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Cinema #2
CINE II: Los signos del movimiento y el tiempo
El último año tropecé con una cosa en la que no creía. Hablé mucho de cine, pero lo que tenía en la cabeza no era el cine… (…) Lo que tenía en la cabeza era una clasificación de los signos, de ¡todos los signos del mundo!
Así presenta Deleuze este curso dictado entre fines de 1982 y principios de 1983, que se edita aquí por primera vez en castellano, en el cual el cine quedará subordinado a la titánica empresa de una clasificación general de las imágenes y los signos.
Pero el lector no debe olvidar que los signos son imágenes, y las imágenes bergsonianas no son subjetivas o psicólogicas, no se distinguen de la cosa, de modo que estas clases se convertirán en un gigantesco curso de filosofía sobre el universo material y el tiempo. Filosofía del movimiento, de la percepción, de la acción, de los afectos, de la relación, del tiempo y del pensamiento. La lectura de Bergson y un extenso comentario sobre aspectos de la filosofía de Peirce generalmente despreciados por la lingüística actúan como organizadores. Pero el curso atravesará lugares clásicos de la filosofía: el tiempo en la Antigüedad, el problema de la relación entre el pensamiento y lo real en Descartes, en Leibniz, en los postkantianos y en Hegel, la teoría de lo sublime en Kant, la relación entre la luz y el alma, la filosofía existencial de Pascal, Kierkegaard y Sartre.
Películas, directores, escuelas y corrientes del cine servirán mayormente para confirmar las hipótesis y a veces –como lo dice el propio de Deleuze– como “breves recreos”.
Deleuze no explicita la finalidad de esta empresa monumental. Sugiere un mero gusto, casi un capricho megalómano que compite con el de Peirce. Pero al menos explicita su comunicación con una sensibilidad de época:
Hablo de un mundo sin eje, sin derecha ni izquierda, sin cuerpo sólido. Hablo de este plano de inmanencia de imágenes que actúan y reaccionan unas sobre otras. (…) ¿En qué pensamiento puede aplicarse, en qué arte puede practicarse sino de cierta manera en crear el mundo anterior al hombre? O lo que es igual, en crear el mundo posterior al hombre. ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía, el arte, etcétera? Seguramente tienen que hablarnos del hombre, pero también de lo no-humano. (…) ¿Y qué pasa hoy en día? Diría que de cierta manera hoy estamos habitualmente persiguiendo el plano de inmanencia sin eje, sin cuerpo sólido, sin derecha ni izquierda, el mundo de las imágenes-movimiento en estado puro. ¿Por qué lo perseguimos? Sería un tema saber por qué. Es que quizá sentimos que comprenderíamos muchas cosas si lo alcanzáramos. Y que pasan muchas cosas que van en dicho sentido.
Así presenta Deleuze este curso dictado entre fines de 1982 y principios de 1983, que se edita aquí por primera vez en castellano, en el cual el cine quedará subordinado a la titánica empresa de una clasificación general de las imágenes y los signos.
Pero el lector no debe olvidar que los signos son imágenes, y las imágenes bergsonianas no son subjetivas o psicólogicas, no se distinguen de la cosa, de modo que estas clases se convertirán en un gigantesco curso de filosofía sobre el universo material y el tiempo. Filosofía del movimiento, de la percepción, de la acción, de los afectos, de la relación, del tiempo y del pensamiento. La lectura de Bergson y un extenso comentario sobre aspectos de la filosofía de Peirce generalmente despreciados por la lingüística actúan como organizadores. Pero el curso atravesará lugares clásicos de la filosofía: el tiempo en la Antigüedad, el problema de la relación entre el pensamiento y lo real en Descartes, en Leibniz, en los postkantianos y en Hegel, la teoría de lo sublime en Kant, la relación entre la luz y el alma, la filosofía existencial de Pascal, Kierkegaard y Sartre.
Películas, directores, escuelas y corrientes del cine servirán mayormente para confirmar las hipótesis y a veces –como lo dice el propio de Deleuze– como “breves recreos”.
Deleuze no explicita la finalidad de esta empresa monumental. Sugiere un mero gusto, casi un capricho megalómano que compite con el de Peirce. Pero al menos explicita su comunicación con una sensibilidad de época:
Hablo de un mundo sin eje, sin derecha ni izquierda, sin cuerpo sólido. Hablo de este plano de inmanencia de imágenes que actúan y reaccionan unas sobre otras. (…) ¿En qué pensamiento puede aplicarse, en qué arte puede practicarse sino de cierta manera en crear el mundo anterior al hombre? O lo que es igual, en crear el mundo posterior al hombre. ¿Para qué sirve la filosofía, el arte, etcétera? Seguramente tienen que hablarnos del hombre, pero también de lo no-humano. (…) ¿Y qué pasa hoy en día? Diría que de cierta manera hoy estamos habitualmente persiguiendo el plano de inmanencia sin eje, sin cuerpo sólido, sin derecha ni izquierda, el mundo de las imágenes-movimiento en estado puro. ¿Por qué lo perseguimos? Sería un tema saber por qué. Es que quizá sentimos que comprenderíamos muchas cosas si lo alcanzáramos. Y que pasan muchas cosas que van en dicho sentido.
672 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Gilles Deleuze
285 books2,839 followersDeleuze is a key figure in poststructuralist French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity. Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence. He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals. This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms. Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.
Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.
He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.
Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.
He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
November 27, 2019
It is always interesting to read Deleuze because you would not only learn about what you were expecting to learn but you would also be offered further horizons that can surprise you. And this is what happens in this book. If there is anything that Deleuze provides is generally the multiplicity of thought, the ability to *see* the "virtual images" that were previously concealed and which continuously change the direction of one's thought.
October 8, 2019
Way better than Cinema 1, this monograph looks to the time-image, which is odd and confusing but lovely. Deleuze wades through a lot of film philosophy but his interpretations--which are always interpretations, never summaries--are clear and actually easy to follow. I like how he thinks through the time-image as moment of and opening for falsification and fracture. His description of the crystalline via mirroring makes me feel silly (his language is so Deleuze-y) but is maybe my favorite description of film ever. He also always reminds the reader that there is more at stake in film philosophy than film and philosophy: the time-image becomes a way that we are and become (OF COURSE) in the world. Yes, yes, it feels pretentious but I like it. Deleuze puts his agenda on his sleeve and then he rubs the sleeve in your face; I think it is gratingly endearing and, in this book, I'm here for it.
He also just has moments of lovely reading of film like when he says of Garrel and Artaud and Godard,
"We must believe in the body, but as in the germ of life, the seed which splits open the paving-stones, which has been preserved and lives on in the holy shroud or the mummy's bandages, and which bears witness to life, in this world as it is. We needs an ethic or a faith, which makes fools laugh; it is not a need to believe in something else, but a need to believe in this world, of which fools are a part" (173).
In short, my favorite Deleuze.
He also just has moments of lovely reading of film like when he says of Garrel and Artaud and Godard,
"We must believe in the body, but as in the germ of life, the seed which splits open the paving-stones, which has been preserved and lives on in the holy shroud or the mummy's bandages, and which bears witness to life, in this world as it is. We needs an ethic or a faith, which makes fools laugh; it is not a need to believe in something else, but a need to believe in this world, of which fools are a part" (173).
In short, my favorite Deleuze.
March 26, 2025
Habrá que tatuarse esta cita que concluye el libro:
"Pues también la teoría es algo que se hace, no menos que su objeto. Para muchas personas, la filosofía es algo que no «se hace», sino que preexiste ya hecha en un cielo prefabricado. Sin embargo, también la teoría filosófica es una práctica, lo mismo que su objeto. La teoría filosófica no es más abstracta que su objeto. Es una práctica de los conceptos, y hay que juzgarla en función de las otras prácticas con las cuales interfiere. Una teoría del cine no es una teoría «sobre» el cine, sino sobre los conceptos que el cine suscita y que a su vez guardan relación con otros conceptos que corresponden a otras prácticas; la práctica de los conceptos en general no presenta ningún privilegio sobre las demás [...]. Los conceptos del cine no son datos preestablecidos en el cine. Y sin embargo son los conceptos del cine, no teorías sobre el cine."
"Pues también la teoría es algo que se hace, no menos que su objeto. Para muchas personas, la filosofía es algo que no «se hace», sino que preexiste ya hecha en un cielo prefabricado. Sin embargo, también la teoría filosófica es una práctica, lo mismo que su objeto. La teoría filosófica no es más abstracta que su objeto. Es una práctica de los conceptos, y hay que juzgarla en función de las otras prácticas con las cuales interfiere. Una teoría del cine no es una teoría «sobre» el cine, sino sobre los conceptos que el cine suscita y que a su vez guardan relación con otros conceptos que corresponden a otras prácticas; la práctica de los conceptos en general no presenta ningún privilegio sobre las demás [...]. Los conceptos del cine no son datos preestablecidos en el cine. Y sin embargo son los conceptos del cine, no teorías sobre el cine."
March 10, 2016
Maybe my dislike for this book is the result of a misunderstanding. Deleuze often sacrifices clarity for "novelty" of expression, so I wouldn't be surprised if I were told I'd entirely missed the point. But as I see it, this book is at once very interesting and almost totally useless. A couple of passages were almost insightful. But, by and large, I was constantly put off by the cute, unclear-because-unclarified terminology; the arbitrary examples; and fruitless references to biology, physics, and mathematics -- all apparently martialed only to prove Deleuze's erudition and philosophical originality. If you are not already a lover of Deleuze, or at least a lover of all things "Continental," I'd recommend you pass this one by.
September 30, 2026
“the multiplication of clichés, the events that hardly concern those they happen to, in short the slackening of the sensory-motor connections.“
“time is no longer the measure of movement but movement is the perspective of time: it constitutes a whole cinema of time, with a new conception and new forms of montage (Welles, Resnais). In the second place, at the same time as the eye takes up a clairvoyant function, the sound as well as visual elements of the image enter into internal relations which means that the whole image has to be 'read’, no less than seen, readable as well as visible. For the eye of the seer as of the soothsayer, it is the ‘literalness' of the perceptible world which constitutes it like a book. Here again all reference of the image of description to an object assumed to be independent does not disappear, but is now subordinated to the internal elements and relations which tend to replace the object and to delete it where it does appear, continually displacing it.“
“the image is given a false appearance, and its most authentically visible characteristic, movement, is taken away from it. For the movement-image is not analogical in the sense of resemblance: it does not resemble an object that it would represent. This is what Bergson showed from the first chapter of Matter and Memory: if movement is taken from the moving body, there is no longer any distinction between image and object, because the distinction is valid only through immobilization of the object. The movement-image is the object the thing itself caught in movement as continuous function. The movement-image is the modulation of the obiect itself…Each movement-image expresses the whole that changes, as a function of the objects between which movement is established. The shot must therefore already be a potential montage, and the movement-image, a matrix or cell of time. From this point of view, time depends on movement itself and belongs to it.“
“a direct presentation of time does not imply the halting of movement, but rather the promotion of aberrant movement.”
“each present coexists with a past and a future without which it would not itself pass on.“
“it took modern cinema to give a body to this phantom. This image is virtual, in opposition to the actuality of the movement-image. But, if virtual is opposed to actual, it is not opposed to real, far from it. Again, this time-image will be said to presuppose montage, just as much as indirect representation did.“
“The world takes responsibility for the movement that the subject can no longer make. This is a virtual movement, but it becomes actual at the price of an expansion of the totality of space and of a stretching of time.“
“We no longer have an indirect image of time which derives from movement, but a direct time-image from which movement derives. We no longer have a chronological time which can be overturned by movements which are contingently abnormal; we have a chronic non-chronological time which produces movements necessarily abnormal.”
“The view that the cinematographic image proceeds through figures, and reconstitutes a kind of primitive thought, is to be found in many authors, notably Epstein. Even when the European cinema restricts, itself to dream, fantasy, or day-dreaming, its ambition is to bring the unconscious mechanisms of thought to consciousness.“
“In short, it is the totality of cinema-thought relations that Artaud overturns: on the one hand there is no longer a whole thinkable through montage, on the other hand there is no longer an internal monologue utterable through image.“
“beyond the outside world, but capable of restoring our belief in the world. The question is no longer: does cinema give us the illusion of the world? But: how does cinema restore our belief in the world? This irrational point is the unsummonable of Welles, the inexplicable of Robbe-Grillet, the undecidable of Resnais, the impossible of Marguerite Duras, or again what might be called the incommensurable of Godard”
“a belief which is capable of restoring the world and the body to us on the basis of what signifies their absence.”
“Underneath discourses there has to be found the new style of speech-act which is revealed on each occasion, in a language struggle with the old, and, underneath things, the new space which is formed, in tectonic opposition to the old. The space of Louis XIV is Versailles, the laid-out space which contrasts with the packing together of Mazarin, but also the industrial space where things will be produced in series. Whether it is Socrates, Christ, Augustine, Louis XIV, Pascal, or Descartes, the speech-act is torn away from the old style, at the same time as space forms a new layer which tends to cover over the old; everywhere a struggle marking the itinerary of a world which emerges from one historical moment to enter into another.”
“Information plays on its ineffectiveness in order to establish its power, its very power is to be ineffective, and thereby information is all the more dangerous.“
The time-image does not imply the absence of movement (even though it often includes its increased scarcity) but it implies the reversal of the subordination; it is no longer time which is subordinate to movement; it is movement which subordinates itself to time. It is no longer time which derives from movement, from its norm and its corrected aberrations; it is movement as false movement, as aberrant movement which now depends on time. The time-image has become direct, just as time has discovered new aspects, as movement has become aberrant in essence and not by accident, as montage has taken on a new sense.”
“space-whatevers replacing qualified extended space. It is here that situations no longer extend into action or reaction in accordance with the requirements of the movement-image. These are pure optical and sound situations, in which the character does not know how to respond, abandoned spaces in which he ceases to experience and to act so that he enters into flight, goes on a trip, comes and goes, vaguely indifferent to what happens to him, undecided as to what must be done. But he has gained in an ability to see what he has lost in action or reaction: he SEES so that the viewer's problem becomes 'What is there to see in the image?' (and not now 'What are we going to see in the next image?’). The situation no longer extends into action through the intermediary of affections. It is cut off from all its extensions, it is now important only for itself, having absorbed all its affective intensities, all its active extensions. This is no longer a sensory-motor situation, but a purely optical and sound situation, where the seer [voyant] has replaced the agent [actant]”
“For the time-image to be born, on the contrary, the actual image must enter into relation with its own virtual image as such; from the outset pure description must divide in two, 'repeat itself, take itself up again, fork, contradict itself'. An image which is double-sided, mutual, both actual and virtual, must be constituted.“
“Every sequence of images forms series in that it moves in the direction of a category in which it is reflected, the passage of one category to another determining a change of power. What is said in the most simple terms about Boulez' music will also be said about Godard's cinema: having put everything in series, having brought about a generalized serialism. Everything which functions as limit between two series divided into two parts, the before and the after constituting the two sides of the limit, will also be called a category (a character, a gest, a word, a colour may be a category as easily as a genre, from the moment that they fulfil the conditions of reflection).“
“The sound must itself become image instead of being a component of the visual image; the creation of a sound framing is thus necessary, so that the cut passes between the two framings, sound and visual; hence even if the out-of-field survives in fact [en fait], it must lose all power by right [de droit) because the visual image ceases to extend beyond its own frame, in order to enter into a specific relation with the sound image which is itself framed (the interstice between the two framings replaces the out-of-field); the voice-off must also disappear, because there is no more out-of-held to inhabit, but two heautonomous images to be confronted, that of voices and that of views, each in itself, each for itself and in its frame.“
“the visual image for its part frames an any-space-whatever, an empty or disconnected space which takes on a new value, because it will bury the event under stratigraphic layers.”
“time is no longer the measure of movement but movement is the perspective of time: it constitutes a whole cinema of time, with a new conception and new forms of montage (Welles, Resnais). In the second place, at the same time as the eye takes up a clairvoyant function, the sound as well as visual elements of the image enter into internal relations which means that the whole image has to be 'read’, no less than seen, readable as well as visible. For the eye of the seer as of the soothsayer, it is the ‘literalness' of the perceptible world which constitutes it like a book. Here again all reference of the image of description to an object assumed to be independent does not disappear, but is now subordinated to the internal elements and relations which tend to replace the object and to delete it where it does appear, continually displacing it.“
“the image is given a false appearance, and its most authentically visible characteristic, movement, is taken away from it. For the movement-image is not analogical in the sense of resemblance: it does not resemble an object that it would represent. This is what Bergson showed from the first chapter of Matter and Memory: if movement is taken from the moving body, there is no longer any distinction between image and object, because the distinction is valid only through immobilization of the object. The movement-image is the object the thing itself caught in movement as continuous function. The movement-image is the modulation of the obiect itself…Each movement-image expresses the whole that changes, as a function of the objects between which movement is established. The shot must therefore already be a potential montage, and the movement-image, a matrix or cell of time. From this point of view, time depends on movement itself and belongs to it.“
“a direct presentation of time does not imply the halting of movement, but rather the promotion of aberrant movement.”
“each present coexists with a past and a future without which it would not itself pass on.“
“it took modern cinema to give a body to this phantom. This image is virtual, in opposition to the actuality of the movement-image. But, if virtual is opposed to actual, it is not opposed to real, far from it. Again, this time-image will be said to presuppose montage, just as much as indirect representation did.“
“The world takes responsibility for the movement that the subject can no longer make. This is a virtual movement, but it becomes actual at the price of an expansion of the totality of space and of a stretching of time.“
“We no longer have an indirect image of time which derives from movement, but a direct time-image from which movement derives. We no longer have a chronological time which can be overturned by movements which are contingently abnormal; we have a chronic non-chronological time which produces movements necessarily abnormal.”
“The view that the cinematographic image proceeds through figures, and reconstitutes a kind of primitive thought, is to be found in many authors, notably Epstein. Even when the European cinema restricts, itself to dream, fantasy, or day-dreaming, its ambition is to bring the unconscious mechanisms of thought to consciousness.“
“In short, it is the totality of cinema-thought relations that Artaud overturns: on the one hand there is no longer a whole thinkable through montage, on the other hand there is no longer an internal monologue utterable through image.“
“beyond the outside world, but capable of restoring our belief in the world. The question is no longer: does cinema give us the illusion of the world? But: how does cinema restore our belief in the world? This irrational point is the unsummonable of Welles, the inexplicable of Robbe-Grillet, the undecidable of Resnais, the impossible of Marguerite Duras, or again what might be called the incommensurable of Godard”
“a belief which is capable of restoring the world and the body to us on the basis of what signifies their absence.”
“Underneath discourses there has to be found the new style of speech-act which is revealed on each occasion, in a language struggle with the old, and, underneath things, the new space which is formed, in tectonic opposition to the old. The space of Louis XIV is Versailles, the laid-out space which contrasts with the packing together of Mazarin, but also the industrial space where things will be produced in series. Whether it is Socrates, Christ, Augustine, Louis XIV, Pascal, or Descartes, the speech-act is torn away from the old style, at the same time as space forms a new layer which tends to cover over the old; everywhere a struggle marking the itinerary of a world which emerges from one historical moment to enter into another.”
“Information plays on its ineffectiveness in order to establish its power, its very power is to be ineffective, and thereby information is all the more dangerous.“
The time-image does not imply the absence of movement (even though it often includes its increased scarcity) but it implies the reversal of the subordination; it is no longer time which is subordinate to movement; it is movement which subordinates itself to time. It is no longer time which derives from movement, from its norm and its corrected aberrations; it is movement as false movement, as aberrant movement which now depends on time. The time-image has become direct, just as time has discovered new aspects, as movement has become aberrant in essence and not by accident, as montage has taken on a new sense.”
“space-whatevers replacing qualified extended space. It is here that situations no longer extend into action or reaction in accordance with the requirements of the movement-image. These are pure optical and sound situations, in which the character does not know how to respond, abandoned spaces in which he ceases to experience and to act so that he enters into flight, goes on a trip, comes and goes, vaguely indifferent to what happens to him, undecided as to what must be done. But he has gained in an ability to see what he has lost in action or reaction: he SEES so that the viewer's problem becomes 'What is there to see in the image?' (and not now 'What are we going to see in the next image?’). The situation no longer extends into action through the intermediary of affections. It is cut off from all its extensions, it is now important only for itself, having absorbed all its affective intensities, all its active extensions. This is no longer a sensory-motor situation, but a purely optical and sound situation, where the seer [voyant] has replaced the agent [actant]”
“For the time-image to be born, on the contrary, the actual image must enter into relation with its own virtual image as such; from the outset pure description must divide in two, 'repeat itself, take itself up again, fork, contradict itself'. An image which is double-sided, mutual, both actual and virtual, must be constituted.“
“Every sequence of images forms series in that it moves in the direction of a category in which it is reflected, the passage of one category to another determining a change of power. What is said in the most simple terms about Boulez' music will also be said about Godard's cinema: having put everything in series, having brought about a generalized serialism. Everything which functions as limit between two series divided into two parts, the before and the after constituting the two sides of the limit, will also be called a category (a character, a gest, a word, a colour may be a category as easily as a genre, from the moment that they fulfil the conditions of reflection).“
“The sound must itself become image instead of being a component of the visual image; the creation of a sound framing is thus necessary, so that the cut passes between the two framings, sound and visual; hence even if the out-of-field survives in fact [en fait], it must lose all power by right [de droit) because the visual image ceases to extend beyond its own frame, in order to enter into a specific relation with the sound image which is itself framed (the interstice between the two framings replaces the out-of-field); the voice-off must also disappear, because there is no more out-of-held to inhabit, but two heautonomous images to be confronted, that of voices and that of views, each in itself, each for itself and in its frame.“
“the visual image for its part frames an any-space-whatever, an empty or disconnected space which takes on a new value, because it will bury the event under stratigraphic layers.”
Read
January 5, 2025Leído capítulo 7, ojalá encuentre el momento para fundirmelo entero
May 29, 2023
Argumentally shaper and far more conscious about movement-image and time-image dynamics regarding montage than Cinéma 1 (which is, still, amazing). Chapter six “The Powers of the False” and chapter seven “Thought and cinema” are particularly brilliant. But, overall, it may be my favorite book on film theory; precisely because of its profound questions towards film theory: “Cinema's concepts are not given in cinema. And yet they are cinema's concepts, not theories about cinema. So that there is always a time, midday-midnight, when we must no longer ask ourselves, 'What is cinema?' but 'What is philosophy?' Cinema itself is a new practice of images and signs, whose theory philosophy must produce as conceptual practice. For no technical determination, whether applied (psychoanalysis, linguistics) or reflexive, is sufficient to constitute the concepts of cinema itself.”
March 18, 2017
Un análisis detallado de las características del cine posclásico, en relación con la caída de la imagen movimiento al desaparecer como elemento homogéneo en el cine lo sensomotor en favor de la imagen y el signo, en la irrupción del tiempo en representación directa y de todas las paradojas que esto produce, la caída de la verdad, el corte irracional, etc. Un volumen más logrado que el de la imagen movimiento.
February 26, 2015
overrated claptrap.
July 24, 2026
I finally gone and done it!
This is my cinema bible.
Deleuze at times has such a high magnification microscope on tiny aspects of modern film that it becomes totalising for all films. He writes as though he is a god, it’s a pleasure to appreciate his claims and also so fun to disagree, although both times round I get caught in a web of confusion, understanding and misunderstanding what he says.
I’m excited to come back to this later when I’m not thinking about my thesis and it’s three films so I can be less narrow minded and have more of the ideas wash of me. But in the meantime I’ll continue to watch the hundreds of films he mentioned that I’ve never seen.
This is my cinema bible.
Deleuze at times has such a high magnification microscope on tiny aspects of modern film that it becomes totalising for all films. He writes as though he is a god, it’s a pleasure to appreciate his claims and also so fun to disagree, although both times round I get caught in a web of confusion, understanding and misunderstanding what he says.
I’m excited to come back to this later when I’m not thinking about my thesis and it’s three films so I can be less narrow minded and have more of the ideas wash of me. But in the meantime I’ll continue to watch the hundreds of films he mentioned that I’ve never seen.
February 1, 2026
La théorie du cinéma la plus touchante, parce qu’elle parle de bien d’autres choses. Ce qui intéresse Deleuze, ce n’est pas tant le cinéma que l’image, le corps, le cerveau, la guerre. Il englobe le médium dans une série d'idées, de réflexions, pour aller vers l’essentiel, toucher au point le plus fécond, pour non pas fermer le regard et lui imposer une grille d'analyse de tels films, mais plutôt ouvrir sur un océan de sensibilités, de points d’attaque, pour s’y perdre mieux apprendre à vivre par le regard de son corps.
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December 10, 2025Me siento super poderoso después de haber entendido creo que gran parte de esto (las conclusiones del mismo tomo son buenísimas). No sé qué voy a hacer ahora con el cine
April 30, 2010
Nearly caused a mental breakdown in college. Of the most delightful sort. Another title I intend to reread, or to finish completely. I'm pretty sure I read chunks of this but not all of it straight through.
March 9, 2008
جلد یکمش رو شروع کردم به ترجمه. بزودی در میآد. تا برسم به جلد دو یک سالی طول میکشه
June 30, 2018
"peaks of present" & "sheets of past"
February 13, 2022
خلاصه بگویم: هدف دلوز ابداً از نوشتن این کتاب مشخص نیست. نه سینما را فرمیک بررسی میکند نه فلسفهاش را واکاوی میکند؛ فلذا کتاب ضعیفیست که خواندنش خالی از لطف است.
November 19, 2025
I did it!!!!!!!!!
June 23, 2023
Chez Antonioni, dès sa première grande œuvre, « Chronique d’un amour », l’enquête policière, au lieu de procéder par flash-back, transforme les actions en descriptions optiques et sonores, tandis que le récit lui-même se transforme en actions désarticulées dans le temps (l’épisode de la bonne qui raconte en refaisant ses gestes passés, ou bien la scène célèbre des ascenseurs)6. Et l’art d’Antonioni ne cessera de se développer dans deux directions : une étonnante exploitation des temps morts dela banalité quotidienne ; puis, à partir de « L’Éclipse », un traitement des situations-limites qui les pousse jusqu’à des paysages déshumanisés, des espaces vidés dont on dirait qu’ils ont absorbé les personnages et les actions, pour n’en garder qu’une description géophysique, un inventaire abstrait.
Déjà, dans « Chronique d’un amour », l’enquête a pour conséquence de provoquer elle-même la suite d’un premier amour, et pour effet de faire résonner deux souhaits de meurtre, au futur et au passé. Si nous sommes malades d’Eros, disait Antonioni, c’est parce qu’Eros est lui-même malade ; et il est malade non pas simplement parce qu’il est vieux ou périmé dans son contenu, mais parce qu’il est pris dans la forme pure d’un temps qui se déchire entre un passé déjà terminé et un futur sans issue. Pour Antonioni, il n’y a pas d’autre maladie que chronique, Chronos est la maladie même. C’est pourquoi les chronosignes ne sont pas séparables de lectosignes, qui nous forcent à lire dans l’image autant de symptômes, c’est-à-dire à traiter l’image optique et sonore comme quelque chose de lisible aussi. Et, ensuite, Antonioni coloriste saura traiter les variations de couleurs comme des symptômes, et la monochromie, comme le signe chronique qui gagne un monde, grâce à tout un jeu de modifications délibérées.
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Le cinéma lui-même est une nouvelle pratique des images et des signes, dont la philosophie doit faire la théorie comme pratique conceptuelle. Car aucune détermination technique, ni appliquée (psychanalyse, linguistique), ni réflexive, ne suffit à constituer les concepts du cinéma même.
Déjà, dans « Chronique d’un amour », l’enquête a pour conséquence de provoquer elle-même la suite d’un premier amour, et pour effet de faire résonner deux souhaits de meurtre, au futur et au passé. Si nous sommes malades d’Eros, disait Antonioni, c’est parce qu’Eros est lui-même malade ; et il est malade non pas simplement parce qu’il est vieux ou périmé dans son contenu, mais parce qu’il est pris dans la forme pure d’un temps qui se déchire entre un passé déjà terminé et un futur sans issue. Pour Antonioni, il n’y a pas d’autre maladie que chronique, Chronos est la maladie même. C’est pourquoi les chronosignes ne sont pas séparables de lectosignes, qui nous forcent à lire dans l’image autant de symptômes, c’est-à-dire à traiter l’image optique et sonore comme quelque chose de lisible aussi. Et, ensuite, Antonioni coloriste saura traiter les variations de couleurs comme des symptômes, et la monochromie, comme le signe chronique qui gagne un monde, grâce à tout un jeu de modifications délibérées.
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Le cinéma lui-même est une nouvelle pratique des images et des signes, dont la philosophie doit faire la théorie comme pratique conceptuelle. Car aucune détermination technique, ni appliquée (psychanalyse, linguistique), ni réflexive, ne suffit à constituer les concepts du cinéma même.
March 23, 2019
Sim, é um livro teórico sobre cinema, mas que funciona às mil maravilhas para as HQ por destrinchar as relações entre os códigos visuais e sonoros. Sei que as HQ não têm som, mas o cinema, em sua origem, também não, e os diálogos funcionavam ali da mesma maneira como os recordatórios nas HQ: outro tipo de imagem, decodificada de maneira distinta.
Assim sendo, mesmo como base para estudar os meandros de outra área que não aquela idealizada originalmente, trata-se de um livro de leitura fluída, cujos exemplos ilustram com maestria as propostas teóricas.
Assim sendo, mesmo como base para estudar os meandros de outra área que não aquela idealizada originalmente, trata-se de um livro de leitura fluída, cujos exemplos ilustram com maestria as propostas teóricas.
December 18, 2020
Considering it was written in 1989, 'the cinema of memory' is remarkably apt at applying psychoanalytic theory. However it falls short in the light of recent scholarship on trauma in the post war era. Deleuze gets too hung up on the term 'flashback' as a cinematic or theatrical term, which means certain 'recollection-images' of the 50s and 60s don't get the credit and exploration they deserve. However, this is in no way a criticism of the work in its contemporary context, simply something I found myself desiring more of.
August 2, 2026
Deleuze dissects cinema into philosophy of time, largely inspired by Bergson’s durée. There are many traits of the Deleuzian philosophy that one can take away from the time-image, such as the method of his digressive, complex and sometimes vague thinking, which, for better or worse, makes the work difficult. Deleuze expects you to know tens of movies from the 50s, 60s and 70s, which he dissects through the lens of flowing time, sometimes deeply engaging with it in a Bergsonian sense: explaining to us the methodology of film and how the subjective time accumulates.
November 19, 2017
Essential cinema books... just be aware it's Deleuze so it's going to take time to sink in and to really hook with you. I read both of these books cover to cover years ago and honestly not much has stuck with me but when I was fully invested in that world (and writing my dissertation!) these were fascinating rubik's cube like puzzles to fall into and get lost in. Some very very unusual ways of looking at cinema that are often incredibly inspiring.
October 19, 2020
While there are times in which this book veers towards incomprehensible, Deleuze never loses sight of the original goal that began in the program of Cinema 1. Also I find it entirely very useful that he never precisely leaves Peircian semiotics while still maintaining an insistence on ontological moments and affect.
In a sense, this is the ultimate theoretical take on affordances of how to approach all media as a "cinema" of time exploration, expression, and design.
In a sense, this is the ultimate theoretical take on affordances of how to approach all media as a "cinema" of time exploration, expression, and design.
December 11, 2025
Demanding, confusing, haphazardly constructed, yes. However the time-image is still a thought-provoking concept, questioning the seemingly drifting nature of modernist film art. I'm glad i finished it, I'll most likely shy away from re-reading it for the next couple of decades.
August 6, 2026
Quando a ação se quebra, o tempo aparece na tela. Deleuze mostra como o pós-guerra deu imagens em que já não se sabe exatamente agir, surgem visões e deambulações. O tempo deixa de servir ao movimento e orienta o seu próprio caminho.
February 10, 2026
Bom. é isso. acabei de conhecer o livro o qual eu vou reler dez vezes pelos próximos anos :)
April 11, 2026
Did I just finish the second book before finishing the first one? Yes.
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September 24, 2026MA dissertation reference
May 10, 2022
https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_...
From. Amy Herzog on Delueze Cinema I and II
“Deleuze's assertions in the Cinema books can be read as a call to action on two fronts. On the one hand, the distinction he draws between images that rely upon movement-images and time-images challenge artists to create works that transcend the representational, that explore the interstices between memory and perception, that approach what we might call a pure image of time, an image of thought. I would argue that Deleuze's work on cinema poses an equal challenge to those who think and write about/through film, a venture with perhaps even higher stakes. In opposing the movement- and time-images, Deleuze inadvertently constructs a structure of valuation that I find suspect (particularly when the images which he cites as most closely approaching the time-image-Godard, Passolini, etc.-coincide with those championed by elitist, modernist traditions). Yet the tools that he provides for conceiving of film beyond the confines of representation carry invaluable potential for theorists to manipulate toward their own ends.”
“This is the dark thought I have had about representation for so long; we are immersed in it and it has become inseparable from our condition. It has created a world, a cosmos even, of false problems such that we have lost our true freedom: that of invention.[17]
What Bergson and Deleuze both point to in their writings is a means of restating the question of representation, rending it open to the forces of creation and invention.
These forces are tapped into when perception, rather than isolating an image for the purposes of action, orients itself toward memory, the virtual potential of the past. "When perception is attentive," Olkowski writes, "every perception becomes an act of creation in which the perception opens as many circuits as there are memory images attracted by this new perception, making of every perception a qualitative multiplicity."[18] “
But in order to claim for philosophy what is its activity by right, the philosopher must invoke the more fundamental 'movement' of the impersonal form of time and eternal recurrence."[20] This is what leads to the distinction between the movement-image and the time-image: a qualitative difference, where what is seen, what is conveyed becomes less significant than what is not revealed, what is unknown.
[O]nly the movement-image pretends that thought can be presented directly in or by the image. Alternatively, time always divides thought from the signs that express or represent it. Through the force of the eternal return, time affirms a specific power, or rather "impower" of thought: "we are not yet thinking."[21]
From. Amy Herzog on Delueze Cinema I and II
“Deleuze's assertions in the Cinema books can be read as a call to action on two fronts. On the one hand, the distinction he draws between images that rely upon movement-images and time-images challenge artists to create works that transcend the representational, that explore the interstices between memory and perception, that approach what we might call a pure image of time, an image of thought. I would argue that Deleuze's work on cinema poses an equal challenge to those who think and write about/through film, a venture with perhaps even higher stakes. In opposing the movement- and time-images, Deleuze inadvertently constructs a structure of valuation that I find suspect (particularly when the images which he cites as most closely approaching the time-image-Godard, Passolini, etc.-coincide with those championed by elitist, modernist traditions). Yet the tools that he provides for conceiving of film beyond the confines of representation carry invaluable potential for theorists to manipulate toward their own ends.”
“This is the dark thought I have had about representation for so long; we are immersed in it and it has become inseparable from our condition. It has created a world, a cosmos even, of false problems such that we have lost our true freedom: that of invention.[17]
What Bergson and Deleuze both point to in their writings is a means of restating the question of representation, rending it open to the forces of creation and invention.
These forces are tapped into when perception, rather than isolating an image for the purposes of action, orients itself toward memory, the virtual potential of the past. "When perception is attentive," Olkowski writes, "every perception becomes an act of creation in which the perception opens as many circuits as there are memory images attracted by this new perception, making of every perception a qualitative multiplicity."[18] “
But in order to claim for philosophy what is its activity by right, the philosopher must invoke the more fundamental 'movement' of the impersonal form of time and eternal recurrence."[20] This is what leads to the distinction between the movement-image and the time-image: a qualitative difference, where what is seen, what is conveyed becomes less significant than what is not revealed, what is unknown.
[O]nly the movement-image pretends that thought can be presented directly in or by the image. Alternatively, time always divides thought from the signs that express or represent it. Through the force of the eternal return, time affirms a specific power, or rather "impower" of thought: "we are not yet thinking."[21]
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