Abstract:

The concepts of condensation and displacement date back to Freud' s The Interpretation of Dreams, and, afterwards, through Lacan, enter into the system of Metz' s film semiotics, thus changing from an unconscious work mechanism, or an unconscious operating mechanism of language, to a kind of film rhetoric that relates to a contrast with metaphor and metonymy in psychoanalysis semiotics. By discussing the process of how these two concepts were put forward by Freud, and extended or transferred by Lacan, and melt by Metz into his system of theory, which is similar to the "concept history", this essay tries best to use a relatively new angle to give some more thinking of Metz' s research methods and theoretical values.
 

Key words: condensation, displacement, metaphor, metonymy, film rhetoric