January 8, 1985

[With Eisenstein] we have just seen four types of oppositions, … is this a philosophically interesting classification of oppositions? I’ll summarize: quantitative or metric opposition; qualitative or rhythmic opposition; relational or tonal opposition, opposition between attractions; finally, modal or harmonic opposition which, this time, will be an opposition between one datum of the captured image with its harmonics and another datum of the captured image with its own harmonics. Four types of opposition. But sense the progression through these oppositions; we went from, as I just said, we went from “I see” to “I feel”; we went from the visual percept to the totally physiological percept. … One more step more, and we would go on to “I think”.

Seminar Introduction

As he starts the fourth year of his reflections on relations between cinema and philosophy, Deleuze explains that the method of thought has two aspects, temporal and spatial, presupposing an implicit image of thought, one that is variable, with history. He proposes the chronotope, as space-time, as the implicit image of thought, one riddled with philosophical cries, and that the problematic of this fourth seminar on cinema will be precisely the theme of “what is philosophy?’, undertaken from the perspective of this encounter between the image of thought and the cinematographic image.

For archival purposes, the English translations are based on the original transcripts from Paris 8, all of which have been revised with reference to the BNF recordings available thanks to Hidenobu Suzuki, and with the generous assistance of Marc Haas.

English Translation

Edited

Buster Keaton’s, The Navigator, 1924

 

Starting with an Eisenstein essay connecting thought to cinema, Deleuze examines Eisenstein’s questions on movement and montage, and after contrasting Pasolini’s semiology to that of Eco and Christian Metz, he distinguishes the cinematographic image from the analogical image, insisting that an image creating its own motion is one also creating a shock to thought, a noochoc, that Eisenstein attributes to oppositions of movement-images. Then, after establishing some philosophical bases (Aristotle’s classification of oppositions; Tarde’s 19th-century mode classification), Deleuze then considers Eisenstein’s discovery of harmonics in the cinematographic image. Linking this to a reflection on synesthesia (cf. Merleau-Ponty), Deleuze offers Eisenstein’s list of five oppositions linked to five forms of montage and his explanation for achieving various composition techniques (cf. examples from Eisenstein, Buster Keaton, Renoir). Finally Deleuze summarizes the development: from the percept-image to the clear concept through the sensory shock, then from the confused concept to affect-images reintroducing an affective shock, together creating a complete circuit, all part of the creative domain [Much of this development corresponds to The Time-Image, chapter 7.]

Gilles Deleuze

Seminar on Cinema and Thought, 1984-1985

Lecture 08, 08 January 1985 (Cinema Course 74)

Transcription: La voix de Deleuze, Charles J. Stivale (Part 1), Charline Guilaume (Part 2), and Aziz Ibazizene; Correction : Nadia Ouis (Part 3); additional revisions to the transcription and time stamp, Charles J. Stivale

English Translation Forthcoming

Notes

For archival purposes, the French transcript of the first part of this session was available for the first time in June 2020 as prepared for this site. The transcripts for the second and third parts were prepared at Paris 8, respectively, by Charline Guillaume and Aziz Ibazizene, with part 3 correction by Nadia Ouis.

The augmented and new time stamped version of the complete transcription was completed in August 2021. Additional revisions were added in February 2024.

Lectures in this Seminar

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Reading Date: October 30, 1984
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Reading Date: November 6, 1984
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Reading Date: January 8, 1985
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Reading Date: June 18, 1985
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