LECTURE ONE

(a) text: basically, the story line. What you would tell your friends the film is about - the plot.
(b) subtext: the underlying message - the theme. Some feel that films that have subtexts are the equivalent of "literature" while those without them are more like "fiction".
(c) hermeneutics: the breaking of a literary code (not like cryptanalyisis which breaks ciphers and word codes). Hermeneutics is the method used to get to the subtext
(d) symbols: something which arbitrarily represents something else. The word "dog" arbitrarily represents the dog and is a symbol. The footprint of a dog also represents the dog but not in am arbitrary way. There is a connection in the real world between the foot print and the animal in a way that differs from the relationshihp between the word "dog" and the animal. Some symbols are also very abstract such as "sacred" "profane" "private property" "public property" and so on. These are concepts which can not be identified in any substance by physical scientists who can not chemically for example, distinguish "holy" water from "profane" water..

Subtexts often can not be resolved to a single sentence - and certainly not to banalities like "It is better to be happy". Subtexts tend to examine some more complex issues. There are about five MAJOR areas in which subtexts operate. These are: Socio-political
Religious
Scientific-technological
Psycho-sexual
Reflexivity.

Socio-political subtexts tend to focus on social and political problems which generally involce allocation of power, the effects of government on people, social statuses such as gender and race and so on.

Religious subtexts generally involve the effect of religion and religious beliefs on people as well as the beliefs themselves
Scientific-technological subtexts often deal with the impact on science and technology on people's lives along with the question of ethics in this area. Psycho-sexual subtexts often deal with problems of repression and general behavioral statements. Reflexivity, for films, involves films which look at films and film making, the nature of art and its social responsibility. A common element in these is often the social responsibiilty of the fields involved or the ethical practices of that field.

Historical context of the film needs to be taken into account when looking at a film since the subtext is often tied to issues of the time in which the film was made.

. From a filmic point of view it is important to look at how the director handles the story visually. Any film will have set of climaxes that occur to the film which are often called "set pieces". People who go to movies are said by some to have "scopophilia", a desire to see akin to voyeurism but without the overt sexuality of voyeurism. This frequently causes the the audience member to seek out certain films which will appeal to that person's particular scopophiliac drive. This often leads to finding audience memebers who are attracted to specific genere of film and not others. For each genre there are specific "high points" or "set pieces" where the director attempts to "give the viewer what they came to see". If this fails, generally the film is not well liked.

The analysis of Frankenstein can shed some light on how all of these subtext can be found (to different degrees) in a single film