What does "visual motif" mean in film and literature, and how is a motif different from a symbol or a theme?

The openly readable sources use "motif" in three scopes: a composition that recurs across many works (Phillips et al. 2024, Garin & Elduque 2016), a picture that recurs inside one film (Freeburg 1923: the wagon train in The Covered Wagon; Forster 1927: the recurring phrase in a novel), and a repeated shape inside one frame (Freeburg's "echoing motifs"). None of them equates a motif with a theme: Freeburg ties emphasis to what is vital in the theme, and Forster separates a fixed "banner" from developing "rhythm". A beginner agent should state which scope it means before it tracks anything. Curator qualifications: Curator located the evidence excerpts in the work copies (automated prefix match; the one apparent miss, S25-05 E4, is a curly-apostrophe variant and is present). The three scopes of "motif" are a genuine definitional difference, kept as such. Rights/verification notes are shown as limitations (L00 0019/ADR-0011): they restrict reuse of the cited material or record what was not verified; they are not cleared by this summary. Limitations: [component_reuse_restriction] Forster's Aspects of the Novel is read from Project Gutenberg (title page 'COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY'). Gutenberg's licence statement covers US use; status elsewhere was not verified. Short attributed quotes only. Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/html/2410.15866v1",
      "note": "intro; Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/75031/4/05.pdf",
      "note": "intro; Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/66049/66049-h/66049-h.htm",
      "note": "intro; Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70492/70492-h/70492-h.htm",
      "note": "intro; Pictorial Beauty of the Photoplay (1923); ch. VIII"
    }
  ]
}