Metaphor

Metaphor

noun | Screenwriting & Development

A figure of speech - or in cinema, a visual or structural device - that describes, represents, or frames one thing in terms of another, asserting a meaningful equivalence between the two. A metaphor does not say "A is like B"; it says "A is B" - the equivalence is stated directly, without the qualifying distance of a comparison. In film, metaphors operate through image, structure, and juxtaposition as much as through dialogue, making cinema a particularly rich medium for metaphorical expression. Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory (1980) established that metaphor is not merely a literary device but a fundamental structure of human cognition - a framework that cinema exploits through visual and structural means.

Quick Reference

The Explanation: How & Why

A metaphor transfers the qualities of one thing to illuminate the nature of another. "Life is a journey" does not claim that life literally involves physical travel, but that understanding journeys - their direction, obstacles, destinations, and returns - illuminates what life is like. The metaphor works because the comparison reveals something true that a literal description would miss or express less vividly.

In cinema, metaphor operates on multiple levels simultaneously:

Verbal metaphors in dialogue: Characters speak figuratively, using comparison to communicate states that literal description cannot capture. A character who says "I'm drowning" in a scene with no water communicates emotional overwhelm through metaphor. This is the most basic form, imported from literary and spoken tradition.

Visual metaphors: An image that stands for something beyond its literal content. A close-up of a flame that cuts to a close-up of a character's angry face creates a visual metaphor: the flame is not literally the anger, but the visual comparison asserts their equivalence. The juxtaposition says "anger is fire" without a word of dialogue. Charles Forceville's research on visual and multimodal metaphor in film (published in Metaphor and Symbol, 2024) provides the most current academic framework for identifying and analysing visual metaphors in moving images.

Structural metaphors: The relationship between scenes or sequences creates metaphorical meaning. A sequence of shots showing a man building a wall, cut in parallel with a sequence of him refusing to discuss his marriage, creates a structural metaphor: the literal wall is a metaphor for his emotional barriers. Neither sequence alone is the metaphor; their juxtaposition creates it. Eisenstein's theory of intellectual montage was essentially a theory of structural metaphor: two images in sequence create a third idea that neither contains alone.

The story as metaphor: An entire film can function as an extended metaphor - a story whose literal events operate as a vehicle for describing something else. This is close to allegory but less systematically mapped. A film about a person fighting to save their house from demolition may work as a metaphor for resistance to the erasure of identity, without every element having a one-to-one allegorical correspondence. Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) functions as an extended metaphor for the human attempt to comprehend life through creative work, with the literal and metaphorical levels dissolving into each other.

The power of metaphor in filmmaking is that it communicates the inarticulable - states of mind, emotional experiences, abstract ideas - through concrete, sensory images. Cinema deals in the concrete; metaphor allows the concrete to carry the abstract without making the film abstract.

Historical Context & Origin

The metaphor as a rhetorical and poetic device has been analysed since Aristotle, who dedicated extensive sections of the Poetics and Rhetoric to its functions and types. Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By (1980) transformed metaphor studies by showing that metaphor is not merely a literary ornament but a fundamental structure of human cognition - we understand abstract concepts through metaphorical mappings from concrete experiences. Cinema inherited literary and theatrical metaphor and developed its own visual vocabulary. Sergei Eisenstein's theory of intellectual montage was a theory of visual metaphor: two images placed in sequence create a meaning that neither image alone contains. His sequence in Strike (1925) intercutting workers being killed with cattle being slaughtered is a visual metaphor stated through juxtaposition. Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, and later Terrence Malick developed visual metaphor as a primary means of cinematic expression, constructing films whose meaning is communicated primarily through image rather than dialogue. A 2025 study in Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics analysing Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York demonstrates how contemporary poetic cinema extends metaphor from the verbal to the structural and conceptual level, blurring the boundary between literal and metaphorical meaning.

How It's Used in Practice

Scenario 1 - Visual Metaphor (Director / DP): A film about a marriage ending uses a shot of a house with all its windows dark to open the third act. The house is literally dark - it is night, and no one is home. But the framing, the duration, and the timing of the shot make it a metaphor: the darkness is the state of the marriage, the emptiness of the relationship, the failure of warmth between the two people. The literal and the metaphorical are simultaneous. The DP shoots the house at 35mm, T2.8, on an ARRI ALEXA Mini, with a 4-second hold - long enough for the audience to read the image as more than literal.

Scenario 2 - Structural Metaphor (Editor / Director): A documentary about a politician uses a structural metaphor throughout its second act: every sequence of the politician speaking publicly is intercut with brief shots of the politician in private situations that contradict the public speech. The structure creates the metaphor: the politician's public self and private self are presented as equivalents, and the equivalence is a lie. The intercutting does not need to say this; the structure says it. The editor cuts the public and private material at a 3:1 ratio - enough private footage to create the metaphorical resonance without breaking the documentary's surface realism.

Scenario 3 - Verbal Metaphor (Screenwriter): A character who has been emotionally shut down for decades is asked how she is doing. She says: "Like a house that has been closed up for years. The air is stale. But I think there might be something still living in there." The verbal metaphor communicates her self-perception through the image of the closed house - specific, sensory, and far more resonant than any literal description of her emotional state would be. The screenwriter writes this line knowing that the actor will deliver it with restraint, letting the metaphor do the work.

Usage Examples in Sentences

"The burning building is a visual metaphor for the end of their relationship - the structure is falling, the light is destructive rather than warming."

"The dialogue metaphor works: 'I'm a house with all the windows painted shut' tells me more about this character than five minutes of direct description."

"Eisenstein understood that cinema's native language is visual metaphor. Two images in sequence create a third idea that neither contains alone."

"Don't explain the metaphor. The moment you explain it, it becomes a statement rather than an experience."

Common Confusions & Misuse

Metaphor vs. Simile: A metaphor asserts direct equivalence: "Life is a journey." A simile asserts comparison using "like" or "as": "Life is like a journey." The difference is one of directness and commitment: a metaphor fuses the two things; a simile keeps them distinct. In dialogue, the distinction is straightforward. In visual filmmaking, most comparisons function as metaphors rather than similes because the juxtaposition of images asserts equivalence rather than comparison.

Metaphor vs. Symbolism: A symbol represents one specific thing through another - a dove represents peace. A metaphor creates a comparison between two things to illuminate qualities of each through the equivalence. The dove is a symbol of peace by cultural convention; calling a peaceful person "a dove" is a metaphor. Both involve one thing standing for or illuminating another, but symbols are representational while metaphors are comparative.

Metaphor vs. Allegory: Allegory is a systematic, extended metaphorical narrative where the entire story maps onto another meaning - every element has a one-to-one correspondence. A metaphor is a single comparison or a less systematically mapped resonance. Animal Farm is allegory; a single shot of a wilting flower cutting to a dying patient is metaphor. The distinction is one of systematic completeness.

Variations by Context

Key People & Films

Sergei Eisenstein developed the theory of intellectual montage as a theory of visual metaphor, demonstrated in Strike (1925) and Battleship Potemkin (1925). Andrei Tarkovsky built films whose meaning operates primarily through visual and structural metaphor: Stalker (1979), Nostalgia (1983). Ingmar Bergman used visual metaphor throughout The Seventh Seal (1957) - the chess game with Death is a structural metaphor for the human confrontation with mortality. Terrence Malick constructs films (The Tree of Life, 2011; A Hidden Life, 2019) where metaphorical meaning flows through image and voiceover rather than plot. Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) functions as an extended conceptual metaphor, with a 2025 academic study in Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics analysing how the film dissolves the boundary between literal and metaphorical identity. Charles Forceville (University of Amsterdam) is the leading contemporary scholar of visual and multimodal metaphor in film, with publications in Metaphor and Symbol (2024) providing frameworks for identification and analysis.

Equipment / Tools Reference

No specific equipment is associated with metaphor as a narrative device. However, the tools of metaphorical filmmaking include: editing software (Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve) for creating structural metaphors through juxtaposition and parallel cutting; cinematography tools (ARRI ALEXA, RED Komodo, Cooke S4/i lenses) for composing visual metaphors through framing and lighting; and screenwriting software (Final Draft, Fade In, Highland 2) for crafting verbal metaphors in dialogue. For visual metaphor through color, color grading tools (DaVinci Resolve, FilmLight Baselight) allow the creation of color-based metaphorical associations - a desaturated palette for emotional deadness, saturated warm tones for passion.

Standards & Specifications

No formal industry standard governs metaphor as a narrative device. However, the WGA (Writers Guild of America) recognises metaphorical writing as a category of literary contribution in screenplay credits disputes. The Academy's Nicholl Fellowship screenwriting competition evaluates metaphorical depth as part of its judging criteria for narrative quality. No SMPTE, ITU, or ISO standard applies to metaphor as a creative concept. The academic study of metaphor in film is governed by scholarly frameworks: Lakoff and Johnson's Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), Forceville's multimodal metaphor framework, and Coegnarts and Kravanja's structural-conceptual metaphor analysis model (2012).

Common Questions / FAQ

Q: What is the difference between a visual metaphor and a symbol in film?

A symbol represents one specific thing through another by cultural convention - a dove means peace. A visual metaphor creates a comparison between two things to illuminate qualities of each. The dove is a symbol of peace by convention; a shot of a flame cutting to a shot of an angry face is a visual metaphor because the juxtaposition asserts "anger is fire" as a comparative equivalence, not a conventional representation.

Q: How does Eisenstein's montage theory relate to metaphor?

Eisenstein's theory of intellectual montage is essentially a theory of visual metaphor. He argued that two images placed in sequence create a third idea that neither image alone contains - the same mechanism by which a metaphor creates meaning through the equivalence it asserts. His Strike (1925) sequence intercutting workers being killed with cattle being slaughtered is a visual metaphor for the dehumanisation of labour.

Q: Can an entire film function as a metaphor?

Yes. A film can operate as an extended metaphor where the entire story carries a secondary meaning. Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (2008) is a sustained metaphor for the human attempt to comprehend life through creative work. This is close to allegory but less systematically mapped - not every element has a one-to-one correspondence to an external meaning.

Q: Should you explain a metaphor in dialogue?

Generally, no. The moment you explain a metaphor, it becomes a statement rather than an experience. The power of metaphor is that it communicates the inarticulable through concrete images. Explaining it destroys the transfer of meaning that makes it work. Trust the audience to make the connection.

Related Terms

• Simile - A comparison using "like" or "as"; the explicit version of what a metaphor asserts directly. In visual filmmaking, most comparisons function as metaphors because juxtaposition asserts equivalence.
• Symbolism - Related but distinct; symbolism represents one thing through another by cultural convention, while metaphor illuminates through comparison
• Allegory - An extended, systematic metaphorical narrative where the entire story maps onto another meaning with one-to-one correspondence
• Subtext - Metaphors frequently operate as subtext - the real meaning is carried by the image or structure rather than stated explicitly
• Theme - The story's central meaning; metaphors are one of the primary vehicles through which theme is expressed
• Motif - A recurring element that accumulates metaphorical meaning through repetition; a motif can become a metaphor through contextual accumulation

See Also / Tools

The Shot List Generator helps plan the visual metaphors that carry the story's meaning - the specific images, juxtapositions, and framings that do the work of comparison and equivalence without dialogue. For understanding how editing creates structural metaphors through juxtaposition, see our blog posts on montage theory and editing technique.