June 4, 1985

What I wanted, if you will, is to judge our work this year, and for those who were there the other years, … by judging our work, I almost mean, having reactions of the type: a particular point that we covered way too fast, a particular point that I frankly neglected or forgot, for want of seeing the importance, even a particular point that, according to you, I dealt with badly — that you have all these possibilities, as well as those that you will find. There we are. So, it’s about your reactions, and I’ll tell you why: because it’s been three, four years — I no longer know — that I started with you on this story about cinema. Now I’m reaching the end… I feel like I’ve had a lot of rather artificial moments, other moments when it worked, like that. So it’s rather… your turn to speak because I personally attach importance in your reactions, not at all for the sake of arguing – I’ll say you’re right in advance — but because that this can help me with what I will do next year. So, now it’s your turn to speak. Comtesse told me that he wanted to choose, or at least start with, a punctual and precise point concerning the Straubs.

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

Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi Olympics, 1936

 

The session corresponds to three sets of comments followed by Deleuze’s remarks: first, Georges Comtesse’s extended intervention on instances of immanence (Deleuze’s interpretation) and transcendence and silence (Comtesse’s emphasis) in Duras, particularly “India Song”; second, Raymond Carasco’s intervention, first responding quickly to Comtesse, then reflecting, as a filmmaker, academic and cinema scholar, on how she understands the import of the four seminars and particularly the conceptual framework articulated by Deleuze, to which he returns to his self-professed obsession, Syberberg’s cinema. Deleuze lists three important works for him – by Kracauer, Benjamin, and Syberberg – in order to trace the arc of reflection on the German soul in German cinema, the rise of the art of mass reproduction, and with reference to Daney and Virilio, Leni Riefensthal’s role in developing this tendency as well as Goebbels’s rivalry with Hollywood. Deleuze completes this reflection by considering the “stupidest sentence about cinema”, that the cinematographic image is in the present, and notably how Robbe-Grillet manipulated this thought for his own ends. Third, Deleuze responds to one student’s barely audible set of questions with a forty-minute summary of the conceptual evolution of year 3 into and through year 4 (with different manifestations of the time-image most clearly summarized in session 24). Deleuze explains the student’s difficulty by possibly not having fully understood the nature of the “cut” between movement-image and time-image, thus providing a point-by-point review of differences between these two key concepts. Deleuze concludes the session by reminding the participants that he will be available in two weeks for a supplementary discussion session.

 

Gilles Deleuze

Seminar on Cinema and Thought, 1984-1985

Lecture 25, 04 June 1985 (Cinema Course 91)

Transcription: La voix de Deleuze, Lise France (Part 1), Morgane Marty (Part 2) and Charles J. Stivale (Part 3) ; additional revisions to the transcription and time stamp, Charles J. Stivale

English Translation Forthcoming

Notes

For archival purposes,while the French transcript of part one and two were prepared as indicated for Paris 8, the third part of this session was prepared for the first time in April 2020 for this site. The augmented version of the complete transcription with time stamp was completed in October 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: June 4, 1985
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Reading Date: June 18, 1985
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