DOI: 10.4231/5z6c-6381
title: Cinema: On the Classification of Signs and Time: Lecture 13, 08 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;&lt;span new="" roman="" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:107%;
font-family:" times=""&gt;With 21 types of signs for the movement-image (or its mirror, the light-image) in place, Deleuze responds to questions, one about the classification&rsquo;s static nature and clarifying the categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness (with reference again to the Marx Brothers), as well as offering a detailed definition of Goethe&rsquo;s theory of color. After an intervention by Georges Comtesse (on Eisenstein&rsquo;s &ldquo;montage of attraction&rdquo;), Deleuze explains the two laws of the dialectic as related to Eisenstein&rsquo;s conception of cinema. Then, Deleuze first takes up the category of mental image which opens the sensorimotor system to another kind of image altogether, then shifts the focus on the aggregate of movement-images toward montage through which, he concludes, one obtains necessarily indirect images of time (&ldquo;chronosigns&rdquo;) and necessarily indirect figures of thought (&ldquo;noosigns&rdquo;). Deleuze asks that the participants read Pascal&rsquo;s text on the wager as a way of engaging with his reflection on the indirect figures of thought. [NB: Whereas this session&rsquo;s second part in the transcripts provided both by Paris 8 and WebDeleuze actually repeats segment 2 from session 3 (November 30, 1982),our transcription is newly completed based on the session&rsquo;s recording.]&lt;/span&gt;&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;Avec 21 types de signes pour l&rsquo;image-mouvement (ou son miroir, l&rsquo;image-lumi&egrave;re) en place, Deleuze r&eacute;pond aux questions, l&rsquo;une sur la nature statique de la classification et rendre plus clair les cat&eacute;gories de Prim&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute;, Second&eacute;&iuml;t&eacute; et Tierc&eacute;it&eacute; (en se r&eacute;f&eacute;rant de nouveau aux Marx Brothers), tout en proposant une d&eacute;finition d&eacute;taill&eacute;e de la th&eacute;orie de la couleur de Goethe. Apr&egrave;s une intervention de Georges Comtesse (sur le &laquo; montage d&rsquo;attraction &raquo; d&rsquo;Eisenstein), Deleuze explique les deux lois de la dialectique en relation avec la conception eisensteinienne du cin&eacute;ma. Ensuite, Deleuze aborde d&rsquo;abord la cat&eacute;gorie d&rsquo;image mentale qui ouvre le syst&egrave;me sensorimoteur &agrave; un tout autre type d&rsquo;image. Puis il d&eacute;place le focus de l&rsquo;agr&eacute;gat d&rsquo;images-mouvement vers le montage &agrave; travers lequel, conclut-il, on obtient des images n&eacute;cessairement indirectes du temps (&laquo; chronosignes &raquo;) et des figures de pens&eacute;e n&eacute;cessairement indirectes (&laquo; noosignes &raquo;). Deleuze demande aux participants de lire le texte de Pascal sur le pari comme une fa&ccedil;on d&rsquo;engager sa r&eacute;flexion sur les figures indirectes de la pens&eacute;e.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Lecture given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze at the University of Paris 8, 08 March 1983. This is lecture 13 of a 23-lecture seminar Deleuze taught between November 1982 and June 1983.