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Semiotics and Title Sequences: Text-Image Composites in Motion Graphics
Title sequences are the most obvious place where photography and typography combine on-screen, yet they are also a commonly neglected part of film studies. Semiotics and Title Sequences presents the first theoretical model and historical consideration of how text and image combine to create meaning in title sequences for film and television, before extending its analysis to include subtitles, intertitles, and the narrative role for typography. It is the first volume in Michael Betancourt's study of semiotics and cinema using the title sequence as a critical focus, allowing for a consideration of fundamental theoretical issues apart from both the issues of narrative and realism common to commercial media. Detailed close readings of classic films starting with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and including T o Kill A Mockingbird, Dr. Strangelove , and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly , along with designs from television programs such as Magnum P.I. , Castle , and Vikings present a critical assessment of title sequences as both an independent art form and an introduction to the film that follows.
144 pages, Hardcover
Published January 25, 2017
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April 28, 2017
Conceptually, I understand the aims of the text. The general framework the text offers for analyzing titles was promising. After reading the text, a short 130 pages, I'm left unconvinced that Betancourt makes his case for a semiotic of titles and text in cinema.
The book claims to be the first of its kind, and it might well be. I have found few works specifically addressing the rhetorical, narrative, or semiotic natures of titles. Then again, maybe there is a reason there are few works on semiotic theory, typography, and cinema.
Applying three modes of analysis to the textual elements of cinema is a good starting point. But, the argument needs something more. A reader needs to understand what the value of these analyses might be. How would future scholars apply the modes and what would be uncovered?
Foucault and Barthes appear throughout the text as the foundations for any argument in favor of semiotics. More should be drawn from Metz, Bazin, and any number of cinema scholars with semiotic and rhetorical backgrounds. Surely Metz, with his theories of a grammar / language of cinema and a developed semiotic model, should be more prominent in a work on the "grammar" of film credits, subtitles, and titles.
The text is repetitive, so a lack of length isn't the problem. If anything, I fear a longer version would restate the content a few more times. What is needed is more film scholarship, connected to semiotics and rhetoric. Foucault and more Foucault? That's insufficient.
The prose is a mess, which weakens the argument. Unfortunately, some basic editing would improve the tangled prose. Sentences start, then an appositive abruptly ends with a period instead of the remainder of the expected thought. There are some sentences that defy efforts to untangle the mess. I also realize "their" is now a singular pronoun, and plural/singular verbs are out of fashion, but I like singular subjects paired with singular verbs and pronouns.
The book claims to be the first of its kind, and it might well be. I have found few works specifically addressing the rhetorical, narrative, or semiotic natures of titles. Then again, maybe there is a reason there are few works on semiotic theory, typography, and cinema.
Applying three modes of analysis to the textual elements of cinema is a good starting point. But, the argument needs something more. A reader needs to understand what the value of these analyses might be. How would future scholars apply the modes and what would be uncovered?
Foucault and Barthes appear throughout the text as the foundations for any argument in favor of semiotics. More should be drawn from Metz, Bazin, and any number of cinema scholars with semiotic and rhetorical backgrounds. Surely Metz, with his theories of a grammar / language of cinema and a developed semiotic model, should be more prominent in a work on the "grammar" of film credits, subtitles, and titles.
The text is repetitive, so a lack of length isn't the problem. If anything, I fear a longer version would restate the content a few more times. What is needed is more film scholarship, connected to semiotics and rhetoric. Foucault and more Foucault? That's insufficient.
The prose is a mess, which weakens the argument. Unfortunately, some basic editing would improve the tangled prose. Sentences start, then an appositive abruptly ends with a period instead of the remainder of the expected thought. There are some sentences that defy efforts to untangle the mess. I also realize "their" is now a singular pronoun, and plural/singular verbs are out of fashion, but I like singular subjects paired with singular verbs and pronouns.
Displaying 1 of 1 review