DOI: 10.4231/5a5x-5084
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 2, 23 November 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;As a relaunch session for this seminar (following an unexplained three-week break), Deleuze outlines several related themes (problems of movement and time; light and its relations with shadow as revealed in Goethe&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;Theory of Colors&lt;/em&gt;), with particular emphases on the concepts of &ldquo;innovation&rdquo; and modernity (cf. Charles P&eacute;guy&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;Clio&lt;/em&gt;) and on a general classification of images signs (cf. C.S. Peirce). Deleuze also summarizes three global research directions, and then proceeds through a careful genesis of the movement-image and its universal variation (as developed in chapter 5 of &lt;em&gt;The Movement-Image&lt;/em&gt;), linking these effects briefly to Beckett&rsquo;s &ldquo;Film&rdquo; and to the experimental cinema of Michael Snow. Deleuze then returns to different facets of light, detailing particularly the Bergson-Einstein confrontation on relativity, and proposes to continue considering the movement-image system in terms of light in the following class.&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;Afin de relancer ce s&eacute;minaire (apr&egrave;s une pause inexpliqu&eacute;e de trois semaines), Deleuze esquisse plusieurs th&egrave;mes li&eacute;s (probl&egrave;mes du mouvement et du temps ; lumi&egrave;re et ses relations avec l&rsquo;ombre telles que r&eacute;v&eacute;l&eacute;es dans la th&eacute;orie des couleurs de Goethe), en mettant l&rsquo;accent sur les concepts d&rsquo;&laquo; innovation &raquo; et de modernit&eacute; (cf. &lt;em&gt;Clio&lt;/em&gt; de Charles P&eacute;guy) et sur une classification g&eacute;n&eacute;rale des images-signes (cf. C.S. Peirce). Deleuze r&eacute;sume &eacute;galement trois directions de recherche globales, puis proc&egrave;de &agrave; une gen&egrave;se minutieuse de l&rsquo;image-mouvement et de sa variation universelle (telle que d&eacute;velopp&eacute;e dans le chapitre 5 de &lt;em&gt;L&rsquo;Image-mouvement&lt;/em&gt;), en reliant bri&egrave;vement ces aspects au &laquo; Film &raquo; de Beckett et au cin&eacute;ma exp&eacute;rimental de Michael Snow. Deleuze revient ensuite sur diff&eacute;rentes facettes de la lumi&egrave;re, en d&eacute;taillant notamment la confrontation Bergson-Einstein sur la relativit&eacute;, et propose de continuer &agrave; consid&eacute;rer le syst&egrave;me image-mouvement en termes de lumi&egrave;re dans la s&eacute;ance suivante.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 23 November 1982. This is lecture 2 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.