DOI: 10.4231/agxk-wz39
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 8, 18 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;Continuing with another &ldquo;blackboard session&rdquo; and developing the table of images and signs, Deleuze starts a precise recap as possible of the five-fold organization table outlined so far. the perception-image as Zeroness; the affection-image as Firstness; the impulse-image as the intermediate passage from 1 to 2; the action-image as Secondness; the mental image as Thirdness, which creates a passage toward something else rather than closing off the aggregate. Then, distinguishing between action-image and impulse-image, Deleuze explores different facets of artistic Naturalism as distinct from Realism, insisting that the impulse is an energy that grasps hold of pieces as in forms of cinema of terror, but also in the literary Naturalism of Zola. After a lengthy development, Deleuze derives for the impulse-image the sign of composition (fetish) and sign of genesis (symptom), and then turns to the signs of the action-image, with its exemplary model in American film prior to World War II, designating the signs of composition (the synsign or englobing, and binomial), but holding off on the sign of genesis until the next session, as well as the action-image&rsquo;s relation to historical films.&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;Poursuivant avec une autre &laquo; s&eacute;ance &agrave; la craie &raquo; et d&eacute;veloppant le tableau des images et des signes, Deleuze commence une r&eacute;capitulation aussi pr&eacute;cise que possible du tableau d&rsquo;organisation en cinq volets esquiss&eacute; jusqu&rsquo;ici : l&rsquo;image-perception comme Z&eacute;roit&eacute; ; l&rsquo;image-affection comme Prim&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; ; l&rsquo;image-pulsion comme passage interm&eacute;diaire de 1 &agrave; 2 ; l&rsquo;image-action comme Second&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; ; l&rsquo;image mentale comme Tierc&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute;, qui cr&eacute;e un passage vers quelque chose d&rsquo;autre plut&ocirc;t que de fermer l&rsquo;agr&eacute;gat. Puis, distinguant entre image-action et image-pulsion, Deleuze explore diff&eacute;rentes facettes du naturalisme artistique par rapport au r&eacute;alisme, insistant sur le fait que la pulsion est une &eacute;nergie qui saisit des pi&egrave;ces comme dans les formes de cin&eacute;ma de terreur, mais aussi dans le Naturalisme litt&eacute;raire de Zola. Apr&egrave;s un long d&eacute;veloppement, Deleuze d&eacute;rive pour l&rsquo;image-pulsion le signe de composition (f&eacute;tiche) et le signe de gen&egrave;se (sympt&ocirc;me), puis se tourne vers les signes de l&rsquo;image-action, avec comme mod&egrave;le exemplaire le cin&eacute;ma am&eacute;ricain d&rsquo;avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, d&eacute;signant les signes de composition (le synsigne ou englobant, et le bin&ocirc;me), mais r&eacute;servant le signe de gen&egrave;se &agrave; la s&eacute;ance suivante, ainsi que la relation de l&rsquo;image-action aux films historiques.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 18 January 1983. This is lecture 8 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.