DOI: 10.4231/hree-p994
title: Cinema, Truth, and Time: The Falsifier: Lecture 1, 08 November 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, Truth, and Time: The Falsifier&rdquo; was a 22-lecture seminar given from November 1983 to June 1984. This seminar, the third of four consecutive seminars Deleuze gave on cinema, shifts focus from the movement-image to the time-image. In these lectures, Deleuze continues to elaborate his theory of cinema through various theoretical and aesthetic frames including: Ancient Greek philosophy; Nietzsche&rsquo;s reconsideration of the concept of truth; principles of formal logic; literature; the time-image as crystallization; and the filmmakers he thinks are particularly influential in creating the time-image. As a precursor to the publication of Deleuze&rsquo;s second of two volumes on cinema, &lt;em&gt;Cinema 2: The Time-Image&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;Cin&eacute;ma II. L&#39;image-temps&lt;/em&gt;, 1985), this seminar is a valuable resource to researchers interested in Deleuze&rsquo;s film theory, as well as his larger philosophical oeuvre.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In session 1, 8 November 1983, Deleuze&rsquo;s introduction includes the theme, &quot;truth, time, and the falsifier&quot;, and the dual faceted approach, discussions of six texts and students&rsquo; own parallel research directions on Melville (&lt;em&gt;The Confidence Man&lt;/em&gt;); Plato (specific dialogues); Nietzsche (&lt;em&gt;Twilight of the Idols &lt;/em&gt;and &lt;em&gt;Beyond Good and Evil&lt;/em&gt;); specific filmmakers &ldquo;of the false&rdquo; (e.g. Welles, Resnais, Robbe-Grillet); crystallography and its possible relations to philosophy; and the French New Novel. Deleuze asks three global questions: What is the strange relationship between the cinematographic image and time and the falsifier? Why is the falsifier a fundamental character from the cinema perspective? And what is the special relationship between cinema and the power of the false? Deleuze then reflects on the Classical distinction between true and false, noting that even if the false has no form, it does indeed have a power of action (&lt;em&gt;puissance&lt;/em&gt;), defined as the indiscernibility of the real and the imaginary. Deleuze considers various facets of indiscernibility (cf. Robbe-Grillet &amp; Resnais&rsquo;s film &ldquo;Last Year at Marienbad&rdquo; and Robbe-Grillet&rsquo;s commentary on the film in &lt;em&gt;For a New Novel&lt;/em&gt;), quickly introducing &ldquo;the falsifier&rdquo; as the &ldquo;ideal viewer&rdquo;, the one who constructs the indiscernibility of the real and the imaginary. Considering this &ldquo;concretion&rdquo; of real and imaginary (cf. Welles&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Lady from Shanghai&rdquo;), he proposes the obverse term to &ldquo;organic&rdquo; for the true, a &ldquo;crystalline formation&rdquo;. Finally, forecasting developments to come later in the seminar, Deleuze proposes that what one glimpses within the crystal is nothing other than aspects and accents of Time. [NB: See Chapter 6 of &lt;em&gt;The Time-Image&lt;/em&gt;, &quot;The powers of the false,&quot; notably Melville, Nietzsche and Godard]&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes: the complete French transcription and English translation of the recorded lecture in Open Document Text (odt) format, the complete recording in mp3 format, and the original Paris 8 French transcript. [Please note: while the recordings on Paris 8 proceed correctly, in the proper order of the 2 parts, the session listed on WebDeleuze as the seminar&#39;s first session for Cinema III (dated there incorrectly as November 2, 1983) corresponds to the first session of the previous seminar, Cinema II (dated November 2, 1982)] [WebDeleuze was founded by Richard Pinhas -- a student in Deleuze&#39;s seminars -- who, with the Deleuze family&#39;s support, developed transcripts and translations of many of the seminars.]&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, v&eacute;rit&eacute; et temps: le faussaire&raquo; &eacute;tait un s&eacute;minaire de 22 conf&eacute;rences donn&eacute; de novembre 1983 &agrave; juin 1984. Ce s&eacute;minaire, le troisi&egrave;me des quatre s&eacute;minaires cons&eacute;cutifs que Deleuze a donn&eacute;s sur le cin&eacute;ma, met l&#39;accent sur l&rsquo;image-mouvement vers l&rsquo;image-temps. En tant que pr&eacute;curseur de la publication du deuxi&egrave;me de deux volumes de Deleuze sur le cin&eacute;ma, &lt;em&gt;Cin&eacute;ma II. L&#39;Image-temps&lt;/em&gt; (1985), ce s&eacute;minaire est une ressource pr&eacute;cieuse pour les chercheurs int&eacute;ress&eacute;s par la th&eacute;orie du film de Deleuze, ainsi que sa plus grande &oelig;uvre philosophique.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dans la premi&egrave;re s&eacute;ance, le 8 novembre 1983, Deleuze introduit le th&egrave;me &laquo; la v&eacute;rit&eacute;, le temps et le faussaire &raquo; et propose une approche &agrave; double facette, des discussions sur six textes et les recherches parall&egrave;les des &eacute;tudiants sur Melville ; Platon (dialogues sp&eacute;cifiques) ; Nietzsche (Le Cr&eacute;puscule des idoles et Au-del&agrave; du bien et du mal) ; des cin&eacute;astes sp&eacute;cifiques &laquo; du faux &raquo; (par exemple, Welles, Resnais, Robbe-Grillet) ; la cristallographie et ses relations possibles avec la philosophie ; et le Nouveau Roman fran&ccedil;ais. Apr&egrave;s avoir pos&eacute; trois questions globales, Deleuze consid&egrave;re diverses facettes de l&rsquo;indiscernabilit&eacute;, introduisant rapidement &laquo; le faussaire &raquo; comme le &laquo; spectateur id&eacute;al &raquo;. Enfin, pr&eacute;voyant les d&eacute;veloppements &agrave; venir plus tard dans le s&eacute;minaire, Deleuze propose que ce que l&rsquo;on entrevoit dans le cristal ne soit rien d&rsquo;autre que des aspects et des accents du Temps. [NB : Voir le chapitre 6 de &lt;em&gt;L&#39;Image-temps&lt;/em&gt;]&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 08 November 1983. This is lecture 1 of a 22-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1983 and June 1984.