Methods and Models in Pictorial Semiotics (original) (raw)

The application of the narrative model to a "text" obviously implies that the latter is somehow organized in the manner of a story; and while this is easy enough to admit, in the case of some genres of verbal discourse, such as novels, short stories, myths, and folktales (but more controversial in the case of experimental reports, for which Bastide 1979 has nevertheless made a case ), and not very problematic either as far as some kinds of pictorial material , like films and comic strips, are concerned, the suggestion that the picture, in the most central, prototypical sense, i.e. the single, static picture, should contain a narrative level of construction, is difficult even to make sense of. In fact, before even beginning the quest for this sense, we have to distinguish at least five different categories of pictorial objects to which our interrogation about narrative organization would seem to apply with rather different results: a. The temporal series: The continuous series of moving pictures, as in a cinematographic film, and, often, on television.