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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Problems in Fiction Film Analysis: Development and Testing of an Analytical and Interpretive Model with Digital Tools
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Projects & Abstracts
2015-10-01
2021-09-21
2015-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Livia Giunti
2015/10/01
Università di Pisa
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Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Problems in Fiction Film Analysis: Development and Testing of an Analytical and Interpretive Model with Digital Tools
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16434/16789
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Problems in Fiction Film Analysis: Development and Testing of
an Analytical and Interpretive Model with Digital Tools
Livia Giunti / Ph.D. Thesis Abstract1
Università di Pisa




   At the centre of fiction film analysis one encounters multiple complexities,
which stem from the nature of the audio-visual language and from its specific
faculty to combine multiple elements. This ‘pluricodicity’ has no equivalent in
other representative arts and narratives, which also renders film narration itself
particularly ambiguous and problematic. Mainly, the study of the configuration
of time — which is inextricably linked to the study of the filmic enunciation in-
stances — constitutes in my judgement one of the principle ways of understand-
ing film text.
   Once the centrality of the temporal issue is declared, it is necessary to de-
termine several configurations of time in relation to the activity of the enuncia-
tion instance. These explicit elements, or indicative traces, are caught up in the
temporal organisation of events, in the deixis, in the use of tenses by narrators
and narrative voices, in the choice and the articulation of shooting and editing
techniques and, finally, in the management/combination of the various matters
of expression. My research focused on two films which are exemplary from this
point of view: Toto the Hero (Toto le héros, Jaco van Dormael, 1991) and Il caso
Mattei (Francesco Rosi, 1972) examples of metatexts, which integrate the pro-
cess of storytelling (the first) and filmmaking (the second) within them, develop-
ing a particular reflection on narration through a complex manipulation of their
temporal structure.
   Thus, to study the configuration of time inevitably means stopping time.
The researcher is responsible for untangling the interplay of the different time
streams and for bringing to a head the many marks of the enunciation scattered
throughout the text, in order to identify the mode or modes of production of
meaning in the film. This demands the use of theoretical models suitable for the
description of how the film narrative works and the use of practical tools which
allow the researcher ‘to act’ on the work, to exercise her own gaze. In the attempt
to find a concrete confirmation of the questions raised, one possibility is to use a
digital tool capable of helping the researcher in the determination and manage-



1
  Ph.D dissertation supervised by Professor Alessandra Lischi and Professor Lorenzo Cuccu. For
information: liviagiunti@gmail.com.

                                                       Cinéma & Cie, vol. XV, no. 25, Fall 2015
                                          Livia Giunti


ment of the several codes and sub-codes at work in the film, assisting her in the
practice and verification of a rigorous and articulate method.
   Together with the study of the configuration of time it is necessary to develop
a reflection on the tools and techniques used for film analysis, in order to un-
derstand what fiction film analysis has been and is today, and to explore what
methods, languages and tools have crossed the discipline. In examining the new
digital media outline — an outline where new tools, new approaches and dif-
ferent modes of production, storing and reception of audiovisual contents have
developed — I focused in particular on some annotation and analysis software
which enable to connect historical and theoretical discourses with practice.
   The project was initially conceived for a pre-existing tool, the DCP (Digital
Cinema Project) developed by the University of Pisa,2 a software which enables
the user to analyse a film through a grid of predefined parameters. Thereafter we
tested other softwares developed in the last decade, to verify: 1) the speed and
precision of certain practices, such as automatic and manual unit segmentation
(shot detection); 2) their capability and usefulness in managing and intersecting
the numerous data that emerge from the different planes of observation, at the
level of unit segmentation and at the level of stratification, together with the sur-
vey of the occurrences and isotopies, with particular attention to the configura-
tion of time (usability and data mining); and finally 3) the possibility of making
the analysis verifiable ‘in the field’ and repeatable through data access for future
analysis.3
   During the description of this practice I aimed to offer a constant comparison
between manual analysis and computer-assisted analysis, testing the theoretical
categories related to segmentation and configuration of time, which the software
has helped to define. Last but not least, my colleagues involved in the project
and I followed the hypothesis that the software may help not only to promote
new practices, but also to implement new methods, not solely statistical, which is
normally the main application of these kind of tools. This cross-sectional study of
software has resulted in a collaboration with the LIRIS laboratory of computer
engineering at the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, which has developed, ac-
cording to my tests and research, the best tool for this type of analysis: a software
called Advene. On the basis of the reflections developed during the research, this


2
  DCP is a software developed by Leonardo Grilli based on a project by Lorenzo Garzella (coordi-
nator) with the supervision of Professor Lorenzo Cuccu. The project was financed by Cofin 2002
(National coordinator Professor Francesco Casetti, Local supervisor Professor Cuccu) and was
presented at the Udine Film Forum in 2004.
3
  The research avails itself of the comparison among four softwares of which we described and ana-
lysed the concept, the main functions, the possible applications and the strengths and weaknesses
relating to the theoretical and practical issues that emerged along the way. Aside from DCP, the
other three softwares taken into consideration are: Cinemetrics, a web-application created in 2005
by Yuri Tsivian and Gunars Civjan; Lignes de temps developed by IRI (Centre Pompidou) in 2007
and Advene developed by the LIRIS laboratory of the University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in 2002,
created by Olivier Aubert, Pierre-Antoine Champin and Yannick Prié.

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                              Problems in Fiction Film Analysis


collaboration has led to the implementation of certain functions and the integra-
tion of new ones in order to make the tool more suitable for cinema studies. It
has thus improved the study of such complex themes as the configuration of
time.4
   The use of an integrated tool such as Advene has immensely enriched the
historical, theoretical and methodological reflection, as well as the concrete prac-
tice of film analysis. In fact, by using Advene it is possible to experiment with a
true ‘grasp on the film’ both through the determination and management of the
different analytical categories and through specific memory tools that show the
methodological paths, enabling the user to reflect on its own method and work-
flow. Moreover, the instant recall of plans or sequences together with the anno-
tation and analysis data, the possibility of browsing the film through key-words
and filters, and the choice of different ways of data and query results visualisa-
tion, foster the practice of analysis. So the digital tool becomes more than a mere
statistical or mise en forme tool: it is a real assisting instrument for the practice
of analysis.
   In conclusion, the dynamic computer screen — a virtual page which displays
all the categories and their intersections — together with a specific tool such as
Advene, are able to give life to that ‘constellation of elements’ that Ėjzenštejn,
Vertov and Barthes tried to achieve on paper. That constellation, together with
Advene’s specific functionality of creating hypervideos, can help the researcher to
constitute that artefact intermédiaire that analysts and film critics always wanted
to attain (just think of Bellour, Aumont and Godard, for instance). An hyper-
video, or augmented video, is in fact an interactive audiovisual model where film
and analysis coexist in the same space and time, so that the stream and the split
instants, the whole and its parts, the sequential film text and its database of codes
and sub-codes stay in mutual relation, exceeding the limits of media such as se-
quential video and paper. The Advene project finally paves the way to an entirely
computer-led critical investigation and the computer, usually considered by hu-
manists as a mere data processor and presentation tool, is able to renew research
and teaching, encouraging new approaches and new interpretations.




4
 In fact Advene had been used mainly for the annotation and analysis of audiovisual streams in
social, anthropological, psychological and the performative arts fields.

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