The question of the metaphor has to be analysed anew, the outlines of the figure of analogy (re)defined to escape the confusion arising from its separation from the simile and, more largely, its definition as a substitution of one word by the other, but also to test the notion of metaphor in the context of cinema. Therefore the unity of the “metaphoric process” has to be questioned, to find the right level permitting a recounting of its powers, of its dynamic, and doing so refusing the mutilating, always recurring approach of the traditional rhetoric, as well as those that dissolve its richness in the mechanisms of the unconscious or in the interpretative processes of solely the readers or viewers. The metaphor then lets traits appear that indicate to what extent it is legitimate to discern iconic forms along with linguistic forms : for example, it can be understood as an editing, a joining of experiences, of felt situations, at least in a fictional way. To reach this conception of the metaphor as a dialogue between two series of objects of thoughts, as the predication of a paradox, it appears necessary to overturn the traditional approach which consists in setting the conventional metaphor as the model of the theory and the live metaphor as the particular case, but also to think about the links between metaphor, symbol and concept, and to underline how, since Aristotle, the proportional model, the authentic analogical one, is systematically crushed by the semiotic model. Thus renewed, this conception of the metaphor seems fruitful for the analysis of works, for instance The General Line by Eisenstein.
