Tag Archives: Movement-Image

The Practicality of Deleuze’s Philosophy of Film

This week I was introduced to the work of French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze. The extracts from his books Cinema 1 and 2 philosophise concepts of movement-image and time-image. They were the most complex and perplexing theory this undergraduate film student has come across. Consider the following extract from Cinema 1:

The frame is therefore sometimes conceived of as a spatial composition of parallels and diagonals, the constitution of a receptacle such that the blocs [masses] and the lines of the image which come to occupy it will find an equilibrium and their movements will find an invariant (Deleuze 1986, p. 13).

It is perhaps not surprising Deleuze’s theories have gained a reputation for being notoriously difficult to comprehend. Following is a more approachable explanation of Deleuze’s ideas, yet it still demonstrates the inherent complexity of his concepts [warning: contains nudity]:

In summary, (I think) it all ends up meaning something like this:

  • movement-image = canonical/classical film era narrative that evokes a more ‘humanist’/positive emotional flow
  • time-image = postmodern/fragmented film era narrative (from WWII/Italian Neo-Realism onwards) that evokes a more ‘disenfranchised’/negative emotional flow

However, the question remains of what point, what real-world practical use, this type of impenetrable philosophical musing proposes. I am very interested in, and open to, all kinds of film theory from psychoanalytical ‘Grand Theory’ to newer cognitivist approaches. But, this kind of overtly scientific, physics-like approach to film and art leaves me a little cold and confused.


Reference Sources

Dr Robert Sinnerbrink 2013, ‘Gilles Deleuze Philosophy of Film’, Lectures 12, 13, and 13a to third-year students, PHI350, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Gilles Deleuze 1986, ‘Frame and Shot, Framing and Cutting’ in Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-image, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis pp. 12-28.

Gilles Deleuze 1989, ‘Recapitulation of Images and Signs’ in Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-image, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 34-43.