On the nature of cinematographic narrative

Abstract

The essay On the nature of  cinematographic narrative (1993) is one of the last works by Yuri Lotman that concentrates his reflections on cinematographic art, a theme to which, in 1973, the semiotician had dedicated the book Semiotics of cinema and problems of cinematic aesthetics (in the Portuguese translation published in Portugal, Estética e semiótica do cinema). According to Lotman, cinematographic art imitates the structure of a natural language and, therefore, is an essentially narrative art that elaborates its own language (cinelanguage). Within a cinematographic work, seen as a text, it is possible to highlight phrases, verb tenses and even rhymes and anaphoras. Lotman also points out the complex duality of the cinematographic plot, composed of two layers: the “literary” layer – recountable in words and which, in a certain sense, coincides with the script – and the purely cinematographic layer, which can be visually imagined, but cannot be re-expressed in words.