A Stab at Semiotics

In recent months, it has come to my attention that the theorizing of people about film occurs quite frequently. Thus, it will be my goal in this post to apply my own thoughts to an already developed theory (Semiotics) and its relationship to Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni's article "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism."
Semiotics is the study of signs. Signs relate to our world in every way when try to apply language to them. Since nothing in our lives goes without language, everything is related to signs. Signs are arbitrary connections to things that derive their meaning only through one's ability to think about them. A sign is a signifier (thing that means something else) that points to a signified (thing represented). There are three types of signs: Icons, indexes, and symbols. An icon shares a visual connection with the object or concept that it represents. Similar to desktop icons, there is an actual resemblance an icon has to its signified. Indexes are things that one can connect to a signified by a causal relationship. Take, for instance, smoke which is caused by fire. Upon seeing smoke, we immediately think fire, because there smoke is the effect caused by fire. Lastly, symbols are connected to their signified only through convention. Words are good examples of such a sign. There is no causal relationship, a dog does not cause the three letter D, O, and G to be formed, and the word itself doesn't look like the thing it represents.
Now. Jean-Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni's article "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism" explains that films all have signifiers and signifieds. The signifier is the form or style of a movie. The way look of the film is its form. If there is fast editing, as in Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), it's form is different from a film that uses minimal editing, such as Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade (1996). Or, if the film is gritty and gringy, such as Brad Anderson's The Machinist (2004), then it is different from a pretty clean film like Nick Cassavetes' The Notebook (2004). The signified is the content. The content of any film is always a political one, engaging in topics that have a message and a meaning that can be related to the politics of our society. The content can go along with the dominant American ideology such as Roland Emmerich's 2012 (2009), or it can be against it, as David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (2001) might be.
According to Comolli and Narboni, there are five total categories under which narrative films fall. Since all films are inherently political, all films have a content that either aligns with, or contradicts the dominant ideology. Meaning is directly conveyed in the content, changed easily by the alteration of political discourse. Yet, meaning is also changed by form, since form and content cannot be understood separately. Although meaning is laid out by content, it is altered (or enhanced) by form. Thus, form either follows convention and therefore portrays the content and meaning in a more ideological fashion, or contradicts convention, portraying the content in a radical way, altering the meaning.

Therefore content can be seen as the base upon which meaning is created. Content itself can be modifiable, and a modification will have a direct correlation to the meaning. Form, on the other hand, is built on top of content. Form does not have a direct correlation to meaning, because it is only a modifier. Form can enhance or change content to either support the meaning created by content, or alter it. The two attributes are inseparable. You cannot have content without some type of form to it, and you cannot have form without content.