Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

elieve in it as a film genre, it seems to me. In genre study, it is the figurative markers in
the texts that respond over the years in varying historical contexts that give rise to a certain
film designation, as I will explain in Part V. In film noir my interpretation derives identical
expectations in terms of both narrative content and style, and therefore aims rather for
visual tropes and visual analysis.
The next pages attempt then to provide a semiotic analysis of some noir
productions, bearing in mind what Jean Mitry identified as the three stages in the film
viewing process: perception (representation); organisation (narrative); and valuation
(rhetoric). Because each of these stages is constructed by means of a different set of signs,
they each demand a different operation from the viewer. Cinematic representation (the
image itself), as Metz conceives it, is used “to synchronise” both the visual and the verbal
elements. Our sense of the perceptual field can, however, be questioned by the
combination of the elements of the sign (focus, colour, depth, camera stability, etc). Once
the spectator possesses this adequate model he or she relates it appropriately and decodes
the visual images: “Cinema is (...) an artistic language, a discourse or signifying practice
characterised by specific codifications and ordering procedures” (Stam 2000:111). It is up
to the spectator, thus, to establish the kind of rapport with the semantic field that
potentially enables the viewer to work out the meaning of, for instance, the metaphor’s
power.
Therefore, the perceptual elements of the sign (from depth of field and camera
movements to the symbols and colour patterns) will be approached and aligned with the
conventions of genre, seeking the appropriate level of discourse. In short, since semiotics
and structuralism taught us to study the system through which signs are recognised as
images and stories, I will focus on the instances when a sign is not assimilated by the
narrative and where consequently a misrecognition occurs; or, as Charles Sanders Peirce
put it (see introduction note at the beginning of this chapter), “a sign should leave its
interpreter to supply a part of its meaning”, and hence I will give my view on what these
signs substitute for in the four film productions under consideration.
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