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‘Oversights’: Notes on Theatrical Montage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2009
Abstract
In NTQ 5, Franco Ruffini analyzed the filmic concept of ‘montage’ as it could be applied to the study of live theatrical performance. Here, Giulia Ceriani offers the outline of a further proposal – to analyze theatrical techniques of montage in relation to the ‘point of sight’ of the spectator, acknowledging both the existence and the significance of the ‘oversights’ or ‘points of distorted view’ implicit in such a recognition of the nature of an audience's perception.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988
References
Notes and References
1. I would like to take the occasion here to thank Taviani, Ferdinando who, in his article ‘La svista a teatro’ published in Il Piccolo Hans No. 40 (1983)Google Scholar, introduced for the first time the notion of ‘svista’ (oversight), from another point of view.
2. The concept of ‘actant observer’ can be briefly defined as the implicit or explicit cognitive subject inscribed in discourse by the enunciator who is able to control the making of the action into a process.
3. Ruffini, Franco, in an article published in Theatre Quarterly Vol. II, No. 5 (1985)Google Scholar, defined the first type of montage as ‘vertical’ and the second, on the time axis, as ‘horizontal’.
4. and 5. This corresponds to the modality of ‘faire-voir’ in the first case, and of ‘voir-faire’ in the second, according to modality theory as defined by Greimas, Algirdas J. and Courtés, Joseph in Sémiotique: dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage (Paris: Hachette, 1979)Google Scholar.
6. The modal chain is ‘vouloir/pouvoir/savoir’.
7. The modal chain is ‘savoir-pouvoir-vouloir’. On the hierarchy of the modalities and subject transformations, see the important study by Coquet, J. C., Le Discours et son sujet, Vol. I (Paris: Klincksiek, 1984)Google Scholar.
8. The modalities are ‘savoir’ and ‘savoir-voir’.
9. For Eisenstein studies, see in particular the Italian translation (for the time being, the only extant translation), edited by Montani, Pietro, Teoria generale del montaggio (Venice: Marsilio, 1985)Google Scholar.
10. For a visual approach to theatre, using a perspective similar to mine, see Floch's, J. M. article, ‘Sémiotique visuelle et statuts sémiotiques des éléments visuels du discours théâtral’, Dégrés, XIII (1978)Google Scholar.
11. In general terms, I understand by ‘semi-symbolic’ the homologation of categories and not of units.
12. See also the homologability of the two axes with the ‘vertical/horizontal’ distinction as introduced by Ruffini in the article cited above.
13. Reference here is to the four fundamental configurations described by Casetti, Francesco in his recent volume, Dentro lo sguardo: il film e il suo spettatore (Milan: Bompiani, 1985)Google Scholar.