Christian Metz and mediatization

Abstract

A few years ago, some reflections upon Christian Metz’s work came up from different disciplinary fields. Not only did all the voices agree on his outstanding personal qualities but they also coincided on the transcendence of his enquiries. At the same time, there was some hesitation on how to link his progress with the latest developments and current issues at stake. This paper seeks to discuss a series of aspects concerning Metz’s work which may help and even offer an array of tools in order to shed some light on both current phenomena and their historical significance. Throughout his work, his taxonomic endeavor, aimed at circumscribing cinematographic specificity, represents a substantial comparative tool to set the main differences referred to discursive circulation processes without setting them apart from the somatic and empirical conditions of a wide range of communicational modalities. This epistemological requirement concurs with the indissociable bond between individual social actors —or subjects— and collective social actors —either institutional or non-institutional— which calls for a semio-anthropologic (Verón 2014) approach to mediatization.