Deleuze: Thought and Cinema - Reactions

Thought and Cinema is a very dense and meticulous chapter to cover. I may have to come back and do multiple revisions to this post to do it justice, but I'll go ahead with what I take to be Deleuze's main effort throughout each section.

In section 1, I believe that Deleuze is illustrating the nature of thought in conjunction with the movement image, using the early film directors as evidence of developing an approach to cinema as a type of thought itself. Automatic movement, for Deleuze, produces a shock, a stimulus that forces or compels us to think. The spiritual automaton is key here because it demonstrates that, under the movement image, we both react to and think about its contents. "The spiritual automaton no longer designates  - as it does in classical philosophy - the logical or abstract possibility of formally deducing thoughts from each other, but the circuit into which they enter with the movement image, the shared power of what forces thinking and what thinks under the shock."

So, we are doing some type of thinking when we perceive moving images. Deleuze argues that early film directors embraced this type of view in regards to the shock effect of cinema. His lengthy treatment of Eisenstein is perhaps meant to capture that director's main conception of cinema and montage: as the linkage of conflicting units which force us to think a whole. So, image A and image B are related into montage, and the viewer is left to think about what they make as a whole. What is the end production of image A and image B when edited together? Thus, Deleuze argues that Eisenstein's whole view was that cinematic images are a kind of primitive thinking that is hooked into our internal, subconscious drives. "The view that the cinematographic image proceeds through figures, and reconstitutes a kind of primitive thought, is to be found in many authors, notably Epstein."

Deleuze later argues that this type of scheme forms a circuit which is how thought functions when watching images (p. 161 in particular is a good summary). All these different movements between image, thought, and back to the image, according to Deleuze, point towards the unity or relation of man with the world. I'm a bit confused as to how, but if I had to guess, it would be to the extent that the sensory motor scheme (which governs the action image) is heavily related to how we perceive things actually in reality. The movement image presents us with movement that we can interpolate into our own phenomenological existence; its similarity to how we actually move and perceive objects in the real world seems to forge a link between ourselves and how things actually are in the world.

Deleuze ends up concluding that the movement image produces three relations to thought: (1) a relation to a specific whole (which, I would argue is the specific end goal or outcome of a screened scenario, or the product of the editing together or multiple images), (2) a specific subconscious thought that happens in unfolding of images (which thus limits our thought because it is still confined to the images, not to the outside or original sources), and (3) the link between world and man, nature and thought. Deleuze's main goal in section one would seem to be the treatment of thought in the context of the movement image. Important distinctions might be that, at its core, the movement image traps thought within the image itself.


In section 2, I think the link between Deleuze and Benjamin is almost nearly confirmed. He begins by treating the politics of the movement film, concluding that it is marked by quantitative mediocrity and fascism of production (Benjamin, word for word almost). The dilemma in this section is thus: how can we conceive of a new way of thinking through cinema if moving images render us like zombies and can be used for purposes of propaganda? It would seem like film is better at conditioning us than inspiring us to think.

Deleuze's solution, ironically, lies within his analysis of Artaud and his opposition to the views of Eisenstein (according to Deleuze). On p. 166, Deleuze's analysis of Artaud would seem to conclude like this: Artaud has a reactionary view of thought, in that, thought is always about whatever stimulus it encounters. It's this powerlessness that defines Artaud's view and promotes the cinema as the theft of ideas. Deleuze argues that Artaud only believes in cinema to the extent that it advances or makes known our powerlessness of thought. In many ways, this viewpoint degenerates into the same concern that Benjamin has concerning film and moving images: that we cannot contemplate them once they are in motion (the same quote by Duhamel is even used).

What happens, according to Deleuze, is that Artaud is in stark opposition to Eisenstein. If Eisenstein posited cinema as an apparatus in which we can contemplate the whole of moving images or relate them to our internal monologues, then Artaud has completely overturned this position. "It is the totality of cinema-thought relations that Artaud overturns."

I think that Deleuze is using Artaud specifically to focus on how the powerlessness of thought is really a productive phenomenon. In the next parts, he questions how this is all relevant to film, arguing that film has as its essence thought. Thought becomes the higher purpose of (good) cinema. He uses Schefer to argue that the suspension of the world in cinema marks the time when the inadequacy of the movement image shows itself. Page 169 in particular chronicles the switch to the time image.

Deleuze's radical conclusion is that cinema is inherently invested in the world because it can provide reasons to believe in the link between man and world, man and nature. The powerlessness of thought, according to him, is itself a part of thought that should be cultivated. He argues this because cinema seems to be in a relationship with belief (it is very Catholic, according to Deleuze). We may have lost our faith in the world, but cinema is where we can restore it. Using Godard, he argues that the world begins to look like a bad film to us. The linkage to it that was so assured in the movement image has to be re-thought in new terms in order for us to believe in the world again. Deleuze concludes by saying, "We need an ethic or a faith, which makes fools laugh; it is not a need to believe in something else, but a need to believe in this world, of which fools are a part."

I think that section 2 is ultimately concerned with the transition to the time image and how it can affect thought and our view of the world. In my paper I argued that social forces come to show that the movement image can no longer address the problems of reality, to which the time image can respond. Perhaps this is what Deleuze is hinting at. He states that we need to believe in the world, and cinema (when not constrained to the action image) might be able to express different modes of belief, different ways of viewing man and the world that heretofore have not been considered.

I feel lost and adrift in section 3, mainly because Deleuze uses some really abstract terminology. I gather his basic premise, I think. There seems to be a certain Kierkegaardian notion of faith involved in film, and the idea that film provides us with different modes of existence through choice that can reinforce our belief in the world. "This is a cinema of modes of existence, of confrontation of these modes, and of their relation to an outside on which both the world and the ego depend."

On page 180, Deleuze seems to argue that the main power of the time image is in its breaking out of the linkage of images, going beyond the movement image and the teleologically driven scenario present in action image film. His conclusion is that the three relationships to thought from the movement image are radically reversed and we are left with belief in the world.

I'll admit, I'm a bit unclear on section three and I was hoping we could wade through it more systematically so I can understand all of Deleuze's arguments. I lack the technical language like Deleuze, but from what I can tell, this chapter is concerned with the transition to time image cinema and how it affects our thought. If we accept his arguments, than the way Deleuze's films do philosophy is by their being interested in belief and the world. Film is an extension of our beliefs about man and the world, which, in some sense, philosophy tries to accomplish as well. So, I suppose I would agree with Sinnerbrink's conclusion that Deleuze's film is a response to nihilism. I'm just unclear with all the sub-arguments beneath that distinction.

I'm glad that I read this section because I feel more comfortable in asserting the link between Benjamin and Deleuze. Both now seem to share the same viewpoint: the action image robs us of creative thought. It is thought in response to stimuli, but the thought is forced and unoriginal. The time image frees thought and provides what Deleuze calls "free indirect discourse and vision."

I wonder what Deleuze would think about La Jetee?

Thoughts About Stalker

So, I've finally been able to finish Stalker in it's entirety. What an impressive film if not philosophically, than certainly visually. Besides containing some pretty striking imagery, Tarkovsky manages to move the camera and frame his characters in really exciting ways. Watching this reminded me of how formulaic and predictable modern cinema (especially American) has become. Stalker not only made me actively engage with it, it forced me to think about what was going on. Perhaps this is part of the reason why some people cannot make it through the film. It certainly plods along at certain times and the pacing is generally slow, but the reward is that we're presented with a rich philosophical puzzle at the end that begs probing. Not to be of the analytic puzzle film tradition, but this certainly lends itself to inspection.

We discussed many of the things that others see in Stalker. How the characters represent stark archetypes of Soviet life. The writer as the positivistic entity. The scientist as the mystic and superstitious one. What I think really stands out as the hallmark feature of the film is the religious motifs. At the very end when they reach the thresh hold of the room, the writer briefly dons a crown of thorns, perhaps suggesting that his immanent crucifixion is upon him. What is he being punished for? His lack of faith in the zone? It seems to me that the Stalker himself would be a better fit for the crown. He is very much like the Jesus figure in the story, leading his disciples through the zone and ultimately failing to deliver them into hopefulness. At the end, he curses his life's quest that he continues to take people into the zone. He declares that everyone, writers and scientists, have lost their faith and refuse to indulge in hope. They don't need the zone because they can live and continue to exist despite their wretched conditions. Is the Stalker the Zarathustra of the story? You may recall how Nietzsche's titular character takes a certain affinity to animals. The dog follows the Stalker out of the zone and intends to stay with him, being taken in to the home. It features prominently in many of the shots of the movie. But what to make of it?

The theme of the time image plays a large part in this film. During the ending sequence when the three men sit outside the thresh hold and watch the rain falling, the camera remains still, focusing on them for nearly a minute or two. Having now seen the film, I can agree that Deleuze's intentions become much better understood through Tarkovsky. What is the memory or recollection that is linked to this time image? What are the planes of existence that it passes through?

Finally, what to make of the psychokinetic girl at the end? She pushes off the only glass that isn't full with something and it doesn't break at the bottom. Also, she's framed in color in contrast to the black and white scenes immediately preceding. She is supposedly a mutant, linked with the zone in someway, thus the color could perhaps be an allusion to her ailment. Unlike Cavell, I'm going to have to watch this one again to discern a more contestable interpretation....