Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Acting
Naturalist acting in John Cassavetes’s Shadows (1959). EVERETT COLLECTION. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
terms of expressions, intonations, inflections, gestures,
poses, and actions found in daily life. Because performance
signs are drawn from everyday life, audiences’
impressions and interpretations depend on the disparate
and complicated interpretive frameworks that emerge
from their own experiences.
That same principle applies to performance in theater,
television, video installations, performance-art
pieces, and new-media projects. Yet, while it is possible
to locate a central principle in composite forms such as
theater and film, dramatic art forms are not entirely
distinct from other art and media forms. Composite
forms such as film are related to other art and media
forms because they use iconic signs (such as portraits),
which represent things by means of resemblance. Like
other art and media forms, films also use indexical signs
(such as weathervanes), which have a causal link with
what they are representing. Like other art and media
forms, films also use symbolic signs (for example, essen-
tially all aspects of spoken and written language), which
depend on convention.
What distinguishes film and other dramatic art and
media forms is their use of ostensive signs. In contrast to
painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, music, poetry,
and literature, dramatic arts use objects and people to
represent themselves or things just like themselves: tables
and chairs are used to represent tables and chairs; gestures
and expressions are used to represent gestures and expressions.
Importantly, the way people interpret those ostensive
signs is shaped in large measure by their personal
history and cultural background. To some audiences, a
Bauhaus-style Barcelona chair might seem antiquated,
while others would see it as futuristic. To some
American audiences, the Italian hand gesture meaning
‘‘come here’’ seems to indicate ‘‘go away.’’
Viewers’ acquaintance with performance in everyday
life creates a dense interpretive framework. That framework
is one of several filters through which audiences
16 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM