THE RHETORIC OF THE PHOTOGRAPH IN FILM THEORY (KRACAUER, BAZIN, METZ)

This study examines the role of the photograph and "the photographic" in the work of three major "realist" film theorists: Siegfried Kracauer, Andre Bazin and Christian Metz. For these theorists, it seemed obvious to begin the study of film with a description of the properties of the photographic image. They start from the assumption that cinema is an extension of photography, both historically and technologically, and, consequently, that film aesthetics can be derived from those of photography. The thesis calls this assumption into question, asking, what, in fact, film has to do with photography.The thesis then traces out each theorist's move from photography to film, showing how he attempts to demonstrate a necessary relation of film to photography. Since each concludes that filmic specificity is essentially photographic, the thesis examines the consequences for film aesthetics of founding the properties of the filmic image in those of the photograph.The approach of this thesis is rhetorical. It is rhetorical, first, because it takes as its starting point Roland Barthes's seminal article, "The Rhetoric of the Image," in which he attempts to displace the conception of the image as "ineffable," as an area of "resistance to meaning." Taking Barthes's example, the thesis is concerned to demonstrate that images involve complex systems of signification which can be analyzed. Second, the thesis is rhetorical in the close attention it gives to the arguments for the photographic basis of film. It looks closely at certain tautologies (eg., photography is realistic because it is photographic), unworkable analogies and comparisons (eg., photographs are like mirrors, or fingerprints), and problematic causal reasoning (eg., a photographic is always of something).Because Kracauer, Bazin and the early Metz make constant reference to a presumed "nature" of the photographic image, the first chapter of the thesis surveys contemporary theories of photographic reference (in philosophy, art history, film and photography theory) in order to evaluate, in the following chapters, these film theorists ideas about photographic reference.