The Diegetic Look : Pragmatics of the Point-of-View Shot

This essay considers the POV shot as a POV structure or pattern, i.e. as a unit of the cinematic language functioning as a textual node (Umberto Eco) in the production of meaning of a narrative film, where the spectator's inferential activity is most stimulated and waited. Analyzing two significant moments from The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956) and The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis, 1963), it shows for the first time that the POV structure possibilities extend beyond the subjectivity of the looking character’s “point of view”. On the contrary, a POV structure can operate through more complex processes than just a generic spectator’s “psychological identification” with the character, to such an extent that quite the opposite can occur.