DOI: 10.4231/wmzm-2a58
title: Cinema, Truth, and Time: The Falsifier: Lecture 2, 22 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 2, 22 November 1983, after reviewing material developed in the previous session, Deleuze justifies the crystalline formations in contrast to organic forms by drawing from Bergson&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;Matter and Memory&lt;/em&gt;, then links crystalline formations to &ldquo;descriptions&rdquo; through Robbe-Grillet&#39;s comments on &ldquo;Last Year in Marienbad&rdquo;, particularly his theories of description and narration. Developing a distinction between &ldquo;organic description&rdquo; and &ldquo;crystalline description&rdquo;, Deleuze adds &ldquo;the falsifier&rdquo; as the creator of the crystal-image or crystalline formation, a first definition that he then examines within cinema (Robbe-Grillet, Fellini, Godard). Concluding that this creation leads to &ldquo;voyance&rdquo; (illuminated vision) and thus to power of the false, Deleuze suggests that the falsifier author inserts himself within the crystalline formation and, in fact, (second definition) exists not in the singular, but in a multiplicity, a chain of falsifiers. Then starting &ldquo;applications&rdquo;, that is, examples of the falsifier and powers of the false in description and narration, Deleuze considers Melville&rsquo;s &lt;em&gt;The Confidence-Man, &lt;/em&gt;then powers of the false in Welles, Robbe-Grillet and Resnais, and in certain directors of Third World cinema. Deleuze thereby prepares the important encounter between the problem of time and powers of the false, insofar as the powers of the false overlap with filmmakers of the direct time-image.&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: neither the 3 parts of the recording, nor the aggregate recording corresponds to the session transcribed and translated here: part 1 of this recording corresponds to the beginning of the following session, 29 November 1983; part 2 of this recording is actually its first part; part 3 of this recording correctly corresponds to part 3, meaning that the entirety of part 2 is missing, approx. 60&quot;. The transcription and the translation follow the YouTube recording posted by WebDeleuze which correctly presents the second session] [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&#39;&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 s&eacute;ance 2, le 22 novembre 1983, apr&egrave;s avoir repris les points d&eacute;velopp&eacute;s dans la s&eacute;ance pr&eacute;c&eacute;dente, Deleuze justifie les formations cristallines par opposition aux formes organiques en s&#39;appuyant sur &lt;em&gt;Mati&egrave;re et m&eacute;moire&lt;/em&gt; de Bergson, puis relie les formations cristallines aux &laquo; descriptions &raquo; &agrave; travers les commentaires de Robbe-Grillet sur &laquo; L&#39;Ann&eacute;e derni&egrave;re &agrave; Marienbad &raquo;, en particulier ses th&eacute;ories de la description et de la narration. Deleuze ajoute &laquo; le faussaire &raquo; comme cr&eacute;ateur de l&#39;image cristalline ou de la formation cristalline et sugg&egrave;re que l&#39;auteur faussaire s&#39;ins&egrave;re dans la formation cristalline et, de fait, (seconde d&eacute;finition) existe non pas au singulier, mais dans une multiplicit&eacute;, une cha&icirc;ne de falsificateurs. Puis, Deleuze consid&egrave;re &lt;em&gt;The Confidence Man&lt;/em&gt; de Melville, puis les pouvoirs du faux chez Welles, Robbe-Grillet et Resnais, et chez certains r&eacute;alisateurs du cin&eacute;ma du tiers-monde.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 22 November 1983. This is lecture 2 of a 22-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1983 and June 1984.