The Moments I am Aware of Becoming the Messenger Myself

In the film "Up the Yangtze", because the subject which is sending the clear message is the film, the role of the watcher is just to engage and accept the message--like a "receiver".

However, if the messages are ambiguous and hard to catch, watchers have to be not only "receivers" of the messages but also "messengers" by considering themselves the subject. Because of ambiguous messages, people have to use their knowledge and their background for identifying themselves with the characters in order to understand the scenes.

For instance, the scenes that depict the sightseeing along the Yangtze are ambiguous in terms of the view that the watcher should catch. It may be about submergence, or to remind the watchers of a life of people who living along the river with poverty. It would be depend on the watchers and their point of view. Although the scene does not send specific message at all, the watchers would imagine something and interpret freely.

Furthermore, I think the relationships between "message" and "messenger" would be able to relate with Killingsworth's article. According to this author, he explains that "Kinneavy suggests that the three elements constitute the three points of a "communication triangle"---which, following information theory, he calls the encoder (author), decoder (audience), and reality (the world), with the signal (text) filling the middle of the triangle, as if to hold the other elements together".

The film sends messages to the watcher (author+audience), and the watcher considers and creates messages in his own way for identification (audience+the world), and when these elements work each other, then the text will have a meaning on all of three elements.