The Third Meaning – What is Cinema

“Reading time is free”
-Roland Barthes

The medium of film is a medium of time. Scenes made of stills move in frames per second. In order to extract meaning from a film, we must watch it sequentially – from scene 1 to scene end. What if we could approach film and cinema spatially? Aside from comic strips, the church’s stained glass windows, and the photo-novel, what other forms can this take? What does this mean now?

It didn’t occur to me to ask these questions until reading Roland Barthes’ The Third Meaning. How can a still image take on a cinematic property? How can sculpture be cinematic? What if a map, which is traditionally used to convey information, could be used as a cinematic element?

I imagine a gallery filled with stills from a film, strung about. The film, displayed , but not projected, visible, but not readable, hangs through the gallery. The soundtrack plays, but we see no animation. In an extreme example, the object is literally a cinematic object.
Playful, absurd, pastiche.

While the comic strip is narrative, I have to wonder whether it is cinematic. I now ask – what is the difference between narrative and cinematic?

The properties of cinema:
1. larger than life
2. more real than real
3. durational

It is not only the moving image that separates film and cinema from other narrative forms – it is its presentation and production. It is the largess. The projection. The quality that forces you to watch for more than just 5 minutes. If are to gleam anything from the cinema, you must endure the entire piece. You cannot simply glance at a film like a painting because it is durational.
However, this does not mean it is cinematic. A cinematic form will inherently contain narrative elements – plot, character, spectacle, musicality, and tempo. There are also cinematic techniques – pan, zoom, fade, transition. In defining cinematic, I am looking for the least common denominator. What would it take for something to NOT be cinematic? What would exclude an item from being cinematic? Can anything be cinematic?

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