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Interpretation, irony, and "surface meaning" in film
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MacDowell, James (2018) Interpretation, irony, and "surface meaning" in film. Film-Philosophy, 22 (2). pp. 261-280. doi:10.3366/film.2018.0076
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3366/film.2018.0076
Abstract
In theories of interpretation, the artwork's “surface” is frequently cast as something to be looked past in our quest for meaning. As such, the “surface” has also understandably been the focus of several polemics against the excesses of interpretive criticism – in film scholarship and beyond. This article explores what role concepts of the “surface” and “surface meaning” might fruitfully play in the interpretation of fiction films by thinking about a particular kind of expression-by-implication available to the medium: irony. An under-theorised phenomenon, filmic irony could seem to require interpretation in order to grasp meanings that reside precisely elsewhere than the “surface”. Yet, can we even distinguish between a “surface meaning” and an “implied” meaning in a non-linguistic medium like film? This article addresses such questions by exploring the possibility of separating the explicit and implicit, as well as interpretation and comprehension, in a medium whose very capacity for ironic expression has sometimes been doubted.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Motion Pictures | ||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > Film and Television Studies | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Irony in motion pictures, Aesthetics, Heckerling, Amy, Perkins, V.F., 1936-, Bordwell, David | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Film-Philosophy | ||||||
| Publisher: | Edinburgh University Press Ltd. | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1466-4615 | ||||||
| Official Date: | June 2018 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 23 April 2018 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 15 May 2018 | ||||||
| Volume: | 22 | ||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 261-280 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.3366/film.2018.0076 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access | ||||||
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