Published originally in two volumes, Essais sur la signification au cinéma is the fundamental work on the history of cinematic thought written by Christian Metz (1931-1993).
Volume I (1968) marks the initial phase in Christian Metz' effort to found a semiological approach to the cinematic experience : he is the first author to consider both the modes of thought inspired by modern linguistics and the aesthetic tradition of thought on the concept of « cinematic language ».
Volume II (1972) completes those analyses, while recalling their origins. A first section consisting of articles written prior to 1968 (thus before the author's enterprise), describes how this new approach, still too often (and inaccurately) referred to today as « semiology », closely — and in a particularly unprecedented way — hinges upon prior knowledge of cinematic thought.
In a second section, through a set of self-critical breakthroughs and reversals, continuations and changes in direction, the reader will see the outline on this « second semiology » emerge that subsequently aroused the author's interest (excess, non-renunciation), and would later play a part in Le signifiant imaginaire [ The Imaginary Signifier] (1977).

Christian Metz, the major theorist of the semiological approach to cinematic experience in France, was born in 1931. He has notably published Le Signifiant imaginaire.