Semiologists believe that the shot—the traditional unit of construction in film—is too general and inclusive to be of much use in a systematic analysis of a movie. Explain what this means, and what semiologists suggest are better filmic tools for the analysis of cinema

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. The symbolic sign, semiologists argue, is a more precise unit of signification than the shot. Every cinematic shot consists of dozens of signifying codes that are hierarchically structured.
2. Using what they call the “principle of pertinence,” semiologists first establish what the dominant signs in a shot or a film are, then analyze the subsidiary codes. This methodology is similar to a detailed analysis of mise en scène, only in addition to spatial, textural, and photographic codes, semiologists also explore other relevant signs—kinetic, linguistic, musical, rhythmic, and so forth.
3. Traditionally, critics likened the cinematic shot to a word, and a series of edited shots to a sequence of words in a sentence. A semiologist would dismiss such analogies as patently simpleminded.
4. Perhaps an individual sign might be likened to a word, but the equivalent to a shot—even a lousy one—would require many paragraphs if not pages of words. A complex shot can contain a hundred separate signs, each with its own precise symbolic significance.