Cinema 1: The Movement-Image

265 Pages·2001·11.77 MB·English

by  Gilles Deleuze

1
CINEMA
-+
the movement-image
translated by hugh tomlinson and
barbara habberjam
First published in France in 1983, this :iphy and
a book about cinema. For Deleuze, pl hing else;
philosophical concepts are, rather, the their
own terms. Here he puts this view of con-
cepts--<>r images-of film. Cinema. to Deleuze, is not a language that requires probing
and interpretation, a search for hidden meanings; it can be understood directly, as a
composition of images and signs, pre-verbal in nature. Thus he offers a powerful alterna
tive to the psychoanalytic and semiological approaches that have dominated film studies.
Drawing upon Henri Bergson's thesis on perception and C. S. Peirce's classification of
images and signs, Deleuze is able to put forth a new theory and caxonomy of the image,
which he then applies to concrete examples from the work of a diverse group of film
makers-Griffith, Eisenstein, Pasolini, Rohmer, Bresson, Dreyer, Stroheim, Bunuel, and
many others. Because he finds movement to be the primary characteristic of cinema in
the first half of the twentieth century, he devotes this first volume to that aspect of film.
In the years since World War II, time has come to dominate film; that shift, and the
signs and images associated with it, are addressed in Cinema 2: The Time-Image.
7he appearance of Cinema 1 is an exdting event for film study and one that
well deserves serious attention and commentary.' -FII.M OUARTERLY
_____ ,_H ____G_ i_llas_ D_e l_euze (1925-1995) was
professor of philosophy at the University
of Parts, Vincennes-SL Denis. With
Fl!l!x Guattarl, he coauthored
Anli-Dedipus, A Thousand
Plateaus, and Kalka. He
was also the author of
The Fold, Cinema 2,
Foucault, Kants Cntical
Philosophy, and Essays
Critical and CJinical. All of these
books are published in English by
the University of Minnesota Press.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS
PRINTED IN U.U.
ISBN 0-8166-1400·8
cover design bY ann elliot ert2
II 1111111111111111111111
9 780816 614004
Cinema 1 The Movement-Image

Cinema 1
The Movement-Image
Gilles Deleuze
Translated by Hugh Tomlinson
and Barbara H abberjam
I
U~iversity _of Minnesota Press
• Mmneapohs
Copyright ci 1986 The Athlone Press
First published in France by Les Editions de Minuit
as Cin6ma I. L'Image-Mouvement
Copyright Cl 1983 by Les Editions de Minuit
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290, Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http:/ /www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Sixth printing 2001
Library or Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deleuze, Gilles.
Cinema.
Translation of: Cin6ma I. L'Irnage-Mouvement
Bibliography:
Includes index.
1. Moving-pictures-Philosophy. I. Title.
PN1995.D393I3 1986 791.43'01 85-28898
ISBN 0-8166-1399-0 (v. I)
ISBN 0-8166-1400-8 (pbk.: v. 1)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity
educator and employer.
Contents
Preface to the English edition
IX
Translators' introduction
XI
Preface to the French edition
XIV
Chapter 1 Theses on movement First commentary on
Bergson
1 First thesis: movement and instant 1
2 Second thesis: privileged instants and any-instant-whatevers 3
3 Third thesis: movement and change/ the whole, the Open
or duration/ the three levels: the set and its parts:
movement I the whole and its changes 8
Chapter 2 Frame and shot, framing and cutting
The first level: frame, set or closed system I the functions of
the frame/ the out-of-field: its two aspects 12
2 The second level: shot and movement/ the two facets of the
shot: directed towards sets and their parts, directed towards
the whole and its changes/ the movement-image/ mobile
section, temporal perspective 18
3 Mobility: montage and movement of the camera / the
question of the unity of the shot (sequence-shots) I the
importance of false continuity 24
Chapter 3 Montage
1 The third level: the whole, the composition of movement
images and the indirect image of time/ the American school:
organic composition and montage in Griffith/ the two
aspects of time: the interval and the whole, the variable
present and immensity 29
2 The Soviet school: dialectical composition/ the organic and
the pathetic in Eisenstein: spiral and qualitative leap:
Pudovkin and Dovzhenko I Vertov's materialist
composition 32
3 The-pre-war French school: quantitative composition/
Rhythm and mechanics I the two aspects of the quantity of
movement: relative and absolute/ Gance and the
VI Contents
mathematical sublime/ the German Expressionist school:
intensive composition/ light and shadows (Murnau,
Lang)/ Expressionism and the dynamic sublime 40
Chapter 4 The movement-image and its three
varieties Second commentary on Bergson
1 The identity of the image and the movement/
movement-image and light-image 56
2 From the movement-image to its varieties/
perception-image, action-image, affection-image 61
3 The reverse proof: how to extinguish the three varieties
(Beckett's Film) I how the three varieties are formed 66
Chapter 5 The perception-image
1 The two poles, objective and subjective I the
'semi-subjective' or the free indirect image (Pasolini,
Rohmer) 71
2 Towards another state of perception: liquid perception/ the
role of water in the pre-war French school/ Gremillon, Vigo 76
3 Towards a gaseous perception/ content and interval
according to V ertov / the engramme / a tendency of the
experimental cinema (Landow) 80
Chapter 6 The affection-image Face and close-up
1 The two poles of the face: power and quality 87
2 Griffith and Eisenstein/ Expressionism/ lyrical
abstraction: light, white and refraction (Sternberg) 91
3 The affect as entity/ the icon/ 'Firstness' according to
Peirce I The limit of the face or nothingness: Bergman/
how to escape from it 95
Chapter 7 The affection-image Qualities, powers,
any-space-whatevers
The complex entity or the expressed / virtual conjunctions
and real connections/ the affective components of the
close-up (Bergman)/ from close-up to other shots: Dreyer ] 02
2 The spiritual affect and space in Bresson I what is an
'any-space-whatever'? 108
Contents VII
3 The construction of any-space-whatevers / shadow,
opposition and struggle in Expressionism/ the white,
alternation and the alternative in lyrical abstraction
(Sternberg, Dreyer, Bresson) I colour and absorption
(Minnelli) / the two kinds of any-space-whatevers, and
their frequency in contemporary cinema (Snow) 111
Chapter 8 From affect to action The impulse image
1 Naturalism/ originary worlds and derived milieux/
impulses and fragments, symptoms and fetishes / two great
naturalists: Stroheim and Bunuel / parasitic impulse/
entropy and the cycle 123
2 A characteristic of Bunuel' s work: power of repetition in the
image 130
3 The difficulty of being naturalist: King Vidor/ the case and
the evolution of Nicholas Ray/ the third great naturalist:
Losey I impulse to servility/ the reversal against self/ the
co-ordinates of naturalism 133
Chapter 9 The action-image The large form
1 From situation to action: 'secondness' / the encompasser
and the duel / the American Dream I the great genres: the
psycho-social film (King Vidor), the Western (Ford), the
historical film (Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille) 141
2 The laws of organic composition 151
3 The sensory-motor link / Kazan and the Actors Studio/
the impression 155
Chapter 10 The action-image The small form
1 From action to situation/ the two kinds of indices/ the
comedy of manners (Chaplin, Lubitsch) 160
2 The Western in Hawks: functionalism/ the neo-Western
and its type of space (Mann, Peckinpah) 164
3 The law of the small form and burlesque I Chaplin's
evolution: the figure of discourse I the paradox of Keaton:
the minoring and recurrent functions of the great machines 169
Chapter 11 Figures, or the trans!o rmation offo rms
1 The passage from one form to another in Eisenstein I
montage of attractions / the different types 178
VIII Contents
2 The figures of the Large and the Small in Herzog 184
3 The two spaces: the breath-Encompasser and the line of the
Universe/ breath in Kurosawa: from the situation to the
question/ lines of the Universe in Mizoguchi: from outline
to obstacle 186
Chapter 12 The crisis of the action-image
Peirce's 'thirdness' and mental relations/ the Marx
Brothers I the mental image according to Hitchcock I marks
and symbols/ how Hitchcock brings the action-image to
completion by carrying it to its limit I the crisis of the
action-image in the American cinema (Lumet, Cassavetes,
Altman) / the five characteristics of this crisis I the
loosening of the sensory-motor link 197
2 The origin of the crisis: Italian neo-realism and the French
new wave/ the critical consciousness of diche / problem of
a new conception of the image 205
3 Towards a beyond of the movement-image 211
Glossary 217
Notes 219
Index 243