Language, Reality and Images through Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32719/26312514.2022.6.8Keywords:
Semiotics, virtual studies, psychoanalytic theory, science fiction, cinemaAbstract
This article explores the specific conditions for reading and interpreting images and the semiotic experience derived from them, in contrast to how we learn to read and interpret written language. For this purpose, the science fiction film Arrival by Denis Villeneuve has been selected as a fundamental reference, considering that this film addresses a theoretical and philosophical problem about language: the limits of human thought related to the written language and the possibility of an exteriority of it, marked by a fictional, entirely visual language structured by images. For this purpose, a dialogue has been developed between two fundamental authors: Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory about the three registers (Imaginary, Symbolic and Real) and the theoretical foundations of Roland Barthes’ semiotics. This dialogue finally takes form in the results of the semiotic analysis of a set of shots from the previously mentioned film, selected for their relevance in the discussion. In this process, in addition to investigating the bonds between language and time, a critique has been developed on two main ideas: the homologation of the conditions of reading images with those of the written language that try to deny to the images their own linguistic nature; and the assumption that images constitute a more transparent way of accessing the truth, for a subject that is itself a product of language ambiguity.
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