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Part of
Performing Metaphoric Creativity across Modes and Contexts
Edited by Laura Hidalgo-Downing and Blanca Kraljevic Mujic
[Figurative Thought and Language 7] 2020
► pp. 97–118

Chapter 5
Metaphor emergence in cinematic discourse

| University of Connecticut
In this chapter, I analyze the creation of meaning in cinema with two of the components of their mise-en-scéne: food and cityscapes. I compare Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) and Isabel Coixet’s Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (2009a) and I show how those components work as meaning attractors within the complex system of cinematic discourse following Larsen-Freeman & Cameron (2008) and Cameron & Deignan (2006). I consider that metaphor in cinema is a dynamic phenomenon in the Complex Adaptive System created by the work of a team actively participating in the development of a narrative. Processes such as metaphor and the interaction of repetition, intertextuality and cinematic resources are essential elements in this kind of group-creativity.
Keywords: metaphor, creativity, complexity theory, film
Article outline
  • 1.Food in Lost
  • 2.Food in Map
  • 3.Metaphors of Tokyo
  • 4.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 29 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.7.05uri
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