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

Figure 87. The Spiral Staircase
Based on contiguity, metonymy does not call for transposition (an imaginative leap)
since it involves selection (which per se will direct the viewer in envisaging larger
frameworks). As a syntagmatic (horizontal, combinative) dimension proposed by Metz,
metonymy can function as an important vehicle for expressing non-linguistic relationships.
It exploits relationships of physical contiguity between things, not words. Therefore, the
complicated image of the staircase in fig. 87 becomes slightly clearer to us by virtue of the
exploitation of conceptual contiguity by the trope of metonymy. The spectator, throughout
the movie, is concerned about “deconstructing” the meaning of that object and the
relationship it has with the characters that live in the big mansion. As we watch them
running down the stairs in a circular way, we are able to focus on some of the characters’
identically twisted minds.
As a physical object, the staircase determines one of the major structures of the
house, the dominant cinematographic space of the film (and which gives the title to the
movie). Through it, we also fear that it is the place of all dangers, anticipating loss of
balance and falling. In one of the scenes in the film, we see, in reflection in a mirror on the
wall, Helen climbing the stairs. As she stops in front of the mirror, she puts her hands on
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