Bellour- The Obvious and the Code

I'm glad I'm not the first person to post on this particular reading because now I don't feel so bad about feeling totally confused by what I read. It seems I'm missing a few things when reading this article. 1) A solid frame of reference for what Bellour is talking about, 2) a sufficient vocabulary in terms of what these words mean in film analysis 3) frame grabs and a (recent) viewing of the film. Of course, I could have waited until after viewing The Big Sleep to read this article and write this post, but my schedule probably will not allow for that this week.

It feels ridiculous to say this, but I honestly felt like I had no idea what Bellour is talking about. Sure, I had a grasp of the things he pointed out, but whatever meaning his description was supposed to elucidate went right over my head. I didn't know I could feel so clueless when reading about film. I felt as though there's a pretty big gap between my knowledge of film and the things Bellour discusses in this article. One concern that I now have is that when I try to write my viewing notes, I'm going to fall short of the mark. I could quote troublesome parts of this article, but I think Emily's post covers that pretty well. I'm not even sure what this code concept is. That's a pretty big problem if that's what this article is about. It doesn't feel good to write about confusion and a significant lack of understanding. I hope once I see the film and attend Tuesday's lecture I'll start to get a better idea of what's going on here.