Film Semiotics, Metz, and Leone's Trilogy

Lane Roth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317928515
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Semiotics offers a systematic approach to analysing the stylistic structure of film. When this study was originally published in 1983 this was a recent addition to the methods of film study and it presents an explanation of film semiotics with direct application to comparative film research. It takes as its representative subject one trilogy of films and applies semiology, with careful textual analysis. The book begins with a basic introduction to semiotics and the ideas of Christian Metz on cinesemiotics. It then presents a syntagmatic analysis of each of the three Dollars films, with an outline of autonomous segments for each and a discussion of the findings before undertaking a wider analysis of the trilogy as a whole with commentary on the stylistic unity of the director's work. This book, an enduring detailed study of these three films, also outlines clearly this method of classifying the formal structuring codes of film communication.

CHAPTER IV
SYNTAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE

Outline of Autonomous Segments

1. SEQUENCE SHOT (1a)

(A lone rider is ambushed and shot.)

In this pre-title shot a solitary horseman is seen in the distance leisurely walking his horse toward the camera. The figures are seen in extreme long shot from a high angle, from the point of view of the sniper, who is never seen. While all the sound effects are heard at the same volume, it is understood that the horse's whinnying and the man's whistling and humming are attributed to the background figures, while the sounds of spurs and boots shuffling, a match being struck and a rifle lever cocking are attributed to the unseen foreground sniper. When the shot is heard, the horseman falls and his mount bucks. The frame freezes. The music comes up and the titles begin.

2. TITLES: Cast and credits.

3. TITLE: Prolog.

“WHERE LIFE HAD NO VALUE, DEATH, SOMETIMES, HAD ITS PRICE. THAT IS WHY THE BOUNTY KILLERS APPEARED.”

4. SCENE (6)

(The Man in Black indicates to a fellow passenger that he intends for the railroad to make an unscheduled stop at Tucumcari.)

This conversation scene takes place inside a railway car and ends when The Man in Black stands up to pull on an emergency cord. This action “causes” the event signified by the following segment.

5. ORDINARY SEQUENCE (8)

(The train comes to a stop at Tucumcari station.)

The following montage of single shots signifies the deceleration of the train.

(1) The emergency bell rings. This is clearly an “effect” of The Man in Black's action in the last shot of the previous scene, but represents a new location, the exterior of the train, which is a locus of this segment.

(2) The brakeman turns a wheel.

(3) From the point of view of the station, the train approaches, slowing down. The sound of screeching wheels is heard.

(4) The brakeman turns a wheel.

(5) From the point of view of the station, the train approaches, slowing down, jets of steam now issuing forth near the tracks.

(6) The brakeman turns a wheel.

(7) The friction of the train wheel throws sparks on the track.

(8) Passengers inside the train are knocked about.

(9) The friction of the train wheel throws sparks on the track.

(10) From the point of view of the train, the station sign is passed as the train comes to a stop.

Although one event is signified, it is cinematically treated from different points of view, some of which constitute consecutive series. For example, views of the train stopping from the point of view of the station are intercut with views of the brakeman on the train. Furthermore there is a cause-effect relationship between the shots. The bell in (1) cues the brakeman's actions in (2), which slows the train in (3). The brakeman in (4) “causes” the steam in (5), just as his movement in (6) “causes” the sparks to fly from the wheel in (7). The alternation establishes not only consecutiveness but simultaneity between series. For example, the exterior shot of the sparking wheel in (7) “causes” the passengers to lose their balance in the interior shot in (8), i.e. consecutiveness. But the cut back to the wheel in (9), which is virtually the same shot as (7), signifies simultaneity.

The above discussion may seem to indicate that this segment should be an alternate syntagma. However, it must be recognized that the alternation in this segment is of the screen signifiers and not the signified event. Although the screen treatment is one of alternation, the event--the stopping of the train--is one action which could have been signified by one shot, without really changing the storyline. In this sense this segment could be a scene. But Leone has chosen to depict this action from so many points of view (the station platform, the exterior of the moving train, and the interior of the moving train) that the locus is mobile. The syntagma appears to have temporal unity (no skipped moments in time) but not spatial unity. It is this frequency and oscillating nature of the setting that makes this segment more a sequence than a scene.

6. SCENE (6)

(The Man in Black gets off the train, calks to the conductor, and then learns about a wanted killer.)

Unlike in the previous segment, this signified event has one point of view (the train station), involves dialog, and follows one actant (The Man in Black). In the first shot of this segment, the train comes to a full stop, the excited conductor disembarks and begins to speak. Another shot, reverse angle, showing the brakeman and engineer explaining that someone pulled the emergency cord, then shows The Man in Black disembarking from the train with his horse. This provides continuity for the conversation which follows, between The Man in Black and the conductor. Since there are no disruptions in setting, time, or presence of characters due to editing, the disembarking of the conductor and The Man in Black and their subsequent conversation compose one unit. Similarly when the conductor boards the train, which pulls out of the station, The Man in Black is seen in the foreground. In one shot The Man in Black is seen approaching a nearby ticket office with a wanted poster on the exterior wall, as the train still moves in the background. The mise-en-scene of this shot provides continuity between the previous communication between The Man in Black and the conductor, and the one which follows between The Man in Black and the ticket agent. Although these are two separate, unrelated communications--the second is not a conversation because while the gossipy ticket seller prattles, The Man in Black remains silent--they are inextricably linked in space and time by this one shot. Several actions, then--the disembarking of The Man in Black, his conversation with the conductor, and his communication with the ticket seller about the wanted poster--are unified into one scene by their explicitly consecutive nature where screen time continually coincides with story time, and by their limned, shared setting.

7. EXPLANATORY INSERT (1e)

A closeup, tilt down shot of the wanted poster is interpolated as a detail in the above scene.

8. SEQUENCE SHOT (1a)

(The Man in Black walks toward a hotel in town.)

No spatial referents are indicated to provide any continuity with the preceeding segment. The street here appears to be a new location.

9. SCENE (6)

(The Man in Black strongarms a barkeep into furtively revealing the whereabouts of the wanted killer.)

This conversation scene is staged within the boundaries of the saloon or hotel lobby. It should be noted that the confidence is communicated not by words, which profess ignorance, but by eye movement. The Man in Black repeats the gesture, in comprehension, and walks upstairs.

10. SCENE (6)

(The Man in Black panics his prey into flight.)

In the hall upstairs The Man in Black employs a ruse to ferret out the killer, who escapes through the window. Part of the scene cakes place inside the room vacated by the wanted man. An interpretation based strictly upon location would therefore indicate two separate scenes. However, the action of The Man in Black is continued smoothly and quickly from one to the other via match cutting and represents a single cause-effect relationship.

11. EXPLANATORY INSERT (1e)

A single shot of the wanted man leaping over balconies in order to reach the ground is inserted in the above scene between shots of The Man in Black looking out the window. This insert is not a closeup, as per Metz's definition, but it functions to explain what The Man in Black is looking at. In this sense it can be distinguished from a simple cutaway.

12. ALTERNATE SYNTAGMA (5)

(As the wanted man flees, The Man in Black pursues him.)

This is a brief syntagma consisting of only four short shots, as follows.

(1) The wanted man leaps from balconies to the street outside: two shots.

(2) The Man in Black walks through the saloon.

(3) The wanted man mounts his moving horse.

The above units make more sense when “read” together than they do as discrete units. The crosscutting depicts both parallel action and contrast. The parallel action involves downward movement by both the hunter and the hunted. The contrast lies in the manner of this movement:

the hunted's movements are desperately rapid and take place outside, while the hunter's movements are controlled and take place inside. It is the relationship between the shots that is important. This clear sense of alternation affords us an insight into the characters involved in the single theme of pursuit and escape. This syntagma ends with the first shot of The Man in Black outside, when it is established that both men are on the street. The common location and new event (the confrontation) will be interpreted as a separate scene.

13. SCENE (6)

(The Man in Black kills the wanted man on the street. )

The Man in Black stops the attempted escape of the fugitive by first shooting his horse and then wounding the man. Only when the wanted man persistently shoots back does The Man in Black kill him with one accurately placed bullet.

Although most of the shots alternate between pursued and pursuer, with reaction shots of the barkeep/spectator, some deep focus shots frame both duelists even though they are far apart. Thus the many signifiers (shots) show a narrative event (signified) having unity of action, space and time (scene).

14. SCENE (6)

(The Man in Black collects his reward money.)

A simple cut separates this scene, a conversation transpiring inside the sheriff's office, from the preceeding scene on the street. In between, some time has obviously passed and been omitted from screen time.

Inside the sheriff's office The Man in Black collects his bounty for killing the wanted man, and then asks about another wanted poster. The sheriff tells him that someone else has made inquiries also. When The Man in Black asks about this possible competitor, the sheriff remarks that he never saw him before.

15. SCENE (6)

(The Man With No Name walks down a street.)

A simple cut is the only transition between the above scene and this new scene, which features a new character and a new setting. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• I. Introduction to Film Semiotics
• II. Methodology of Syntagmatic Analysis
• III. Syntagmatic Analysis of Fistful of Dollars
• IV. Syntagmatic Analysis of for a Few Dollars More
• V. Syntagmatic Analysis of the Good the Bad and the Ugly
• VI. Paradigmatic Analysis of Leone's Dollars Trilogy
• VII. Implications of Study
• Bibliography