Open AccessTime Metaphors in Film: Understanding the Representation of Time in Cinema
Author(s) -
Silvana Dunat
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
film-philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.112
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1466-4615
DOI - 10.3366/film.2022.0187
Subject(s) - metaphor , id, ego and super ego , conceptualization , conceptual metaphor , representation (politics) , movement (music) , cognitive science , spacetime , space time , space (punctuation) , computer science , psychology , artificial intelligence , aesthetics , social psychology , art , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , chemical engineering , politics , political science , law , engineering , operating system
According to conceptual (cognitive) metaphor theory (CMT), there are two basic metaphorical models for conceptualising time in terms of space: the ego-moving model maps our movement through space onto our imagined movement through time, while the time-moving model represents time as an entity moving through spatial locations, the ego being just a passive observer. The aim of this article is to investigate how time is conceptualized in film where ego (character), movement, time and space also play basic roles. I compare the two linguistic models to Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualization of filmic time: the movement-image and the time-image. While the movement-image and the moving-ego metaphor directly map spatial structures onto the domain of time, the time-image and the moving-time metaphor correlate only in their basic structures and involve different levels of conceptual integrations and conversions. Due to film techniques such as a mobile camera, montage and image manipulation, the time-image seems to transcend the constraints of natural perception and maps onto mental rather than external space, thus giving rise to a new reverse metaphor where space acquires characteristics of the time domain.