DOI: 10.4231/j776-2264
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 17, 19 April 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;After a quick recap, Deleuze develops the time-image, recalling the movement-image&rsquo;s composition as extensive movement and intensive movement, the movement-image as light-movement, eliciting another kind of indirect image of time, movement as intensity. Deleuze then recounts &ldquo;adventure tales&rdquo;, first of intensity, then of light-image&rsquo;s intimacy with the soul, shifts that produce successive steps: light&rsquo;s invisible diffusion as &ldquo;Gr&uuml;nd&rdquo; or foundation; the cause of light&rsquo;s visibility from beyond this foundation, an &ldquo;Ur Gr&uuml;nd&rdquo; (linked by Deleuze to the neo-Platonists and to Jakob B&ouml;hme); light&rsquo;s first condition for manifestation, the &ldquo;Ab Gr&uuml;nd&rdquo;, separated from its foundation; a point of equilibrium that marks a point of opacity, darkness and light in balance, an &ldquo;Un Gr&uuml;nd&rdquo;. Deleuze traces of successive traits of the &ldquo;appearance&rdquo; of light and form: striations (cf. German film Expressionism); degrees of chiaroscuro (cf. Murnau); degrees of &ldquo;contour&rdquo;; and color&rsquo;s appearance inseparable from intensity as light. Referring to successive colors and mixtures that slowly emerge from black-white, Deleuze traces the stage of the spirit of evil insofar as it expresses God&rsquo;s anger, through colors&rsquo; intensification, saturation and attenuation. Through this emergence, Deleuze shows (with Goethe) how color transforming into purple exceeds and burns nature, expressing God&rsquo;s anger and suggests that this infinite working within the finite is the intensified &ldquo;instant&rdquo;, with a final step (the equivalency of red and the dynamic sublime) to be considered next.&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 une rapide r&eacute;capitulation, Deleuze d&eacute;veloppe l&rsquo;image-temps, rappelant la composition de l&rsquo;image-mouvement comme mouvement extensif et mouvement intensif, l&rsquo;image-mouvement comme mouvement-lumi&egrave;re, suscitant une autre sorte d&rsquo;image indirecte du temps, le mouvement comme intensit&eacute;. Deleuze raconte ensuite des &laquo; r&eacute;cits d&rsquo;aventures &raquo;, d&rsquo;abord d&rsquo;intensit&eacute;, puis d&rsquo;intimit&eacute; de l&rsquo;image-lumi&egrave;re avec l&rsquo;&acirc;me, des glissements qui produisent des &eacute;tapes successives. Deleuze trace des traits successifs de &laquo; l&rsquo;apparition &raquo; de la lumi&egrave;re et de la forme : stries (cf. l&rsquo;expressionnisme cin&eacute;matographique allemand) ; degr&eacute;s de clair-obscur (cf. Murnau) ; degr&eacute;s de &laquo; contour &raquo; ; et apparition de la couleur ins&eacute;parable de l&rsquo;intensit&eacute; comme lumi&egrave;re. Se r&eacute;f&eacute;rant aux couleurs successives et aux m&eacute;langes qui &eacute;mergent lentement du noir et du blanc, Deleuze retrace le stade de l&rsquo;esprit du mal dans la mesure o&ugrave; il exprime la col&egrave;re de Dieu, &agrave; travers l&rsquo;intensification, la saturation et l&rsquo;att&eacute;nuation des couleurs. &Agrave; travers cette &eacute;mergence, Deleuze montre (avec Goethe) comment la couleur se transformant en violet d&eacute;passe et br&ucirc;le la nature, exprimant la col&egrave;re de Dieu et sugg&egrave;re que ce travail infini dans le fini est l&rsquo;&laquo; instant &raquo; intensifi&eacute;, avec une &eacute;tape finale (l&rsquo;&eacute;quivalence du rouge et du sublime dynamique) &agrave; consid&eacute;rer ensuite&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 19 April 1983. This is lecture 17 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.