DOI: 10.4231/z31g-x534
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 6, 21 December 1982

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;In this session, with the previous outline of Peirce&rsquo;s categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness fully linked to types of images, Deleuze now reflects on how an image becomes a sign. Following Peirce&rsquo;s terminology of the sign &ndash; &ldquo;represantamen&rdquo;, object, interpretant &ndash; linked to the three categories, Deleuze specifies nine classes of signs. Deleuze then enhances Peirce&rsquo;s categories, particularly regarding Thirdness and adds a &ldquo;zero degree&rdquo; (Zeroness) or the perception-image, with Firstness then linked to the affection-image, Secondness to the action-image, and Thirdness to be determined. After deriving successive definitions of the sign, Deleuze offers several examples, first in light of the quality or power within the affection-image as regards faciality, and he undertakes a parallel list of signs as a sign of composition of the affection-image. In terms of the face&rsquo;s two poles, Deleuze multiplies this list into facializing contour and the aggregate of discontinuous features (hence &ldquo;contour icons&rdquo; and &ldquo;feature icons&rdquo;), and as signs of genesis, he identifies the any-space-whatever (&lt;i&gt;espace quelconque&lt;/i&gt;), with two types as well (&ldquo;qualisign of deconnection&rdquo;, &ldquo;qualisign of vacuity&rdquo;). The session (and year) ends with the new graph&rsquo;s outline, to be taken up following Christmas break.&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;Apr&egrave;s avoir expos&eacute; les cat&eacute;gories de Peirce de Prim&eacute;it&eacute;, Second&eacute;it&eacute; et Tierc&eacute;it&eacute; pleinement li&eacute;es aux types d&rsquo;images, Deleuze consid&egrave;re maintenant la mani&egrave;re dont une image devient un signe. En suivant la terminologie de Peirce du signe &ndash; &laquo; represantamen &raquo;, objet, interpr&eacute;tant &ndash; li&eacute;e aux trois cat&eacute;gories, Deleuze sp&eacute;cifie neuf classes de signes. Deleuze enrichit ensuite les cat&eacute;gories de Peirce, en particulier en ce qui concerne la Tierc&eacute;it&eacute; et ajoute un &laquo; degr&eacute; z&eacute;ro &raquo; (Z&eacute;ro&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute;) ou l&rsquo;image-perception, la Prim&eacute;it&eacute; &eacute;tant alors li&eacute;e &agrave; l&rsquo;image-affection, la Second&eacute;it&eacute; &agrave; l&rsquo;image-action et la Tierc&eacute;it&eacute; &agrave; &ecirc;tre d&eacute;termin&eacute;e. Apr&egrave;s avoir d&eacute;riv&eacute; des d&eacute;finitions successives du signe, Deleuze offre plusieurs exemples, d&rsquo;abord &agrave; la lumi&egrave;re de la qualit&eacute; ou du pouvoir au sein de l&rsquo;image-affection en ce qui concerne la visag&eacute;it&eacute; ; puis il entreprend une liste parall&egrave;le de signes comme signe de composition de l&rsquo;image-affection. En termes de deux p&ocirc;les du visage, Deleuze multiplie cette liste en contour de visag&eacute;it&eacute; et en agr&eacute;gat de traits discontinus. Comme signes de gen&egrave;se, il identifie l&rsquo;espace quelconque, avec deux types &eacute;galement. La s&eacute;ance (et l&rsquo;ann&eacute;e) se termine avec l&rsquo;&eacute;bauche d&rsquo;un nouveau dessein, &agrave; reprendre apr&egrave;s les vacances de No&euml;l.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 21 December 1982. This is lecture 6 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.