Le texte-image à l'écran : écriture et discours multimodal au cinéma de fiction The Text-Image on Screen: Written Language and Multimodal Discourse in Fiction Film

Abstract

Written text has rarely constituted a central object of film studies, except in analyses of opening and closing credits. Approaches to these credits, often focused on aesthetics and typography, have rightly considered them as units possessing a degree of independence from the films in which they appear. This article argues for an approach to written language that treats it as a fully-fledged semiotic mode coexisting with auditory and visual modes within films, and therefore as an essential component of comprehensive film analysis. To substantiate this perspective through practical examples, the study applies it to a specific case: the representation of screens in fiction films, based on a limited sample of contemporary French-language works. This choice reflects a reality that has transformed twenty-first-century filmic diegesis, namely the integration of screens, especially smartphones, into everyday life and their increasing role as narrative catalysts. Adopting a semio-pragmatic approach grounded in the multimodal nature of filmic discourse, the study establishes a taxonomy of how screens function as fictional vehicles for written language. This classification also makes it possible to map the homogenisation between diegetic reality, that is, the fictional world, and cinematic reality, namely the techniques and stylistic devices of film. Such harmonisation operates at the level of meaning and sensation, linking the fictional discourse produced at the source/production side with the audience positioned at the receiving end—an audience that may, in certain contexts, simultaneously assume the role of analyst. The descriptions and resulting classification attest to the significant expressive power of the text-image, understood as written text in its dual linguistic and aesthetic nature. Examining this hybrid semiotic mode opens a methodological path that enriches the analysis of cinematic discourse.