Heretic Experience: Deleuze's Bergsonian Cinema
Afterimage, Feb. 1993, v. 20, no. 7, pp. 4-8
This article explores the Cinematic theories of Gilles Deleuze, while discussing the philosophical theories of Henri Bergson. Deleuze argues that Bergson's notion of the perceived object as images with a consciousness that act as a 'center - point' for all images, relate directly to the notion of the 'new-image' or 'montage'. Bergson's theories of image or movement are formulated around the notion of matter as an 'aggregate of images'. The camera for Deleuze is a conscious repetition of life through art represented by the intersection of two lines perpendicular to each other: 'one a vertical line of memory and the other a horizontal line of space'. He writes on the films of Stan Brackhage, Jordan Belson, Ken Jacobs, Jean-Luc Godard and Michael Snow as filmmakers whose images are informed by the assemblage of molecular parameters. These parameters create an imaging of a world out of synch, representing life through simple stories of people, 'real...right...and true'.
ITEM 1993.144 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
Cinema 1: The Movement-Image – Gilles Deleuze
Cinema 2: The Time-Image – Gilles Deleuze
Son + Image (1974 - 1991) – Jean-Luc Godard
The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System – Fredric Jameson
Europa '51 (The Greatest Lover) – Robert Rossellini
Joan of Arc at the Stake – Robert Rossellini
Passion (1982) – Jean-Luc Godard
Prénom Carmen – Jean-Luc Godard
Six Fois Deux – Jean-Luc Godard
Histoires(s) du cinema – Jean-Luc Godard
India Song – Marguerite Duras
Guevarism – Glauber Rocha
Nasserism – Youssef Chahine
Pour la suite du monde – Pierre Perrault
The Perfumes Nightmare – Kidlat Tahimik
Maggellan's Slace (Mermoies of Overdevelopment) – Kidlat Tahimik
Videodrome – David Cronenberg
The Manchurian Candidate – John Frankenheimer
Seven Days in May – John Frankenheimer
JFK – Oliver Stone