that, although it is not a “pure grammar,” cinematic lan-guage is an “indiscernible mixture between grammar and rhetoric” (Film ).

Within cinematic language, therefore, rhetoric ostensibly offsets normative defi-nitions of grammar and admits cinematic freedoms, “flexible” syntagmatic rules that permit innovation.

Nevertheless, Metz fails to describe this proposed relationship between rhetoric and cinematic freedom, delimits the scope of rhetorical flexibility substantially, and reverts to the idea of a predetermined, regulative grammar. Accordingly, while Metz contends that “cinematic grammar is not a real grammar [. . .] but simply a body of partially codified semantic implications,” he refers to the latter as “fine grammatical rules” (Film ; italics added). In the same vein, he states that “vari-ous degrees of agrammaticism” occur when these rules are transgressed (Film ).

To put it differently, cinematic freedom (syntagmatic evolution) must be gov-erned by grammar because, like its subspecies syntax, grammar is necessary for intelligibility (Film , , ).

Metz’s objection to traditional understandings of grammar and syntax, there-fore, belies his ultimate commitment to the underlying thrust of those concepts.⁹ Concomitantly, Metz’s first and second definitions of rhetoric are not unrelated:

His supposed aversion to both a normative rhetoric and a normative grammar heralds the identity he asserts between rhetoric and dispositio, an identity that subsequently approximates the regulative conception of grammar and the cor-responding definition of rhetoric that he allegedly rejects.

Filmic Images, Denotation, Connotation, and Rhetoric

Combining rhetoric and grammar, Metz grants a greater degree of freedom to the internal composition of filmic images than to the ordering of those minimal units. Unlike phonemes and monemes, he argues, filmic images are neither fi-nite in number nor likely to impart a determinable amount of information (Film

, , , –). Furthermore, because they cannot be reduced to anything

less than assertive, actualized statements or sentences, even the constituent parts of filmic images are not analogous to phonemes or monemes (Film , –,

, , –). For these reasons, he considers the internal configurations of filmic images to be products of invention impervious to cine-specific precepts (Film , , ).

Even so, the cinematic image is significant to Metz’s theories.¹⁰ Although it is not cine-specific, the image is linked to two pivotal concepts that form the nucleus of his claim that cinema is an art that tends toward a language—connotation and denotation.

Metz vacillates between integrating and differentiating connotation and de-notation. On the one hand, he explains the necessary relationship between these two signifying operations; on the other hand, he emphasizes denotation in lieu of connotation. In fact, the more closely connotation and denotation are allied in Metz’s work, the more dispensable connotation becomes. This circumstance has important implications for rhetoric.

Metz initially proposes that filmic connotations, like literary connotations, are superimposed over denotations (Film –, ). Cinema is unique for Metz, however, in that its connotations and its denotations are homogeneous: Both, he maintains, are expressive (Film ). Developing this point, he argues that the natural expressiveness of the filmed object, iconic denotation via analogy, pre-cedes connotation, which stylistically expresses the filmmaker’s intended mes-sage (Film , –).

Metz extends these assertions while discussing a shot from Eisenstein’s Que Viva Mexico. He describes that image as “a famous shot of the tortured, yet peace-ful faces of three peasants buried to their shoulders being trampled by the horses of their oppressors [. . .] a beautiful triangular composition, a well-known trade-mark of the great director” (Film ). In this case, the denotative plane comprises the relationship between the expressions on the motionless faces (the denotative signifiers) and the suffering and death they naturally convey (the denotative signifieds). The connotative plane, in turn, signifies the nobility of the landscape, the greatness of the Mexican people, and the promise of an eventual Mexican triumph (the connotative signifieds). These layers of meaning issue both from the triangle of faces (the connotative signifier) and from the martyrdom (signi-fied of denotation) those faces exhibit (signifiers of denotation).

Referring to this example, Metz asserts that, because each retains its own sig-nifier and signified, connotation and denotation are distinct operations (Film ).

At the same time, he also concludes that, even though it is “vaster” than denota-tion, connotation is tied to denotation because it relies on the denotative signi-fier and signified (Film , –). Along these lines, Metz contends that the cinema is neither exclusively connotative nor exclusively denotative. He writes that “one is forever shifting from art to non-art, and vice versa”: Utilitarian, de-notative images are organized, framed, and lit through techniques that afford some measure of connotative or artistic effect; aesthetic, connotative images serve

as denotative representations (Film , ). The last assertion and the correla-tive argument that connotation is reliant upon denotation function is not to establish that those signifying operations are equally valuable but to justify Metz’s effort to ground his cine-semiotics in denotation ().

Considering cultural codes after he abandons his initial belief in the natural expressiveness of profilmic objects, Metz revises his conception of denotation and connotation. He then introduces a third definition of rhetoric, one synonymous with connotation.

Insofar as it assumes that iconic analogy motivates the denotations indicated by the image track, Metz’s second explanation of denotation resembles the first.

However, he amends his view of analogy in other ways. In particular, he argues that analogy smuggles iconological¹¹ and perceptual¹² codes into films (Film –

). These extra-cinematic codes of representation, recognition, and identifica-tion create the seemingly “natural” appearance of filmic images (Film , ).

Therefore, although it is now coded, analogy continues to function as analogic denotation “in relation to the codes of the superior level”—in other words, in relation to cinematic codes (Film –).

Metz not only recasts his theory of denotation but also revises his account of connotation. He begins by defining connotation as “motivated overtaking” or symbolism (–). Metz’s second explanation of connotation, “the signified motivates the signifier but goes beyond it,” now refers not to the presence of additional connotative signifiers such as compositional schemes, but to the evo-cation of an already established relationship between a prior (denotative) signi-fier and significate (–). That prior relationship motivates connotative signi-fications generated either throughout the course of a film or within the cultural contexts imported and invoked by the film.

An example from the film Sex, Lies, and Videotape illustrates Metz’s descrip-tion of connotative operadescrip-tions engendered within films. In that film, Ann Meleney’s husband, John, conducts a secret affair with her sister, Cynthia. Each time they meet illicitly, John gives Cynthia a lush, exotic plant. Eventually, these plants,¹³ strewn around Cynthia’s apartment throughout the film, signify more than John’s overtures to intimacy (the motivation). They also indicate, with reso-nant connotations, the overall character of the affair itself (the overtaking). This instance of “overtaking” is depicted most clearly during a scene in which the unknowing Ann visits Cynthia’s apartment and becomes anxious and irritated, for no apparent reason, while looking at the plants.¹⁴

According to Metz, then, the connotative or symbolic meaning (the charac-ter of the affair) neither councharac-ters nor disregards the prior denotative meaning established within the film (John’s prelude to illicit intimacy).¹⁵ Rather, the con-notative meaning overtakes and supplements the initial denotation.

Similarly, Metz submits that visual images also import extra-filmic connota-tions, explained once again through references to the process of motivated over-taking (Film , ).¹⁶ Metz asserts that before cinematic language orders the

denotations of shots and images, before symbolic signification is fostered (as in the previous example) within the film itself, various connotations or symbolisms also exist as elements of cultural codes (, , –). Filmed objects, charac-ters, patterns of light, clothing, et cetera, their extra-cinematic denotations dis-cerned through perception, retain these connotations, which contribute to “the total understanding” of any particular film (Film –, –).¹⁷

Thus, Metz resolves that connotations and denotations are comprehended si-multaneously, that connotations are situated at the core of iconic analogy, and that connotations play a major role in the understanding of filmic images (–, ).

Furthermore, he states that “the semiotics of cinema can be “conceived of either as a semiotics of connotation or as a semiotics of denotation” (Film , ).

Metz nevertheless strays from his own proposition that viewers perceive

Metz nevertheless strays from his own proposition that viewers perceive