denotation/connotation
... Denotation means the literal relationship between sign and referent; thus, three denotes the object referred to. In film terms, this first order of meaning would refer to what is on the screen, that is, the mechanical (re)production of an image: for example, three people in a frame (a three-shot), two men and a woman. The second order of meaning, connotation, adds values that are culturally encoded to that first order of meaning. And it is at this second order of signification that we can see how signs operate as myth-makers. That is, they function as crystallizers of abstract concepts or concepts that are difficult to conceptualize – they make sense of the culture (for example, institutional, social) in which individuals or communities find themselves.
Returning, by way of illustration, to this three-shot. At the denotative level, the two men are standing either side of the woman. The main source of lighting is coming from the side, casting one of the men into the shadows. The camera is at a slight low angle, thereby slightly distorting the features of the characters. At the connotative level of meaning, the reading produced is as follows: this image is signifying the dangers of a triangular relationship. In classic narrative cinema – which reposes on the triad order/ disorder/order-restored – convention has it that a triangular relationship must end with the demise of one character (the man in the shadows), so that order can be re-established. Within that denotation/connotation cultural convention we can also see how the third order of signification, myth, gets produced and feeds into ideology. The myth that triangular relationships are doomed, and cause disruption
to order, implicitly makes clear that heterosexual coupledom is the only ideologically acceptable face of sexuality.
諗諗吓我成日睇唔明劇情嘅最大問題係太少同人交流 / 睇得太少分析
connotation 係約定俗成,convention 難聽D講都係 arbitrary (唔同文化再有差異),prototypical 嘅共通解讀都幾重要 (平行世界可以理解光 = 邪惡,影 = 正義)
冇convention我話男女男代表好嬲 (鬼佬導演「可以」借用粵語) 都得架啦
up up下又變咗作者背景同文本關係