This article provides an embodied account of conceptual meaning in film. More specifically, it claims that the sensory-motor system plays a constitutive role in the cinematic characterisation of abstract concepts. Firstly, we briefly discuss the standard disembodied view of first-generation cognitive science according to which the mental representations of concepts are primarily symbolic and abstract. Secondly, we argue against this view by discussing an embodied theory of concepts based on recent neuroscientific evidence and results from cognitive linguistics. Lastly, we consider the implications of the latter for the study of visual representations of abstract conceptual meaning in film. Using Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) as examples, we make the case that sensory-motor structures play a crucial role in the representation of abstract concepts in cinema.
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The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts in Two Films by Stanley Kubrick
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The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts
in Two Films by Stanley Kubrick
Maarten Coëgnarts, Universiteit Antwerpen
Peter Kravanja, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven




Abstract

    This article provides an embodied account of conceptual meaning in film.
    More specifically, it claims that the sensory-motor system plays a constitutive
    role in the cinematic characterisation of abstract concepts. Firstly, we briefly
    discuss the standard disembodied view of first-generation cognitive science
    according to which the mental representations of concepts are primarily sym-
    bolic and abstract. Secondly, we argue against this view by discussing an em-
    bodied theory of concepts based on recent neuroscientific evidence and results
    from cognitive linguistics. Lastly, we consider the implications of the latter for
    the study of visual representations of abstract conceptual meaning in film. Us-
    ing Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
    as examples, we make the case that sensory-motor structures play a crucial role
    in the representation of abstract concepts in cinema.


The Standard Disembodied View of Concepts

   It has been a common theoretical position in early cognitive science to con-
sider mental representations of concrete (e.g., chair) and abstract concepts (e.g.,
time) from the perspective of abstract formal models.1 According to these first-
generation theories of cognition, which are rooted in the analytic tradition of
philosophy of language, concepts are analysed on the basis of representational
schemes that are wholly detached from our sensory-motor systems. They are dis-
embodied or amodal in that the internal structures of the mental representations
are not related to the sensory-motor states that produced them.
   Consider, for example, the disembodied symbol system that underlies the men-
tal representations of concrete concepts, as discussed by Lawrence Barsalou.2 At

1
  See for example Jerry Alan Fodor, The Language of Thought, Harvard University Press, Cambridge
(MA) 1975; Zenon Pylyshyn, Computation and Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge (MA) 1984.
2
  Lawrence Barsalou, “Perceptual Symbol Systems,” in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, no. 22, 1999,
pp. 578-579.

                                             Cinéma & Cie, vol. XIV, no. 22/23, Spring/Fall 2014
                            Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja


first the amodal system assumes that during perceptual experience perceptual
states arise in sensory-motor systems. These perceptual states can be processed
either consciously by experience or unconsciously by the activation of neural
representations. When these perceptual states occur, a selection is transduced
into an entirely new representation system that describes these states amodally,
that is, in the absence of the perceptual states that produced these symbols. Once
transduced, they enter into larger representational structures containing feature
lists, semantic networks, and frames that have no similarity to the initial percep-
tion states. For this reason amodal systems and their characteristics are often
described by means of language. Just as words are arbitrary linked to their corre-
sponding referents in the world, amodal symbols of concepts are arbitrary linked
to their perceptual states. Like the word “chair” bears no correspondence to
physical chairs, the amodal mental representation of the concept chair bears no
correspondence to perceived chairs. In this view meaning is referential. Symbols
get their meaning solely by virtue of their capacity to correspond to things, prop-
erties, and relations, existing objectively in the world.3
   Consequently, as Mark Johnson has pointed out, arts or aesthetics have nev-
er been regarded as very important in the discussion of conceptual knowledge
and meaning.4 Because painting, film, music, architecture, and so on, are not
regarded as primarily conceptual and propositional in nature, they are thought
not to have meaning in its proper sense. According to this view, which Johnson
rejects, art can only have meaning to the extent that it can be structured in terms
of a linguistic model of meaning, that is, according to representational schemas
that are similar to words, phrases, and sentences in language. For instance, post-
structural film theorists, such as Christian Metz and Colin MacCabe, have re-
garded film primarily as a hermetically-sealed linguistic discourse, arguing that
film can only have meaning if it is seen to be a type of language (“the language
of ﬁlm,” or “ﬁlm-as-language”).5 On this view, no recourse to a referent outside
of itself is necessary (e.g., the intention of the filmmaker(s), the life of the body).
   In this article we are discussing a radically different view of the analysis of
conceptual meaning in cinema. Following grounded theories of cognition, in
particular conceptual metaphor theory, we will argue that the representation of
abstract concepts in cinema is grounded metaphorically in embodied knowl-


3
  Following a convention in Cognitive Linguistics, concepts and image schemas are written in small
capitals (e.g., the concept Chair), while quotes will be used to indicate linguistic manifestations
(words, sentences). This convention is necessary to maintain the distinction between the concep-
tual level, on the hand, and the linguistic expression level, on the other hand.
4
  Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, University of Chi-
cago Press, Chicago 2007, pp. 207-208; see also Mark Johnson, Identity, Bodily Meaning, and Art,
in Tone Roald, Johannes Lang (eds.), Art and Identity: Essays on the Aesthetic Creation of Mind,
Rodopi, Amsterdam-New York 2013, pp. 15-38.
5
  Christian Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
1974; Colin MacCabe, Tracking the Signifier: Theoretical Essays on Film, Linguistics, Literature,
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1985.

78
                     The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts


edge. More specifically, we will illustrate by means of a specific case-study how
the sensory-motor system structures the expression of conceptual content in
cinema. First of all, however, it is necessary to clarify the role of the body in
conceptual knowledge, that is, we have to discuss how the mental representa-
tion of concepts is grounded in sensory-motor processing, before we can relate
it to the question of filmic representation.


Towards an Embodied Theory of Concepts

   Over the last years the disembodied standard view of concepts has been chal-
lenged by various accounts of grounded cognition.6 Although different in scope
and form, these accounts generally share the same embodied view according to
which conceptual content is not (exclusively) a matter of amodal symbol systems.
Rather, they argue that concepts are primarily constituted by knowledge that is
represented within our sensory-motor system.
   One influential view of grounded cognition has been Barsalou’s theory of per-
ceptual symbol systems.7 The basic assumption underlying this theory is that
cognition is inherently grounded in perception. During experience (e.g., eas-
ing into a chair) the brain captures perceptual states. These states, belonging to
sensory-motor systems, are in turn stored permanently in long time memory in
the form of multimodal representations, which Barsalou calls “perceptual sym-
bols.” Later, when information is needed to represent a concept, these symbols
are once more retrieved. More specifically, perceptual knowledge captured dur-
ing experience is activated again to re-enact or to simulate the initial perceptual
states acquired during actual experience and interaction with the world. On this
view, mental representations are not formed by abstract and amodal symbols,
but by modal and analogical perceptual symbols. They are analogical in the sense
that the structure of the cognitive representations corresponds in some way to
the perceptual system that underlies it.8
   A similar theory of concepts that is grounded in the sensory-motor system has
been proposed by Vittorio Gallese and George Lakoff.9 Using neuroscientific


6
  Lawrence Barsalou, “Perceptual Symbol Systems,” cit.; Id., “Grounded Cognition,” in Annual
Review of Psychology, no. 59, 2008, pp. 617-645; Lawrence Barsalou, Katja Wiemer-Hastings, Situ-
ating Abstract Concepts, in Diane Pecher, Rolf A. Zwaan (eds.), Grounding Cognition: The Role
of Perception and Action in Memory, Language, and Thought, Cambridge University Press, New
York 2005, pp. 129-163; Vittorio Gallese, George Lakoff, “The Brain’s Concepts: The Role of the
Sensory-Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge,” in Cognitive Neuropsychology, no. 22, 2005,
pp. 455-479; George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press,
Chicago 1980; George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its
Challenge to Western Thought, Basic Books, New York 1999.
7
  Lawrence Barsalou, “Perceptual Symbol Systems,” cit.
8
  Ivi, p. 578.
9
  Vittorio Gallese, George Lakoff, “The Brain’s Concepts: The Role of the Sensory-Motor System
in Conceptual Knowledge,” cit.

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                            Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja


research results showing that mental representations have similar features as per-
ception and action, they suggest that the sensory-motor system has the right kind
of information structure to characterise the structure of concepts. Consider, for
example, the concrete concept of grasping. According to Gallese and Lakoff this
action concept gets its meaning via our ability to imagine, perform, and perceive
grasping.10 More specifically, they argue that in order to understand the concept
grasping one must be able to imagine oneself or somebody else grasping an ob-
ject. On this view, imagining is considered to be a sort of mental simulation in
that it shares the same neural substrate as doing or perceiving.
   The action concepts of easing into a chair or grasping an object are con-
cepts for literal sensory-motor actions. As such, it is plausible to assume that
they entail, in a constitutive way, embodied information. Lakoff calls this ap-
proach “literal” in that “the concepts for what the physical body is and does
are embodied.”11 There is a physical correspondence between the concept, on
the one hand, and the actual physical experiences it draws upon, on the other
hand. This, however, is not the case with abstract concepts such as justice,
beauty or time, “entities that are neither physical nor spatially constrained.”12
For it is much harder to see how these entities could be embodied, as there
is no physical experience that can be related in a direct way to their mean-
ing.13 The crucial question, then, is to ask how these abstract concepts can be
grounded in sensory-motor processing?
   One proposal that has received much scholarly attention in the last three dec-
ades has been Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), as originated in cognitive
linguistics.14 The underlying idea behind CMT is that our abstract concepts are
defined by systematic mappings of attributes and relations from bodily-based,
sensory-motor source domains onto abstract target domains. More specifically,
CMT claims that we employ the logic of our sensory-motor experience (i.e. im-
age schemas) to draw inferences about abstract concepts. Consider, for example,
the conceptual metaphor understanding is grasping, as analysed by Johnson.15
In this metaphor elements of the source domain (grasping) are mapped onto the
target domain (understanding) as follows:




10
   Ivi, p. 456.
11
   George Lakoff, “Explaining Embodied Cognition Results,” in Topics in Cognitive Science, no.
4, 2012, p. 775.
12
   Lawrence Barsalou, Katja Wiemer-Hastings, Situating Abstract Concepts, cit., p. 129.
13
   Bradford Z. Mahon, Alfonso Caramazza, “A Critical Look at the Embodied Cognition Hypoth-
esis and a New Proposal for Grounding Conceptual Content,” in Journal of Physiology - Paris, no.
102, 2008, p. 60.
14
   George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, cit.; George Lakoff, Mark Johnson,
Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, cit.
15
   Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, cit., p. 166.

80
                      The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts


      Source domain (grasping)                      Target domain (understanding)
      Object grasped                                Idea/concept understood
      Grasping an object                            Understanding an idea
      Strength of grip                              Depth of understanding
      Losing one’s grip                             Failing to understand
      Object out of reach                           Idea that cannot be understood



   More specifically, Johnson argues that when we conceptualise the act of intel-
lectual understanding in terms of the understanding is grasping metaphor, we are
activating the grasping schema, as discussed by Gallese and Lakoff.16 For example,
when an object is out of reach. Similarly, if you lose your grip on an object, you
drop it. These kind of inferences provide us then with the necessary information
to reason about what it means to understand an idea. They are carried over in a
metaphorical way from the source domain into the target domain. Thus, if you lose
your grip on an idea, it follows that you will not understand the idea.17
   However, an important question that enables us to make the transition from
the mental representation of concepts to the filmic representation, regards the
question of non-linguistic evidence of conceptual metaphor.18 Proponents of
CMT claim that the systematic processing of image schema mappings for abstract
thinking provides evidence that metaphors are primarily conceptual rather than
linguistic. Linguistic metaphors are only the expression of underlying conceptual
metaphors in a person’s conceptual system. This, however, raises the following
issue: if our thinking about abstract concepts activates image schematic logic


16
   Ibidem.
17
   The crucial question that remains, however, concerns the question of empirical evidence. Can we
actually connect these image schemas and conceptual metaphors to the workings of our brains? Do
we, as Johnson writes, “use our sensory-motor neural circuitry for abstract reasoning, via metaphor-
ical structures?”. See Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding,
cit., p. 167. Although the answer to this question is still unclear, there seems to be an interesting
line of evidence coming from cognitive neuroscience. Narayanan, for example, has suggested that
these metaphorical mappings are not only conceptual, but also neural. In constructing computa-
tional neural models of target and source domains he demonstrated that these mappings reflect pat-
terns and neural connections between and among various functional parts of the brain. See Srinivas
Narayanan, Embodiment in Language Understanding: Sensory-Motor Representations for Metaphoric
Reasoning about Event Descriptions, PhD dissertation, Department of Computer Science, Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley 1997. The result, according to Gallese and Lakoff, is a “neural theory
of conceptual metaphor” according to which the conceptual mappings that constitute conceptual
metaphors are grounded in neural mappings. See Vittorio Gallese, George Lakoff, “The Brain’s
Concepts: The Role of the Sensory-Motor System in Conceptual Knowledge,” cit., p. 469.
18
   See also Charles Forceville, Non-verbal and Multimodal Metaphor in a Cognitivist Framework:
Agendas for Research, in Charles Forceville, Eduardo Urios-Aparisi (eds.), Multimodal Metaphor,
Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, pp. 19-42; Diane Pecher, Inge Boot, Saskia Van Dantzig, Abstract
Concepts: Sensory-Motor Grounding, Metaphors, and Beyond, in Brian Ross (ed.), The Psychology of
Leaning and Motivation, Academic Press, Burlington 2011, vol. 54, p. 240.

                                                                                                  81
                            Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja


directly, and language is merely an expression of such activation, not the cause,
then it is plausible to assume, as some studies already have demonstrated, that
other (non-verbal) modes of expression reflect this activation as well.19 Abstract
meaning in film can indeed be analysed in terms of structures of sensory-motor
experience. This will be the subject of the third and final part of our article.


The Role of the Sensory-Motor System in the Filmic Representation of Abstract
Meaning

   CMT describes the relationship between language and thought in a deriva-
tive way. By placing meaning on a higher psychological level (i.e. above the ar-
bitrary linguistic rules of syntactic and semantic categories), it instigates a dis-
tinction between a conceptual level, on the one hand, and a formal expression
or manifestation level (linguistic or otherwise), on the other hand. In doing so
it places itself among other theories of meaning that are primarily psychologi-
cal rather than linguistic or semiotic. It recalls, for example, Paul Grice’s infer-
ential model of communication, John Searle’s theory of speech acts, and more
recently Wilson and Sperber’s relevance theory.20
   Consequently, when considering the distinction between mental content
(i.e. conceptual metaphors, image schemas, etc.) and representational form
from the perspective of film, not language, the following question arises: can
the filmic mode of expression provide some evidence that conceptual meta-
phors and image schemas are activated when abstract concepts are processed
non-linguistically? In other words, do filmmakers make use (consciously or
unconsciously) of embodied structures of meaning-making to convey abstract
concepts to the viewer?21


19
   See Alan Cienki, Cornelia Müller, Metaphor, Gesture, and Thought, in Raymond W. Gibbs Jr.
(ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cam-
bridge (MA) 2008, pp. 483-501; Maarten Coëgnarts, Peter Kravanja, “Embodied Visual Mean-
ing: Image Schemas in Film,” in Projections: The Journal of Movies and Mind, no. 6 (2), 2012,
pp. 84-101; Maarten Coëgnarts, Peter Kravanja, “Towards an Embodied Poetics of Cinema: The
Metaphoric Construction of Abstract Meaning in Film,” in Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen
Media, no. 4, 2012, pp. 1-18; Maarten Coëgnarts, Peter Kravanja, “From Thought to Modality: A
Theoretical Framework for Analysing Structural-Conceptual Metaphors and Image Metaphors in
Film,” in Image & Narrative, no. 13 (1), 2012, pp. 96-113; Charles Forceville, The Journey Meta-
phor and the Source-Path-Goal Schema in Agnès Varda’s Autobiographical Gleaning Documentaries,
in Monika Fludernik (ed.), Beyond Cognitive Metaphor Theory: Perspectives on Literary Metaphor,
Routledge, London 2011, pp. 281-297; Charles Forceville, Marloes Jeulink, “The Flesh and Blood
of Embodied Understanding: The Source-Path-Goal Schema in Animation Film,” in Pragmatics &
Cognition, no. 19 (1), 2011, pp. 37-59; María J. Ortiz, “Primary Metaphors and Monomodal Visual
Metaphors,” in Journal of Pragmatics, no. 43, 2011, pp. 1568-1580.
20
   Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA) 1987; John
Searle, Mind, Language and Society, Basic Books, New York 1999; Deirdre Wilson, Dan Sperber,
Meaning and Relevance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2012.
21
   One of the pioneers to study this possible link between the bodily origins of our thinking and

82
                     The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts


   In what follows, we will explore this question by means of a concise case
study. Using two scenes from Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) and one
scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) as examples, we will
demonstrate how sensory-motor structures play a fundamental part in the filmic
representation of higher disembodied meaning. We have chosen these two par-
ticular films by Stanley Kubrick because they are usually considered as art house
films. They combine, to use Torben Grodal’s characterisation, “stylistic innova-
tion with a claim to higher meaning.”22 They provide a concrete perceptual level
of style while at the same time offering an abstract level of meaning. As such,
they strongly mirror the distinction between form and content, which, as we
have seen, is intrinsic to CMT. Therefore, it is plausible to assume that the for-
mal skills of Kubrick’s films reflect an underlying conceptual and metaphorical
design which is inherently embodied.


Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

   The first scene we want to address from the perspective of embodied cogni-
tion concerns the bedroom confession scene from Eyes Wide Shut. In this scene
Alice (Nicole Kidman) confesses to her husband Dr. Bill Harford to have been
so attracted to a naval officer the previous summer in Cape Cod that she was
ready to give up everything. The film shows the couple lying on the bed. They
are smoking marihuana together. Alice is questioning Bill about a couple of
models that he was “hitting on” last night at Ziegler’s Christmas Party. When
Bill bluntly states that it is understandable for guys to want to have sex with
his wife for the only reason that she is beautiful, Alice hastily stands up (see fig.
1). Irritated by his remark, she repositions herself in the opening of the bath-
room door, thus leaving her husband behind on the bed. This concrete bodily
gesture on the ante-filmic level is accentuated by another additional element
on the filmic level. As Alice is standing still in the opening of the door, the cam-
era moves subtlety towards her. As a result, the distance between the camera
and Alice is reduced, causing Bill in the foreground to disappear off-screen
(see fig. 2). By means of a single movement of the camera the film establishes
a perceptual distinction between in and out (of frame), between Alice and
Bill. The container schema, which manifests itself in multiple sensory-motor
experiences from the experience of being in something to the act of placing
something within another thing, attaches itself onto the scene, thus allowing


the visual arts has been the famous Gestalt-psychologist of art Rudolf Arnheim. He expressed the
non-dualistic view according to which thinking is grounded in patterns of perceptual experience
(hence, his concept of “visual thinking”). See Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking, University of
California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1969; Rudolf Arnheim, “A Plea for Visual Thinking,” in
Critical Inquiry, no. 6 (3), 1980, pp. 489-497.
22
   Torben Grodal, Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film, Oxford University
Press, Oxford-New York 2009, p. 208.

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                            Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja


the filmmaker and his team to highlight the emotional shift of balance between
the two characters.23 While the couple was at first repeatedly shown together,
they are now separated throughout the rest of the scene via montage.
   Similarly, when Alice actually recounts her sexual attraction to the naval of-
ficer, and the scene reaches its emotional pinnacle, the visual form is adjusted
to the content once more. In order to evoke the psychological effect of Alice’s
monologue on her husband’s state of mind, the film shows Bill no longer in a
medium shot, but in a close-up. The basic schema underlying this transition is
that of center-periphery.24 This schema finds its physical roots in the experi-
ence of the body as a centre and the perceptual field as the periphery and states
that an observed object gains intensity as it approaches the centre. The smaller
the distance towards the centre, the greater the potential for interaction and
intimacy (and vice versa). From this basic perceptual experience, the film then
moves metaphorically to a more abstract reading of the schema. More specifi-
cally, the heightening of the psychological tension caused by the content of the
monologue is rendered visually by narrowing the edges of the film frame in
relationship to the front side of Bill’s face (the centre). When her confession is
interrupted by a telephone call, the pressure is temporally released, and Bill is
shown again through a medium shot.




                        Fig. 1 – Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999).


23
   For a discussion of the containment schema see for example Mark Johnson, The Body in the
Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
1987, p. 21.
24
   For a discussion of the center-periphery schema see Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind, cit.,
pp. 124-125.

84
                  The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts




                     Fig. 2 – Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999).



   The metaphorical extension of the containment schema is even more apparent
in the following scene with Marion Nathanson (Marie Richardson). In this scene
Bill tries to console Marion for the death of her father. The film shows Bill as he
enters the residence of the Nathansons. The camera tracks Bills backside as he
walks through the entrance hall towards the door of the apartment. It is a fluid
steadicam camera shot, reminiscent of similar shots from The Shining (Stanley
Kubrick, 1980). Once inside he meets Marion. This encounter is caught in one
single static shot. Both are occupying the same visual space (container). How-
ever, in the subsequent shots they are shown separately. Marion and Bill are sitting
each on a chair in front of the dead body of Marion’s father. Their faces are turned
to each other. On the one hand, the separation is highlighted in one single estab-
lishing shot by the ante-filmic presence of a lamp which is placed symmetrically
between the two parties. On the other hand, the division (and by extension the
container schema) is established cinematically via shot-reverse-shot where shots
of Bill are alternated with shots of Marion. Each character dominates his/her own
private visual space. The film carries on with this visual strategy of division until
Bill tilts his head somewhat below, a compassionate token of empathy towards
Marion’s grief. As a result, his head enters for the first time Marion’s frame from
the left side, thus interrupting her visual space. The visual separation is brought
to an end. It is at this moment, when the barrier between the two (containers) falls
apart, that Marion, in an outburst of emotion, declares her love to Bill, and she
starts kissing him. The next shot shows both faces together again in profile (see
fig. 3). The eyeline match has disappeared. But then again, as in the confession
scene, the emotional climax is disturbed, this time by a doorbell. Carl, Marion’s

                                                                                  85
                           Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja


friend, is arriving at the apartment. His entrance is filmed in the same visually
striking way as Bill’s. The space that was taken in by Bill some moments earlier, is
now occupied by Carl. This presumption of a distortion of Bill’s dominance over
the visual space comes to a conclusion in the upcoming shot. As Carl enters the
room, the mise en scène changes again. The film shows both parties separated by
the central background figure of the dead body of Marion’s father (see fig. 4). Carl
and Marion are occupying the left side of the body, whereas Bill is occupying the
right side. Thus, the order is restored again. Bill and Marion are brought back to
their initial places. The scene ends up with Bill leaving the room.25




                      Figs. 3-4 – Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999).




25
  For a similar application of the containment schema in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960) see
Maarten Coëgnarts, Peter Kravanja, “Embodied Visual Meaning: Image Schemas in Film,” cit.,
pp. 89-90.

86
                      The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts



2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

   The third and last scene we would like to discuss in terms of embodiment
regards the crucial scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey in which HAL 9000, the
computer of the space ship Discovery, becomes aware of Dave and Frank’s plans
to disconnect “him.” In this scene the film offers an embodied solution to the fol-
lowing abstract problem of filmic representation: how can the filmmaker and his
team communicate without resorting to dialogue the idea of HAL 9000 knowing
about the astronauts’ plans to shut him down?26
   In order to convey this crucial piece of narrative information, which coincides
with HAL’s point of view, namely his cognitive state of mind, the film makes use
of the conceptual metaphor knowing is seeing, together with the understanding
is grasping metaphor, one of the dominant metaphorical conceptions for under-
standing.27 Let us consider the scene in detail. The scene consists of five shots.
The first shot involves a static long take lasting almost two minutes. It shows the
two astronauts on the foreground, seated and facing each other inside the pod.
They are symmetrically divided by HAL’s eye, which is visible in the centre back-
ground of the shot, outside the sound-proof container where Dave and Frank,
respectively on the right and left side of the computer, are having a conversation.
They are talking about a navigational failure that HAL may have made, and the
possibility of disconnecting him. As the conversation continues, apparently out-
side HAL’s notice, the film cuts to a closer shot of the computer’s eye (shot two),
followed by a return to the initial framing of the first shot (shot three). By shifting
from the center (the astronauts) to the periphery (HAL), the computer’s presence
is reminded.28 HAL now takes over the center (i.e. the entity that is the closest
to the viewer’s point of view) from the astronauts who are now abandoned to the
periphery (i.e. the off-screen space). In this way the film prepares the viewer for
the upcoming shift of balance between the two men and HAL. In the next shot
the schema is intensified. The film cuts to an extreme close-up of HAL’s eye (shot
four) (see fig. 5). But contrary to the previous cut, the shift is now also accompa-
nied by the additional and monotonous sound of airwaves. As such, the film indi-
cates that the camera is no longer physically present inside the silent space of the
pod, but outside closer to HAL. Then, the camera cuts to the final shot: a silent ex-
treme close-up of Frank’s moving lips, screen right, from the perspective of HAL


26
   This formulation in terms of (abstract) problems and (embodied) solutions recalls other prob-
lem-solving approaches to cinema, notably Jacques Aumont, À quoi pensent les films?, Nouvelles
Editions Séguier, Paris 1996 and David Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema, Routledge, New York 2008.
27
   See George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Chal-
lenge to Western Thought, cit., pp. 393-394; Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics
of Human Understanding, cit., p. 166; Ning Yu, “Chinese Metaphors of Thinking,” in Cognitive
Linguistics, no. 14 (2/3), 2003, p. 149.
28
   See also Mario Falsetto, Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis, Praeger Publishers,
Westport 2001, p. 109.

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                            Maarten Coëgnarts and Peter Kravanja


(shot five) (see fig. 6). For the first time, the camera brings movement to the scene
by panning left to Dave’s lips, back right to Frank, and finally left again to Dave.
Thus, the film shifts to the computer’s point of view. By making the viewer share
HAL’s perception, the audience is made aware of the astronauts’ plans to shutting
him down. In other words, HAL’s perceptual state of mind (his point-of-view)
is used as a means (i.e. source domain) to reach HAL’s cognitive state of mind,
namely, his knowledge concerning the astronauts’ motives (i.e. target domain).




                   Figs. 5-6 – 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1966).

   Notice that HAL’s perception, although used as a concrete source domain,
is rendered in a metaphorical way as well. After all, HAL’s perception belongs
to the realm of subjectivity. As such, it cannot be represented directly.29 In
order to overcome this problem, the film makes use of what Grodal labels the
representation of subjectivity by means of “deviant or distorted enactional or
perceptual access to a represented space,” that is “the ways in which special


29
  Language forms an exception in that the subjective activity of “seeing” can be rendered sym-
bolically by means of words, as in the following sentences: “I see what you’re saying” or “I don’t
see the point.” Spoken or written signs are, by virtue of their arbitrary nature, the only mode
being capable of expressing the abstract and generic quality of target domains. See also Maarten
Coëgnarts, Peter Kravanja, “From Thought to Modality: A Theoretical Framework for Analysing
Structural-Conceptual Metaphors and Image Metaphors in Film,” cit., p. 102.

88
                     The Sensory-Motor Grounding of Abstract Concepts


or deviant relationships between the viewer-protagonist and a given space can
create feelings of subjectivity.”30 When regarding 2001: A Space Odyssey, this
deviation is elicited by limiting the view of the audience to that of HAL. More
specifically, the viewer’s subjective feeling (i.e. the feeling of viewing through
HAL’s eyes) results from restriction. The blocking of information, caused by
HAL’s subjective point of view, makes the viewer feel that he or she has no
control over the diegetic world. This restriction is highlighted in two ways.
Firstly, there is the use of an extreme close-up, combined with the use of a
(non-moving) circular mask to emphasize the movement of the astronauts lips.
These formal choices provoke a sense of subjectivity in that the blocking and
selective quality of these strategies reflect the distinction-making nature of ob-
servation itself.31 Secondly, there is the panning movement of the camera from
right to left and back again, which additionally enhances the viewer’s feeling
of not having access to an objectively given space.32 By applying these filmic
devices HAL’s perception is represented to the viewer, and by metaphorical
extension his cognitive state of mind as well.


Conclusion

   In this article we have presented an embodied approach to the representation
of abstract concepts in two films by Stanley Kubrick. Following recent theories
of embodied cognition, notably conceptual metaphor theory, we have shown that
both films make use of the same sensory-motor dimensions and metaphorical
elements that operate at the heart of what is commonly considered to be the pro-
totypical and exclusive bearer of meaning, namely language. More specifically,
our analysis indicates that the sensory-motor system that structures the expres-
sion of conceptual content in language also plays a crucial role in the expression
of abstract meaning in film. As such, our analysis supports the claim of Johnson
according to which “the processes of embodied meaning in the arts are the very
same ones that make linguistic meaning possible.”33 Furthermore, by provid-
ing a non-verbal account of conceptual metaphor in film, our analysis helps to
validate CMT’s dictum that metaphor is primarily a matter of thought, and only
derivatively a matter of form. Equally, CMT has some important merit for film
studies as well. As a theory concerned with the bodily underpinnings of mean-
ing-making, CMT can provide important insights into the question as to how
meaning is constructed in film, that is, how, to cite Pudovkin, filmmakers and

30
   Torben Grodal, Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film, cit., p. 239.
31
   See for example George Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form, Allen & Unwin, London 1969.
32
   Another strategy to enhance subjectivity by blocking information through movement would be
the zoom-in. For an application of this technique in relation to Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975), see
Maarten Coëgnarts, Peter Kravanja, “Towards an Embodied Poetics of Cinema: The Metaphoric
Construction of Abstract Meaning in Film,” cit., pp. 8-11.
33
   Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, cit., p. 209.

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their entourage can express their concepts “in clear and vivid visual images.”34
Because CMT aims to consider the connections between conceptual content and
formal issues, it is well-suited to enlighten the relationship between a film’s the-
matic content and its style of presentation of which Kubrick himself once said,
that if you can combine both, “you have the best of all possible films.”35




34
   Vsevolod I. Pudovkin, Film Technique And Film Acting - The Cinema Writings Of V.I. Pudovkin,
Sims Press, Peterborough 2008, p. 31.
35
   Stanley Kubrick as quoted in Thomas Allen Nelson, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze, Indiana
University Press, Bloomington 2000, p. 7.

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