Christian Metz is remembered today as having almost single-handedly transformed the culture of film studies. This widely held view was summarized by one commentator, who wrote that “with Metz a new research paradigm is born, as well as a new generation of scholars. The ontological theories are followed by methodological theories.” According to another, “Metz exemplified a new kind of film theorist, one who came to the field already ‘armed’ with the analytic instruments of a specific discipline, who was unapologetically academic and unconnected to the world of film criticism.” Of course, Metz didn't just surge like a meteor on the scene of film studies. His arrival was “prepared” by the filmologie movement spear-headed in Paris by Gilbert Cohen-Séat and by two early film semiology essays published by Roland Barthes in La Revue internationale de filmologie . Yet it is Metz who is rightly remembered as the figurehead of film semiology.