'"Theorize", he says...' Christian Metz and the Question of Enunciation: A Theory in (Speech) Acts

This chapter discusses the theoretical foundations and productivity of Metz's reflection on filmic enunciation by commenting on the principal developments in his thinking. The essay thus aims to reinscribe the models proposed by Metz in their context by showing how they are echoed, often implicitly, in other contemporary approaches (or how they are distinct from them), including the field of film criticism. Further, Metz's writing is itself examined at an enunciative level in order to observe the principles according to which the semiologist constructs his object of study and envisions the scholar's position, but also to reveal Metz's inclination to exhibit - through a performative step - the situation of the discursive enunciation that he utters.