Metz, Christian

(1931- )

   Film theorist. Christian Metz is a prominent film theorist whose seminal essay in 1964, "Le cinéma: langue ou langage?" is considered a landmark in modern film theory. Metz is well known for his categorization of film sequences, or syntagmas, in his essay "Grande Syntagmatique." His two books, Language and Cinema and Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema, based on essays he wrote in the 1960s, were published in English translation in 1974 and have influenced scholars and students of film and media studies internationally. His Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Imaginary Signifier was published in English in 1982. The original French version appeared in 1977. Metz's theories are influenced by structuralist thinkers such as Ferdinand de Saussure and psycho-analysts such as Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. He has been instrumental in creating the idea that film is a language, whose parts, including shots, camera angles, transitions, and montage, communicate messages to the spectator.

   Historical Dictionary of French Cinema by Dayna Oscherwitz & Mary Ellen Higgins