DOI: 10.4231/vzty-vx66
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 15, 22 March 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;Having distinguished two aspects of time in the previous session, Deleuze considers movement in its extension in order to draw from it two complementary yet distinct indirect images of time. Deleuze turns to the concept of mathematical sublime in Kant&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;Critique of Judgment&lt;/em&gt;, particularly to the measure as disproportionate (&lt;em&gt;d&eacute;mesur&eacute;&lt;/em&gt;), to link forms of evaluation to the two aspects of time. Then, returning to the cinema framework, Deleuze discusses the Cartesianism of the pre-World War II French school of cinema (Gance, L&rsquo;Herbier, Epstein, Gr&eacute;millon, Vigo), particularly the efforts to derive the figures of the indirect time-image. After exploring how aspects of these figures manifest in works by different artists (the Delaunays, Fernand L&eacute;ger, Olivier Messiaen, Paul Klee) and directors (Gance, L&rsquo;Herbier), Deleuze introduces the complementary topic, the study of intensive movement, with Medieval distinctions between three types of cause (transitive, emanative, and immanent) as causes of God. Based on this rapid review, he speculates on what might be the corresponding figures of the order of time, and to trace this perspective&rsquo;s foundations, Deleuze introduces (for the next class) the work of Jakob B&ouml;hme and underscores its direct influence on German Romanticism and his eventual influence on cinema.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes: the complete French transcription and English translation in Open Document (odt) format, and the original Paris 8 French transcript. The mp3 for this session is currently unavailable.&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 distingu&eacute; deux aspects du temps dans la s&eacute;ance pr&eacute;c&eacute;dente, Deleuze consid&egrave;re le mouvement dans son extension afin d&rsquo;en tirer deux images indirectes du temps compl&eacute;mentaires mais distinctes. Deleuze se tourne vers le concept de sublime math&eacute;matique dans la &lt;em&gt;Critique du jugement&lt;/em&gt; de Kant, en particulier vers la mesure comme d&eacute;mesur&eacute;e, pour relier les formes d&rsquo;&eacute;valuation aux deux aspects du temps. Puis, revenant au cadre cin&eacute;matographique, Deleuze parle du cart&eacute;sianisme de l&rsquo;&eacute;cole fran&ccedil;aise de cin&eacute;ma d&rsquo;avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale (Gance, L&rsquo;Herbier, Epstein, Gr&eacute;millon, Vigo), en particulier des efforts pour d&eacute;river les figures de l&rsquo;image indirecte du temps. Apr&egrave;s avoir explor&eacute; comment des aspects de ces figures se manifestent dans les &oelig;uvres de diff&eacute;rents artistes (les Delaunay, Fernand L&eacute;ger, Olivier Messiaen, Paul Klee) et r&eacute;alisateurs (Gance, L&rsquo;Herbier), Deleuze introduit le th&egrave;me compl&eacute;mentaire, l&rsquo;&eacute;tude du mouvement intensif, avec les distinctions m&eacute;di&eacute;vales entre trois types de causes (transitives, &eacute;manatives et immanentes) comme causes de Dieu. &Agrave; partir de ce rapide survol, il consid&egrave;re ce que pourraient &ecirc;tre les figures correspondantes de l&rsquo;ordre du temps, et pour retracer les fondements de cette perspective, Deleuze introduit (pour la prochaine s&eacute;ance) l&rsquo;&oelig;uvre de Jakob B&ouml;hme et souligne son influence directe sur le romantisme allemand et son influence &eacute;ventuelle sur le cin&eacute;ma.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 22 March 1983. This is lecture 15 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.