This study does not claim to be an exhaustive critique of the contemporary cinema, whose abundance and diversity defies any attempt to unify it. It has no other purpose than to clarify the underlying meanings of certain productions which are typical of the medium (as for example, L'Avventura by Antonioni and A bout de souffle by Jean-Luc Godard), and to show that the “learned” cinema, that is, the cinema conscious of the ends pursued and the means employed, cannot but fail when it undertakes to introduce new connnections between the sign and the sense.