and here's a late entry for this thread from a book I'm currently reading, Bernard Dick's 'Anatomy of film':

… denotation and connotation are not distinct in film. A movie denotes and connotes at the same time. When Isak Borg raises a glass of wine in Bergman's 'Wild strawberries', he is Isak Borg who at that moment is having lunch with his daughter-in-law and some young hitchhikers; he is also Isak Borg the priest figure, officiating at a communion service and elevating not a wineglass but a chalice …

[Discuss! -- and apologies if the film (made in Sweden in 1957) is not familiar to some AWADers]