——Interpretation based on film semiotics
Author: Zhang Yiwen
French film theorist Christian Metz argues that cinema is not "an imitation of the perceived whole that reality provides to people", but a system of conventional symbols. As a discipline that studies film as a special symbol system and ideographic phenomenon, film semiotics has provided strong support for the interpretation and criticism of film texts since its inception. As a carrier of meaning, film symbols not only need the creator to give it meaning when encoding, but also need the translator (audience) to have the tendency and resonance of interpretation. In the film "Jojo's Whimsical World", which has recently won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture (Nomination) and other awards, the creators give a variety of visual symbols of reference meaning within the symbol system of the film, mainly including prop symbols, scene symbols, and character symbols, and identifying specific symbols and interpreting them is an important way to reach the essence of the film.
Poster of Jojo's Whimsical World
Prop symbols: Rabbit with shoelaces
Jojo's Whimsical World is a World War II-themed film about the young Jojo who awakens from his cult of Hitler and begins to protect Jewish girls and even develop love. The English translation of the film is "Jojo Rabbit", the literal translation is "Jojo Rabbit", obviously the rabbit in the film is not just as simple as an animal, from the arrangement of the symbol system we can identify that the rabbit refers to both Jojo and the Jewish girl Elsa. The rabbit's first appearance is at the beginning of the film, when Jojo is ordered to kill a gray rabbit by his commander when he is at the Hitler Youth training camp, Jojo releases it out of kindness and timidity, and is later ridiculed by everyone as "Jojo Rabbit", but Jojo accepts this designation in his self-consciousness because he believes that the rabbit "can overcome all enemies, it is brave, alert and strong", and at the end of the film, facing the dangerous street battle scene, Jojo realizes these characteristics, astutely shuttles through the bunker. When Jojo found Elsa at home, he also faced the dilemma of "killing rabbits": on the one hand, anti-Semitism from Nazi thought, asking him to report Elsa; on the other hand, it was out of good nature and fear of joint responsibility that prompted him to "protect" Elsa, and the similarity of the narrative also made Elsa isomorphic with rabbits, and Jojo intuitively represented Elsa as a captive rabbit in his paintings, which is a confirmation. In this way, Jojo and Elsa's co-rabbits also erase the differences between Jews and Aryans, which provides an excellent hint for Jojo's transition from protection to admiration for Elsa, who sees him as a younger brother.
Stills from Jojo's Whimsical World (Jojo's stick figure)
Shoelaces are another important symbol in the film, which is more related to Jojo and his mother, Rosie. The action of tying shoelaces in the film appears four times, the first time is Rosie tying shoelaces for Jojo, reflecting the mother's love for the child's care; the second time is Rosie deliberately tying the laces of Jojo's two shoes together, forcing Jojo to trip, intending to hint that the Nazis will eventually perish, so that Jojo will correct his mentality and convey the mother's correct love for the child; the third time is that Rosie was hanged by the Nazis, Jojo cried and tied her shoelaces for her mother, which was Jojo's backfeed, and also hinted at his growth; the fourth time was Jojo tying his shoelaces for Elsa. It is further shown that Jojo begins to have the ability to "love people". Taken together, the symbol of the shoelaces is a visual metaphor for Jojo's growth into an independent individual.
Scene symbols: Bootcamp and Dark Grid
According to Jean Mitri, "The image, as part of the external world that the camera faces, is an objective reality seen from a particular point of view." Therefore, the choice of a specific scene is the expression of the creator's subjective attitude, and the semiotic interpretation of the scene is more in line with the original idea of the creator. In "Jojo's Whimsical World", the training camp scene of the Hitler Youth is quite formal, the daytime training camp is vast and open, and the upper and lower parts of the composition are dense youth of the youth league, and the upper half is a tent resembling a pyramid, which has a triangular shape and earthy yellow cloth, and from this symbolic scene we can decipher the actual intention of the director: the Nazis will eventually be buried in the grave. At night, the youth of the youth league, because they obtained permission to burn books, wantonly burned the "ladder of human progress", and the composition of the scene was arranged as a training camp tent at the bottom, and the stars and dots generated by the book burning above the bottom were all the stars and dots produced by the book burning, which was a strong contrast with the magnificent image, which made people stunned, and then felt the creator's irony of the Nazi acts.
Stills from Jojo's Whimsical World (Bootcamp Scene Comparison)
This scene symbol is further expressed in the representation of the Jewish girl Elsa's living space. Elsa lives in the dark grid on the second floor of Jojo's house, from the narrative point of view, the dark grid has the necessary rationality to avoid nazi pursuit and have a plot relationship with Rosie and Jojo, but from the semiotic point of view, the dark grid is precisely that it cannot be publicized under the sun, just as Elsa (which can be further extended to the majority of Jews) could not live normally in Germany during World War II, the dark grid as a scene symbol, is not only a necessary space for its survival, but also a portrayal of itself. With the victory of the Allies, Elsa gradually walked out of the dark grid, walked to the hall, walked out of the door, the change of space is also a symbol of her freedom, and finally the film pushes the joy of freedom to a climax in the dance of Elsa and Jojo on the street.
Character Symbols: Weird People and Missing People
Post-structuralists argue that symbology is not mechanical, closed, and static, but open and dynamic. The symbol system of the film as an inner text must communicate with the social system as an outer text, so the director's attitude towards German society during World War II can be interpreted from the analysis of the character symbols in Jojo's Whimsical World.
The Weird Man is a general term for many of the film's unconventional characters, including the Nazi female secretary who claims to have given birth to 18 children for the country and trains female cadets in training camps to make having children a national task; the second lieutenant who designs a red cloak, a helmet with red ribbons, and a submachine gun with a stereo to confuse the enemy; the soldier who mistakenly leads five shepherds to the office as German Shepherd dogs; the tall, thin, strangely dressed Gestapo; and of course, Jojo, who always emphasizes his ugliness due to facial injuries. In fact, the strange characters reflect the pathology of Nazi German society during World War II, and Krakauer, in his book "From Caligari to Hitler", pointed out through the analysis of German films in the twenties that "the Germans' fear of chaos and their desire for order (order) make them willing to submit to authoritarian rule", for this film, the strange character image is tantamount to surrendering to the self-alienation after authoritarian rule.
Stills from Jojo's Whimsical World (Lieutenant armed with a submachine gun)
Strange people still exist as character symbols, while missing people become a unique character symbol as an invisible one, specifically referring to Jojo's father in the film. Jojo's father was sent to Italy to fight in the war, an event known only through character dialogue, and he himself was absent from beginning to end, a situation that for Jojo is presented in the symbology as the "fatherless generation". Patriarchy as an indispensable existence for the maintenance of social order, his lack of order caused Jojo's order to be chaotic, can only blindly follow the Nazi totalitarian ideas, so Jojo fantasized about Hitler as a guide for his own behavior. Interestingly, in Jojo's dialogue with his mother, the father is mentioned, and the mother Rosie recreates the role of the father in the form of a character performance and dances with Jojo, showing Jojo's desire for his father, which can be interpreted as a desire for order.
Stills from Jojo's Whimsical World (Jojo and his fantasy Hitler)
Film semiotics, as a film analysis method, helps the audience to more thoroughly understand the creator's expression of thought. "Jojo's Whimsical World" is full of image metaphors of various symbols, from props to scenes to characters, and the identification and analysis of symbols allows us to see the transformation from a children's youth film in the context of World War II to a social problem film. (Zhang Yiwen)