DOI: 10.4231/rskb-zh83
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 7, 11 January 1983

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Deleuze Seminars&lt;/em&gt; is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&ldquo;Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time&rdquo; was a 23-lecture seminar given from November 1982 to June 1983. This seminar revisits many of the main themes from the previous year&rsquo;s seminar (&quot;Cinema 1: The Movement-Image&quot;), and Deleuze commences the year by explaining that whereas he usually changes topics from one year to the next, he feels compelled to continue with the current topic and, in fact, to undertake a process of &ldquo;philosophy in the manner of cows, rumination&hellip; I want entirely and truly to repeat myself, to start over by repeating myself.&rdquo; Hence, the 1982-83 Seminar consists in once again taking up Bergson&rsquo;s theses on perception, but now with greater emphasis on the aspects of classification of images and signs drawn from C.S. Peirce. This allows Deleuze to continue the shift from considering the movement-image, that dominated early 20th century cinema, toward a greater understanding of the post-World War II emphasis on the time-image.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Calling this return to his analysis of Peirce&rsquo;s three categories and the nine classes of signs a &ldquo;blackboard session&rdquo; (hence, numerous gaps in the recording), Deleuze lays out the links between the categories and previously identified images. With at least two signs of composition (with two poles) per image, this proliferation of four signs per image type serves to expand an open list of approximately twenty types of signs. Referring to Beckett&rsquo;s &ldquo;Film&rdquo; and Pasolini&rsquo;s cinema theory, Deleuze proposes signs for the perception-image (as the category of Zeroness); then for the affection-image (as the category of Firstness, of the face and faciality). With this image&rsquo;s sign of composition defined, the recording stops before Deleuze can address the sign of genesis (although in the previous session, Deleuze ad proposed two kinds of &ldquo;qualisign&rdquo;). While the session ends, in fact, with a one-minute fragment that actually corresponds to the first part of session 6, listeners and readers of session 8  must rely on Deleuze&rsquo;s usual recap in the next session for any lost final details.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes an aggregate version of the audio recordings into a single mp3, the complete French transcription and English translation in Open Document (odt) format, and the original Paris 8 French transcript.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Les S&eacute;minaires de Deleuze&lt;/em&gt; sont une collection d&#39;enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents compl&eacute;mentaires des conf&eacute;rences que le philosophe fran&ccedil;ais Gilles Deleuze a donn&eacute; lors de sa carri&egrave;re &agrave; l&#39;Universit&eacute; de Paris 8.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&laquo; Cin&eacute;ma: de la classification des signes et le temps &raquo; a &eacute;t&eacute; un s&eacute;minaire de 23 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; de novembre 1982 &agrave; juin 1983. Ce s&eacute;minaire a repris certains des th&egrave;mes principaux du s&eacute;minaire de l&#39;ann&eacute;e pr&eacute;c&eacute;dente (&laquo; L&rsquo;image-mouvement, Leҫons bergsoniennes sur le cin&eacute;ma &raquo;), et en offre d&#39;autres consid&eacute;rations. Dans ces conf&eacute;rences, Deleuze examine le cin&eacute;ma et la philosophie bergsonienne vis-&agrave;-vis d&#39;une gamme de philosophes, des modernes aux existentialistes. Deleuze discute &eacute;galement de nombreux artistes et &eacute;crivains qui apparaissent dans les autres s&eacute;minaires sue le cin&eacute;ma.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;En qualifiant de &laquo; s&eacute;ance &agrave; la craie &raquo; ce retour &agrave; son analyse des trois cat&eacute;gories de Peirce et des neuf classes de signes (d&rsquo;o&ugrave; les nombreuses lacunes de l&rsquo;enregistrement), Deleuze expose les liens entre les cat&eacute;gories et les images pr&eacute;c&eacute;demment identifi&eacute;es. Avec au moins deux signes de composition (avec deux p&ocirc;les) par image, cette prolif&eacute;ration de quatre signes par type d&rsquo;image sert &agrave; &eacute;tendre une liste ouverte d&rsquo;une vingtaine de types de signes. Se r&eacute;f&eacute;rant au &laquo; Film &raquo; de Beckett et &agrave; la th&eacute;orie du cin&eacute;ma de Pasolini, Deleuze propose des signes pour l&rsquo;image-perception (comme cat&eacute;gorie de la Z&eacute;roit&eacute;) ; puis pour l&rsquo;image-affection (comme cat&eacute;gorie de la Prim&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute;, du visage et de la visag&eacute;it&eacute;). Le signe de composition de cette image &eacute;tant d&eacute;fini, l&rsquo;enregistrement s&rsquo;arr&ecirc;te avant que Deleuze puisse aborder le signe de la gen&egrave;se (bien que dans la s&eacute;ance pr&eacute;c&eacute;dente, Deleuze ait propos&eacute; deux sortes de &laquo; qualisignes &raquo;). Alors que la s&eacute;ance se termine, en fait, par un fragment d&rsquo;une minute qui correspond en r&eacute;alit&eacute; &agrave; la premi&egrave;re partie de la s&eacute;ance 6, les auditeurs et lecteurs de la s&eacute;ance 8 doivent se fier au r&eacute;capitulatif habituel de Deleuze pour les d&eacute;tails perdus &agrave; la fin de la s&eacute;ance 7.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 11 January 1983. This is lecture 7 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.