March 19, 1985

You remember, we were considering our three points that semiocriticism had left us, or semiology of linguistic inspiration. These three points were: the basis of cinema defined as narrative, the fact of narration; second point: the cinematographic image presented as analogical or iconic, and valid for an iconic or analogical statement; and the third point: the language structure which made it possible to codify the analogical image or the analogical statement, language structure consisting above all in a syntagmatic, that is, in syntagmatic rules. These were the three points, the three basic points. But I am saying that once it’s given that the semioticians of this school write complicated texts, it is desirable for us to identify clearly, to maintain well — if our previous analyzes were correct — to maintain these three points well since, once again, these are the three basic points that are causing us the problem. Then there is nothing more to say. If they offer us these three points, they are right, they are right to do what they do. If they don’t offer these three points, they’re still right. But if they don’t offer these three points, then it’s up to us to do something else.

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

Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason, 1967

 

Still outlining aspects of Metz’s semiocriticism, Deleuze reiterates some misgivings and recalls work from the first seminars, offering a succinct summary of the sensorimotor scheme in relation to the movement-image and its three types of images, and he relies on previous analyses to insist that these changes result from the image’s shift toward a direct presentation of time (see Cinema seminar III, 1983-84). A student question causes Deleuze to diverge into several digressive directions, first on “cinema of truth” (cf. Pierre Perrault and Jean Rouch), then on the Palestinians and the concept of a “people to come.” Georges Comtesse’s brief intervention on Rouch’s films causes an extremely pointed exchange with Deleuze (at approximately minute 79), leading to an early break in the session. Returning to the second misgiving, the cinematographic image supposedly being assimilable to a statement through analogy, Deleuze evokes Pasolini’s approach to the double articulation and then counters Metz’s semiocritical perspective on the image. To dive deeply into the senses of “langue” itself, he proposes different linguistic perspectives: first, developing Hjelmslev’s thought, Deleuze concludes that cinema is the non-linguistically formed matter that is a correlate to any language or “langue”. Then he turns to the “strange linguistics” of Gustave Guillaume, notably his concept of a word’s “signified of power” (signifié de puissance) which, while being unchangeable, depends on its use in discourse to endow the word with a specific “signified of effect”. Guillaume’s distinctions matter for Deleuze’s development of distinctions of the indefinite versus the definite article in terms of signifieds of power. This discussion leads Deleuze toward a clearer sense of the concept of “matter” developed from Hjelmslev, and with Pasolini, toward understanding cinema as a “‘langue’ of reality” linked not to paradigms or syntagma, but solely to a signified of power. [Much of the later development corresponds to The Time-Image, chapter 10.]

 

Gilles Deleuze

Seminar on Cinema and Thought, 1984-1985

Lecture 16, 19 March 1985 (Cinema Course 82)

Transcription: La voix de Deleuze, Nadia Ouis (Part 1), Claudio Savino Reggente (Part 2) and Léa Machillot (Part 3); additional revisions to the transcription and time stamp, Charles J. Stivale

English Translation Forthcoming

 

Deleuze Notebook
Image from Deleuze’s Notebook

 

Notes

For archival purposes, the augmented version of the complete transcription with time stamp was completed in September 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: March 19, 1985
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Reading Date: June 18, 1985
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