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Cinémas
Revue d'études cinématographiques
Journal of Film Studies

BORDWELL, David. Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in

the Interpretation of Cinema. Cambridge, Massachusetts :
Havard University Press, 1989. xvi + 334 p.
Peter Rist

Américanité et cinéma
Volume 1, numéro 1-2, automne 1990

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Rist, P. (1990). Compte rendu de [BORDWELL, David. Making Meaning:
Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema. Cambridge,
Massachusetts : Havard University Press, 1989. xvi + 334 p.] Cinémas, 1 (1-2),
164–169. https://doi.org/10.7202/1000999ar

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He defines the former as "a system of

propositions that claims to explain the

nature ami functions of cinema, " and

ultimately finds that film criticism —

"interpretive writing "—differs from

theoretical tenting in that the critic

ordinarily fails to both interrogate

his/her "presuppositions" and leave

"empirical claims (...) open to counter

example".
 BORDWELL, David. Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric
in the Interpretation of Cinema. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Havard University Press, 1989. xvi + 334 p.

The publication of David Bordwell's new book, Making Mea-

ning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema is yet
another landmark for film scholarship. In fact, as interesting as all
of his books have been, this one is perhaps more significant than
any he has written since his first, Film Art: An Introduction (co-
authored by Kristin Thompson), which finally provided us with a
useful introductory film text for the university. 1
In Making Meaning, Bordwell intends no less than to present "a
history of film criticism, an analysis of how critics interpret films,
and a suggestion for some alternative research programs" (xii).
And, for the most part he succeeds admirably. The bulk of the
book is devoted to an analysis of the structures of film criticism,
the usefulness of which could be extended to other disciplines
(particularly the study of literature). In short, we now have an
adequate textbook on the subject, though it couldn't be recommen-
ded as a primer in "how to" write film criticism since it is mostly
negative in its approach. The real interest for me though is found
in the "history" and "suggestion" sections which make for exciting
reading, but which, unfortunately, are very brief.
Central to Bordwell's thesis is the notion that most film criticism
is concerned with "interpretation" rather than "comprehension"
(which is more the province of film reviewing). Also crucial —and
a bonus of this work —is the distinction he makes between film
theory and criticism. He defines the former as "a system of
propositions that claims to explain the nature and functions of ci-
nema," (4) and ultimately finds that film criticism —"interpretive
writing"—differs from theoretical writing in that the critic
ordinarily fails to both interrogate his/her "pre-suppositions" and
leave "empirical claims (...) open to counter example" (251). Un-
doubtedly, Bordwell's point here, which he makes a number of
times, will be one of the most contentious ones, especially with film
scholars whose interests lie in the direction of contemporary
theory. The writer's approach is underscored by a dissatisfaction
with the drift of North American film scholarship, wherein,
"structuralism and the concept of the contradictory text (...) have
devolved into a practical criticism that claims theoretical terrain it
has never logically staked out, squeezes film after film into the
 same half-dozen molds, and refuses to question its own procedures"
(262).
Before reaching this conclusion David Bordwell demonstrates
meticulously and methodically that there is very little difference
between contemporary, academic film criticism and earlier
"schools"—e.g. Cahiers du cinéma and Movie auteurism —on a
structural level, at least. He claims that there are four types of
meaning to be found in films, "referential" and "literal, explicit"
meanings as well as "implicit" and "symptomatic" ones. For
Bordwell, a criticism of comprehension can reveal the explicit
while interpretation does the rest. Aristotle is cited as being the
source of implicit intrpretation, while Freud, of course, is deemed
responsible for setting critics off looking for "symptomatic," or,
"repressed" meanings. Whatever "meaning" is sought, though,
critics of all stripes apparently "map" similar "Semantic Fields"
with identical "Schemata" (in Bordwell's terminology). And, after
three fairly dry chapters of explanation, complete with flow chart-
like "mapping" diagrams, Bordwell presents his "concentric-circle
schema" as a diagramatic representation of the primacy of charac-
ters (at the hub) over mise-en-scène (where the spokes would be)
over cinematic technique and style (on the rim) (170-171). He
claims that most critics employ such a schema by their understan-
ding style merely in relation to characters and their actions. He
then extends the model to the analysis of how critics interpret film
plots—their diachronic "trajectories" —findind a similar homoge-
neity (of allegory), and revealing a singular simplicity in contem-
porary "symptomatic" interpretations. Bordwell paraphrases the
"symptomatic allegorical heuristic" as follows:

Take male characters to be functioning as father figures or under-

goingthe Œdipal trajectory. Takefemalecharacterstobe playing the
roleof mother or as posing acastration threat. Then trace theways
in which (1) the male either (a) succeeds his father or (b) loses his
identity;and (2) thewoman iseither (a) transformed into a fetish for
male desire, (b) eliminated from the text, or (c) transported into a
realmbeyond patriarchal definition. (198)

However, it is in the chapter on rhetoric that Bordwell is hardest

on contemporary film scholarship. Going back to Aristotle, as he
often does, for his terms, he argues that the rhetor's elocutio for
the critic of the "contradictory text," is composed of "jargon"
(217). Further, a dictionary definition of "shibboleth" is called
upon to show that the rhetor's language is exclusionary, (218-219)
and finally, the author argues that "over the last two decades, an
agressive rhetorical stance has helped win and maintain theory's
institutional authority" (222).

166 Cinémas, vol. 1, n o s 1-2

 One of the less impressive sections of Making Meaning is the
following chapter, "Rhetoric in Action," in which seven chronolo-
gically ordered interpretations of Psycho are analyzed along the
lines proposed earlier. It was an excellent idea of Bordwell's to
choose Hitchcock's film for empirical enquiry and comparison
since the shift of critical attention from the work's implicit mea-
ning to symptomatic meaning is evident. Psycho is also popular in
both academic and popular critical circles and has been discussed
more often than almost any other film. Surprisingly, then, given
Bordwell's analytical rigor, he devotes more space here to descrip-
tion of critical approach than to fitting the essays into his interpre-
tive frameworks. Also, he clearly displays his own preference for
implicit over symptomatic interpretation and for Movie auteurism
over more recent versions. He singles out V. F Perkins for being
"unusually modest" and "very precise" and praises Perkins' ap-
proach as exemplifying "bull's-eye schema" with "character-cen-
tred meaning"; an approach which was under attack in the previous
chapter (233-34).
The history chapters are unlikely to be as contentious as other
parts of the book. The author provides a thorough overview, al-
beit one that focuses too much on similarity and not enough on dif-
ference. He argues that film criticism was "born from reviewing"
(21) and that following World War II, the most significant writing
focused on European art cinema, ambiguity and authorship. The
thrust of such "interpretation as explication," from Bazin through
Cahiersducinéma, Positif, Andrew Sarris, Sight and Sound versus
Movie to the NYU interest in the American avant-garde, was to
find "unity" in films (43-70). Bordwell then makes the important
discovery that "symptomatic interpretation" began in America of
the 1940s with writers such as Parker Tyler, Siegfried Kracauer,
Robert Warshow and Barbara Deming and he traces the unack-
nowledged influence of their approaches on auteur structuralism's
contradictory text (71-99).
The most interesting ideas on film criticism though are revealed
in the final chapter of Making Meaning, entitled "Why Not to Read
a Film." Bordwell concludes his analysis by emphasising the
conservative nature of most film criticism in its reaffirmation of
existing conventions. He also restates that "contemporary inter-
pretation-centered criticism" is "largely uncontentious and unre-
flective about its theories and practices" and decides finally that "it
has become boring" (261). As an alternative to interpretation he
suggests that criticism should pay more attention to the "surfaces"
of films, citing Susan Sontag's call for the recovery of "our senses
and art's sensuousness" in her seminal essay "Against Interpreta-
tion" written in 1964 (264). Manny Farber and Jim Hoberman are

M a k i n g M e a n i n g : I n f e r e n c e a n d R h e t o r i c in t h e I n t e r p r e t a t i o n of C i n e m a 167
 posited as past and present exemplars of sensuous film criticism.
Both are deemed to be particularly sensitive to film style. Indeed,
Bordwell calls for more attention to be paid to the "pleasing" side
of films and for critics to resist being interested in style "only
when it underscores a point deemed important on other grounds"
(269, 261). He suggests that the search for style should be coupled
with a renewed interest in history under the rubric of "a self-
conscious historical poetics of cinema," i.e., "the study of how, in
determinate circumstances, films are but together, serve specific
functions, and achieve specific effects" (266-67).
Unfortunately, it seems to me that here, David Bordwell, having
opened up criticism to new or renewed practices, effectively closes
it off again. As in the monumental work, The Classical Hollywood
Cinema: Film Style and Mode ofProduction to 1960, which be co-
authored with Kristin Thompson and Janet Staiger, one can detect a
tendency to delemit the world of stylistic analysis and to promote
his own project. 2 For instance, once the ideal of "film poetics" has
been defined Bordwell refers to his own work in end notes no less
than six times (268-74). Thompson gets three mentions and Staiger
one, while the only other references to writings on film are single
ones to Noel Carroll, Rick Altman, Stuart Liebman and Michèle
Lagny/Marie-Claire Ropars/Pierre Sorlin. Though he looks for-
ward to "an open-textured poetics of film" which "might find any-
thing appropriate to illuminate a given film in a particular his-
torical context" (267), Bordwell clearly favours his partner's "neo-
formalism" and is primarily interested in "style" inasmuch as it
equates either with "art" or (Hollywood) system. 3 Thus, while
Bordwell recognizes that "in most industrial circumstances film-
making involves collective work, with choices made by various
agents and defined in various ways" (269), he does not promote the
investigation of the surfaces (styles) of, say Hollywood studios, art
directors and cinematographers. Also, though he recognizes the
limitations on the discipline of film study through most of its prac-
titioners emerging from the humanities (especially literature), (17-
18) he is reluctant to propose the introduction of scientific me-
4
thods, such as the statistical analyses conducted by Barry Salt.
Further, while he astutely champions a new approach to history
which seeks to understand the "unfamiliar conditions" (273) under
which films were made, he fails to extend the horizons geographi-
cally to acknowledge the important work that is being done, and
which still needs to be done, outside Europe and North America.
Finally, it must be noted that we now understand, through the in-
fluence of post-structuralism and post-modernism on film theory
and criticism, that the scientism that is practiced by the likes of
David Bordwell can never explain everything in a film. Indeed,

168 Cinémas, vol. 1, n o s 1-2

we should probably be (1), looking towards the open-ended film
and written work of "others" such as Trinh T. Minh-ha, who ques-
tions all of our assumptions, and (2), following the recent interdis-
ciplinary tendency of film studies to embrace new ideas, at least as
5
much as we focus on "film works" (Bordwell's poetics).
Nevertheless, despite my reservations, I feel that Making Mea-
ning stands as a significant work of film scholarship. In it, David
Bordwell has revealed the pitfalls of contemporary film criticism,
while analyzing the structures of written interpretation. We will
no longer be able to discuss films naively, without questioning
whether or not we are providing yet another "interpretation."

Peter Rist Concordia University

ENDNOTES

1 David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction

(Reading, Massachusetts: Adison-Weslcy, 1979).
2 David Bordwell,Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, TheClassicalHolly-
woodCinema:FilmStyleand ModeofProduction to I960 (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1985). Icontend that, although this book is remarkable in
mapping out the key ingredients of the "Hollywood style," it reduces complex
works to a monolithic system without regard for their "individual" components.
Inshort, for all itsrigour and vigour, it iswrong.
3 See, Kristin Thompson, Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film
Analysis (Princeton, Newjersey: Princeton University Press, 1988). See also,
note 2, above.
4 Initially, Bordwell was interested in Salt's approach, but following the pu-
blicationof Salt's Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis (London:
Starword, 1983) and the collective's ClassicalHollywood Cinema, the two got
into aslanging match in the pages of FilmQuarterly. See, for example, Bord-
well's letter dated 15 february 1986, "A Salt and Battery," FilmQuarterly 40,
No. 2 (Winter 1986-1987): 59-62. Bordwell is most perturbed by Salt's reluc-
tancetofootnote sourcesfor technical information oncameras, lighting, etc., and
theclashseemstohavecooled Bordwellonstatistics.
5 See,for example, Minh-ha's latest article, "Black Bamboo," cineACTION!,
No. 18 (Fall 1989):56-60, and her latest film, Surname Viet, Given NameNam
(1988).

Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema 169