Exploring Film Language in the Context of the Unfolding Iconic Turn (Linguistic and Semiotic Aspects)

Abstract

The issue discussed in this article stems from a new paradigm or, according to recent monitoring of developments in the humanities, a ‘new turn’. This turn — as has occurred repeatedly throughout history — significantly alters the interplay between verbal and visual principles, between word and image, that took shape over the entire preceding history of communication. The first historical situation of this kind emerged with the advent of photography, and even more so with the birth of cinema. The second came with the appearance of television. Today, the ongoing expansion of networks, the Internet, and digitalization necessitates an investigation into the phenomenon currently termed ‘media’. The intrusion of peripheral spheres into artistic culture has led to the blurring of artistic imagery in its traditional forms, creating a need to examine this process through the lens of media theory, history, and anthropology. This context now incorporates the historical experience of photography, cinema, and television, which were previously studied predominantly from an art-historical perspective. Consequently, media history is now conceptualized as cultural history. All these transformations affect the most essential component of artistic activity — the image. In this article, the author revisits film studies from the second half of the 20th century, specifically semiotic research, which first framed the problem of the image beyond traditional art-historical constraints. This involves the correlation between image, sign, symbol, and concept within artistic thinking. However, in the late 20th century, this problem was examined within the context of one of the defining cultural shifts of the era, the linguistic turn. Regardless of whether film scholars were deeply familiar with Ferdinand de Saussure’s ideas — which laid the groundwork for semiotics — film language was studied precisely by analogy with language, and therefore from a linguistic standpoint. In other words, researchers analyzed film language as an analog to verbal language. The iconic turn in the humanities that has recently begun in connection with the expansion of the media dictates the discussion of two questions that the author answers in this article: 1) Whether the iconic turn should be viewed as unfolding within the linguistic turn, or the iconic turn indicates going beyond its limits, which is associated primarily with an orientation towards the image and understanding of the film language. 2) Whether we should revisit the theoretical and critical reflection within film history to uncover anti-linguistic ideas that deserve renewed attention, further development, and practical application in cinema today. After all, it is precisely within these ideas that an anticipation of the iconic turn may have already occurred.