The philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce used the term "index" to
describe things like Ellie's note, things that stand as physical
remnants of the causes of their existence. A footprint is the index
of a foot, just as a scrape on a fender might be the index of another
car or of a guardrail. Ellie's writing, a sign of her physical being,
connects Carl to her through this sort of relationship.
In fact, the film characterizes Carl in part through a collection of
indexical objects. His most prized remembrance of Ellie is an old
photograph; many theorists and philosophers of film have claimed
photography and motion pictures to be the pinnacle of indexicality,
based on the relationship between the subject of a photograph and the
resulting image. The scrapbook, full of photographs and other
memorabilia, reads as a kind of collective index of Ellie's life with
Carl. It may also be worth noting here that Carl steers his house
with a weathervane, which Peirce himself famously identifies as
evidence of the blowing wind.
<http://metaphilm.com/index.php/detail/up/>Link
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at 11/30/2009 08:59:00 PM
