Given the context, his actions were sensible (or not). Given the context, his argument was sensible (or not) "Content is that which a work betrays but does not parade." Edwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, 1903. And it is precisely artistic juxtaposition of the relationships between context and content that gives rise to the film’s meaning and its value to humanity as a work of art (or not)

In regard to subjective/emotivee terms, such as "felt" or "think" as terms within part of criticism used by the critic, "I felt the film succeded" or "I thought he did a bad (good) job at X", context may be viewed as part of the language accompanying a particular word, or phrase, or character action, or filmed image and thus often influencing its meaning or effect. The meaning of "fly" depends on its context, for example, and the critic must consider the set of circumstances or events in which a particular term, action, image, sound, or event occurs within the framework of the film itelf, the situation, the broader body of the discourse, its propositions, arguments, statements of belief and fact, evidence and nature of purported evidence given by the actors/characters supporting the term, dialogue, or action of the actor as a "concept" -- an idea, thought, or notion conceived through mental activity.

The words concept and conception apply to mental formulations on a broad scale, and it is not so much the concept, term itself which is of concern to critics, but the nature of its conception by the filmmaker and expressed through the actors. In general, referring to concepts or conception in reference to filmmaking as imagery which departs from perceptual accuracy to present a mental formulation of an object or thought which the audience is unfamiliar and is then made known or revealed to them by the film itself as a complex state felt by the filmmaker, rather than its appearance alone as conceived by the conceptor (the writer/director filmmaker) and perceived by the audience, the author/receiver relationship of the shared theatrical concept -- is what film as discourse is about; its subject matter. Discourse on the theatrical level occurs in the performance when the filmmaker "connects" with the audience and shares an idea or resolves an issue raised within the context of the story.

Content should not be confused with form (a work's physical characteristics or structure) or context (the environment in which discourse arises-- time, place, audience, etc.), although each of these effect each other, and have an impact on the audience regarding the significance and meaning of the discourse. On the other hand, some feel that content is the meaning of a discourse beyond its subject matter, its denotations, that it consists also of its connotations, levels of meaning which are not obviously apparent "I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else." Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Cinema content has three levels of complexity. The first includes literal iconography: straightforward subjects and imagery, describable facts, actions, and/or observed states portrayed through camera images and actions of actors. The second includes the basic genres; figurative meanings like those afforded by conventional signs and symbols, basic tropes, and/or performance qualities. The third represents the effect on the audience of form and context, which contributes to substantiation of the filmmaker’s objective. Context refers to the conditions in which something exists or occurs. Cinematographically, this is the part of a discourse surrounding an image, clip, insert, term, word, symbol, concept, statement, proposition or passage or argument (dialogue), or character action that helps make its meaning clear.

Cinematographic discourse is a form of visual and perhaps oral communication that is more extensive than a term or proposition within the framework of the film and consists of them and such terms and words and image and propositions have meaning only within the context of cinema discourse. Some examples of discourse are conversation, spoken presentation or speech, and arguments. Filmmakers are typically concerned with and interested in the conversations, speeches, and spoken presentations as dialogue, although the electronic communication age has made sound and color shadow and light still and moving visual images equally as important an area of discourse as dialogue.

In regard to cinema discourse, context may be understood to include the varied conditions, in which a work of cinema is (or was) produced and interpreted, which includes (but not exclusively) three highly complex conditional arenas: The first pertains to the filmmaker's attitudes, beliefs, interests, values, intentions and purposes, education and training, and biography (including psychology). The second is the setting in which the film was produced: the apparent function of the discourse (to entertain, enlighten express, illustrate, mediate, persuade, record, redefine reality, or redefine a concept), religious and philosophical convictions, and sociopolitical and economic structures. This I believe is what must be considered in an analysis of varying cinematographic systems and approaches. Third is the field of the films reception and interpretation: the traditions it is intended to serve, the mind-set it adheres to (ritualistic, perceptual, rational, and emotive), and, perhaps most importantly, the color of the lenses through which the concept is being scrutinized-- i.e., the interpretive mode (artistic biography, psychological approaches, political criticism, feminism, cultural history, intellectual history, formalism, structuralism, semiotics, hermeneutics, post-structuralism and deconstruction, reception theory, concepts of periodicity [stylistic pendulum swinging], and other chronological and contextual considerations such as historical milieu.

Context is much more than the matter of the filmmaker’s circumstances alone. The old adage about looking at the world through "rose colored glasses" may apply here also and against which we must be on constant guard unless we should become lost in what Kant alluded to in "Prolegomenia" (1783) as "speculative philosophy in the abstract", so the content of a film, its meaning, its value as art, becomes more than merely subjective moralizing or preaching to the audience.

Jack Rooney
2/04/97