Film Hieroglyphs Ruptures in Classical Cinema

by Johanna Drucker

Since Conley fascinates you with how text disrupts the visual field in cinema, Willan's exploration of typography as a visual language across modernist design and literature takes that same rupture into print culture. You'll recognize the same theoretical DNA—the idea that letters aren't transparent vessels but active graphic presences that reshape meaning.

by Roberto Bolaño

This is the surprise pick, but hear me out: Bolaño's novel operates exactly like Conley's film hieroglyphs—it's structured around ruptures where narrative breaks down, where different writing systems (diary entries, interviews, fragmented accounts) collide and create meaning through their contradictions rather than despite them. The 'hidden rhetoric' Conley finds in Renoir emerges here through the gaps between voices.

by Peter Wollen

Wollen was working in the same theoretical moment as Conley but approaches semiotics from a different angle—he's more interested in how cinema functions as a sign system itself. Reading this alongside Film Hieroglyphs will deepen your understanding of how directors unconsciously encode meaning, and Wollen's analysis of Eisenstein's montage directly complements Conley's work on visual-textual collision.

by Michel de Certeau

De Certeau (whom Conley actually translated through Augé's work) examines how ordinary people navigate systems of representation and control through tactics and subversions. It's the perfect complement to Conley's interest in how ideology gets embedded in visual fields—here you'll see how those 'hidden rhetorics' function in everyday life, not just on screen.

by John Edgar Tidwell

This 1980s study examines how modernist literature uses montage techniques borrowed from cinema—essentially the reverse of Conley's inquiry. You'll see how writers like Döblin create ruptures between narrative, typography, and historical documentation, proving that the hieroglyphic tensions Conley identifies in film aren't unique to the medium but symptomatic of modernism itself.