Give me one good reason why symbolism in movies isn't complete

>>81588628
Because symbolism transcends languagr and speaks to your subconscious in a way words never could. Wait, I just wrote your paper for you. Damn it.

>>81588697
Except symbols are still language. Learn semmiotics, you dumbfuck. Speaking to the subconscious is just a matter of hiding meaning in a deeper part of the message, a connotation in a denotation.

>>81588697
>Because symbolism transcends languagr and speaks to your subconscious in a way words never could.
Only if you're familiar with the source and what's being symbolized.
Like Christian symbolism is big, but if your Muslim you could miss out on a lot of it.

>>81589160
Good bait

>>81588628
because film is first and foremost a visual medium, symbolism allows for film to represent ideas or emotions relying solely on the image; a film is in its essence a sequence of images, symbolism makes films act more like poetry rather than a novel/script. Not that films that don't use the expedient of symbolism are worse but it's just another way to make cinema.

>>81589160
Yes. This is the treachery of images. The same thing with the painting of the last dinner of da Vinci. People who dont know the story of the painting wouldn't understand or feel the spiritual nor the dramatic meaning of it. They would only perceive a "realistic" painting of friends having a meal.

>>81589217
lol

>>81589376
You don't believe that there are ubiquitous symbols that speak to everyone at a base level?

>>81589286
Show me one good example of universally understood symbolism in a film or TV show.

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Depends, really. If it's unsubtle and dumb, then you're right. Case in point: Every movie with Christ sybolism that isn't about him at all.

>>81589417
>A bunch of people eating at a long table automatically equals their last meal together before the person in the middle dies, and also this guy is the greatest guy ever, totally unselfish, basically a god

Every image is a symbol. The written language is made of symbols. You are dumb as fuck.

>>81589510
I asked if you thought there weren't any such symbols, not that I believed Last Supper was one, but incidentally I do think that it is.

>>81589417
Every symbol is culturally arbitrary. A symbol is made by both a signifier and a signified. Together these two make sense according to a cultural meaning. Biological symbols or "basic symbols" have as much meaning as an isolated musical note.

>>81589665
In some regard, doesn't an isolated note hold greater clarity and meaning than one in the middle of a group? The idea of the seasons, worshipping the sun into coming back each year, fertility rituals, etc. are still lurking underneath the Christian symbols.

>>81588628
manchester by the sea still sucks buddy

>>81589811
>In some regard, doesn't an isolated note hold greater clarity and meaning than one in the middle of a group?
How?

>The idea of the seasons, worshipping the sun into coming back each year, fertility rituals, etc. are still lurking underneath the Christian symbols.
Well, that syncretism was deliberate by the church to stop paganism. Or are you referring to the archetypes, that collective unconscious that repeats forms and narratives endlessly?

>>81590050
> How?
Clarity. Singular. Definite in intention. Unmistakable.
> Ritual stuff?
Yeah, the Jungian stuff.

>>81590235
Yes, I suppose Jung idea, about those original forms in the uncunscious, could be taken as a language, the most basic language whose symbols are ambiguous if not its mystery is what defines them. Though to have meaning, or to more precise, to make meaning in a message (movie, text...) you would innevitably to emmerge from a specific moment in history that will provoke said narrative to otherwise there wouldn't be any story asmuch as a single note wouldn't make any music on its own. Tarkovsky was a man deeply involved in its time and place which push him to create things that wanted desperately to trascends those hardships and limitation but, as he said, artist is not created in a vacuum of the idea but caused by the horror of the daily mundane.

>>81590235
>>81590755
Sorry about that writing. I'm in a rush.

>>81588628
Because all laguage is symbolism, you dumb fucks. God damn.

>>81588628
Does Andrei even use symbolism? His films are very atmospheric and interpretable, but not too symbolic to me. Maybe the room in stalker and the candle in nostalgia, but those were pretty on the nose and literal

>>81589951
I didn't say it was good.

>>81588628
because not everyone does it the american way

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>>81590918
> le crown of thorns man

>>81590918
>>81591675
>I had the greatest difficulty in explaining to people that there is no hidden, coded meaning in the film, nothing beyond the desire to tell the truth. Often my assurances provoked incredulity and even disappointment. Some people evidently wanted more: they needed arcane symbols, secret meanings. They were not accustomed to the poetics of the cinema image. And I was disappointed in my turn. Such was the reaction of the opposition party in the audience; as for my own colleagues, they launched a bitter attack on me, accusing me of immodesty, of wanting to make a film about myself.

>“We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.”

From a creators' perspective (which Tarkovski is talking about on the book you're referencing), to create an image from a preconceived symbol is creative bankrupcy. Nothing wrong with images with organic meaning within the film, or extratextual implications. To watch films is to see symbols, like it or not.

>>81590918
>"I am an enemy of symbols. Symbol is too narrow a concept for me in the sense that symbols exist in order to be deciphered. An artistic image on the other hand is not to be deciphered, it is an equivalent of the world around us. Rain in Solaris is not a symbol, it is only rain which at certain moment has particular significance to the hero. But it does not symbolise anything. It only expresses. This rain is an artistic image. People always try to find "hidden" meanings in my films. But wouldn't it be strange to make a film while striving to hide one's thoughts? An image cannot be a symbol in my opinion. Whenever an image is turned into a symbol, the thought becomes walled in so to speak, it can be fully deciphered. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite"

>>81591965
>Nothing wrong with images with organic meaning within the film, or extratextual implications
what

>>81591856
>>81591999
As an addition to these often quoted citations, I should add the example between what he considers a symbol and what he considers to be an image:

-Symbol: a couple are walking through a metal fence, they are separated by it and the meaning is that they are separated in their own relationship. The scene only exists for the reason of showcasing this. It's, thus, a cliché, closed meaning.

-Image: 7 Samurai (I don't have the book with me so bear with me): A villager falls dead into the mud, and for a moment we can see his white, pristine leg under the heavy rain. It's in no way the essential part of the scene, hell, maybe it wasn't even considered in the process of form, but it adds meaning and impact, one could say flavour, to the film without having to subjugate the events to said meaning and impact.

Basically, for Tarkovski symbolism is just fucking lazy and shallow. And let's be honest, for the most part, it is. However, and this is for most of Tarkovski's "theory" of filmmaking, it's just an incredibly reductive and dogmatic way of seeing art that he himself didn't quite follow in his own films (the usage of milk to mean "life" or "loss of life" when you drop it; this is specially interesting to see when you show Offret to somebody who hasn't seen anything by him and the moment when he drops like a fucking gallon of milk when the nuclear warfare is introduced). Tarkovski doesn't really apply to everything and, hell, it applies to little things. That's what makes him special.

>>81592090
Images that make sense within the film or images that indicate something outside of a film.

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>>81589522
>Every image is a symbol.
What is this symbolizing?

Allows more information to be conveyed in a compact manner. Also plays up the primary strength of the medium -- the visual.

>>81594616
The film just becomes a puzzle then.

>>81596049

If you're low IQ.

>>81596323
Did I say anything about being unable to solve it?

>>81596323
what is your iq then genius ?

>>81596338

No one who's high IQ would refer to symbolism art as being a puzzle. Sorry lad.

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>>81588628
Give me one good reason why symbolism in any media isn't complete shit

>>81596432
But symbolic art is by definition a puzzle to solve, not like a haiku that you can appreciate for its images and aesthetics alone.

>>81588628

Never ever has any kind of symbolism improved a movie experience for me. It's just film makers trying to be clever.