Obtuse Meaning in the Godfather
Notes on the performances of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in the Godfather in the light of Roland Barthes ‘The Third Meaning’.
In Roland Barthes’ essay, “The Third Meaning,” he posits two levels of meaning in a film or photographic image: the first is the simple or informational level which simply tells you everything you can learn from the setting, the costumes, the characters, their relations and so forth; and the second is the symbolic level, which shows you the connotations inside an image. The example he gives is a still from a film by Eisenstein -- Ivan the Terrible. In the picture, two courtiers are raining down gold over the young Czar’s head. Barthes finds in the image not only the two obvious levels of meaning but also a third level of meaning, which he calls obtuse. It goes beyond the information of the scene and the communication of the scene into something complex and difficult to determine. Barthes calls this the obtuse meaning as opposed to the obvious meanings, which are simple or symbolic.
“OBTUSUS means that which is blunted rounded in form. Are not the traits which I indicated (the make-up, the whiteness, the wig) just like the blunting of a meaning too clear, too violent? Do they not give the obvious signified a kind of difficultly prehensible roundness?” The Third Meaning, Research Notes on some Eisenstein Stills, R. Barthes
In his second attempt to make clear his analysis, Barthes returns to the idea of the obvious meaning and uses example from another Eisenstein film, The Battleship Potemkin. In those images we see an old woman with a closed, upturned fist, which signifies her determination to participate in the revolution. Then he shows another image from the same film of two women with their hands over their mouths stifling a sob. What Barthes says is that this doesn’t distract from but accentuates the symbolic meaning, but then he shows another image of the old woman seeming to express something else, an obtuse meaning,
In Roland Barthes’ essay, “The Third Meaning,” he posits two levels of meaning in a film or photographic image: the first is the simple or informational level which simply tells you everything you can learn from the setting, the costumes, the characters, their relations and so forth; and the second is the symbolic level, which shows you the connotations inside an image. The example he gives is a still from a film by Eisenstein -- Ivan the Terrible. In the picture, two courtiers are raining down gold over the young Czar’s head. Barthes finds in the image not only the two obvious levels of meaning but also a third level of meaning, which he calls obtuse. It goes beyond the information of the scene and the communication of the scene into something complex and difficult to determine. Barthes calls this the obtuse meaning as opposed to the obvious meanings, which are simple or symbolic.
“OBTUSUS means that which is blunted rounded in form. Are not the traits which I indicated (the make-up, the whiteness, the wig) just like the blunting of a meaning too clear, too violent? Do they not give the obvious signified a kind of difficultly prehensible roundness?” The Third Meaning, Research Notes on some Eisenstein Stills, R. Barthes
In his second attempt to make clear his analysis, Barthes returns to the idea of the obvious meaning and uses example from another Eisenstein film, The Battleship Potemkin. In those images we see an old woman with a closed, upturned fist, which signifies her determination to participate in the revolution. Then he shows another image from the same film of two women with their hands over their mouths stifling a sob. What Barthes says is that this doesn’t distract from but accentuates the symbolic meaning, but then he shows another image of the old woman seeming to express something else, an obtuse meaning,