Cinema 2: The Time-Image

Cinema #2

by Gilles Deleuze

This text continues the major reassessment of cinema begun in Deleuze's Cinema I: The Movement Image. In this volume, Deleuze is concerned with the representation of time in film and with the cinematic treatment of memory, thought and speech.

Genres: Film, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Art, France, Essays

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Deleuze is a key figure in poststructuralist French philosophy. Considering himself an empiricist and a vitalist, his body of work, which rests upon concepts such as multiplicity, constructivism, difference and desire, stands at a substantial remove from the main traditions of 20th century Continental thought. His thought locates him as an influential figure in present-day considerations of society, creativity and subjectivity. Notably, within his metaphysics he favored a Spinozian concept of a plane of immanence with everything a mode of one substance, and thus on the same level of existence. He argued, then, that there is no good and evil, but rather only relationships which are beneficial or harmful to the particular individuals. This ethics influences his approach to society and politics, especially as he was so politically active in struggles for rights and freedoms. Later in his career he wrote some of the more infamous texts of the period, in particular, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These texts are collaborative works with the radical psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, and they exhibit Deleuze’s social and political commitment.

Gilles Deleuze began his career with a number of idiosyncratic yet rigorous historical studies of figures outside of the Continental tradition in vogue at the time. His first book, Empirisism and Subjectivity, is a study of Hume, interpreted by Deleuze to be a radical subjectivist. Deleuze became known for writing about other philosophers with new insights and different readings, interested as he was in liberating philosophical history from the hegemony of one perspective. He wrote on Spinoza, Nietzche, Kant, Leibniz and others, including literary authors and works, cinema, and art. Deleuze claimed that he did not write “about” art, literature, or cinema, but, rather, undertook philosophical “encounters” that led him to new concepts. As a constructivist, he was adamant that philosophers are creators, and that each reading of philosophy, or each philosophical encounter, ought to inspire new concepts. Additionally, according to Deleuze and his concepts of difference, there is no identity, and in repetition, nothing is ever the same. Rather, there is only difference: copies are something new, everything is constantly changing, and reality is a becoming, not a being.

He often collaborated with philosophers and artists as Félix Guattari, Michel Foucault, Guy Hocquenghem, René Schérer, Carmelo Bene, François Châtelet, Olivier Revault d'Allonnes, Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Lapassade, Kateb Yacine and many others.

Reviews

[Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is always interesting to read Deleuze because you would not only learn about what you were expecting to learn but you would also be offered further horizons that can surprise you. And this is what happens in this book. If there is anything that Deleuze provides is generally the multiplicity of thought, the ability to *see* the "virtual images" that were previously concealed and which continuously change the direction of one's thought.

[Amber Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way better than Cinema 1, this monograph looks to the time-image, which is odd and confusing but lovely. Deleuze wades through a lot of film philosophy but his interpretations--which are always interpretations, never summaries--are clear and actually easy to follow. I like how he thinks through the time-image as moment of and opening for falsification and fracture. His description of the crystalline via mirroring makes me feel silly (his language is so Deleuze-y) but is maybe my favorite description of film ever. He also always reminds the reader that there is more at stake in film philosophy than film and philosophy: the time-image becomes a way that we are and become (OF COURSE) in the world. Yes, yes, it feels pretentious but I like it. Deleuze puts his agenda on his sleeve and then he rubs the sleeve in your face; I think it is gratingly endearing and, in this book, I'm here for it.
He also just has moments of lovely reading of film like when he says of Garrel and Artaud and Godard,
"We must believe in the body, but as in the germ of life, the seed which splits open the paving-stones, which has been preserved and lives on in the holy shroud or the mummy's bandages, and which bears witness to life, in this world as it is. We needs 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" (173).

In short, my favorite Deleuze.

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Habrá que tatuarse esta cita que concluye el libro:

"Pues también la teoría es algo que se hace, no menos que su objeto. Para muchas personas, la filosofía es algo que no «se hace», sino que preexiste ya hecha en un cielo prefabricado. Sin embargo, también la teoría filosófica es una práctica, lo mismo que su objeto. La teoría filosófica no es más abstracta que su objeto. Es una práctica de los conceptos, y hay que juzgarla en función de las otras prácticas con las cuales interfiere. Una teoría del cine no es una teoría «sobre» el cine, sino sobre los conceptos que el cine suscita y que a su vez guardan relación con otros conceptos que corresponden a otras prácticas; la práctica de los conceptos en general no presenta ningún privilegio sobre las demás [...]. Los conceptos del cine no son datos preestablecidos en el cine. Y sin embargo son los conceptos del cine, no teorías sobre el cine."

[Jonathan Scruggs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe my dislike for this book is the result of a misunderstanding. Deleuze often sacrifices clarity for "novelty" of expression, so I wouldn't be surprised if I were told I'd entirely missed the point. But as I see it, this book is at once very interesting and almost totally useless. A couple of passages were almost insightful. But, by and large, I was constantly put off by the cute, unclear-because-unclarified terminology; the arbitrary examples; and fruitless references to biology, physics, and mathematics -- all apparently martialed only to prove Deleuze's erudition and philosophical originality. If you are not already a lover of Deleuze, or at least a lover of all things "Continental," I'd recommend you pass this one by.

[Marco Ortiz]

Leído capítulo 7, ojalá encuentre el momento para fundirmelo entero

[Julia M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did it!!!!!!!!!

[Raúl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un análisis detallado de las características del cine posclásico, en relación con la caída de la imagen movimiento al desaparecer como elemento homogéneo en el cine lo sensomotor en favor de la imagen y el signo, en la irrupción del tiempo en representación directa y de todas las paradojas que esto produce, la caída de la verdad, el corte irracional, etc. Un volumen más logrado que el de la imagen movimiento.

[Daninthejungle · Rating 2 out of 5]

overrated claptrap.

[Natalia Hernández Moreno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Argumentally shaper and far more conscious about movement-image and time-image dynamics regarding montage than Cinéma 1 (which is, still, amazing). Chapter six “The Powers of the False” and chapter seven “Thought and cinema” are particularly brilliant. But, overall, it may be my favorite book on film theory; precisely because of its profound questions towards film theory: “Cinema's concepts are not given in cinema. And yet they are cinema's concepts, not theories about cinema. So that there is always a time, midday-midnight, when we must no longer ask ourselves, 'What is cinema?' but 'What is philosophy?' Cinema itself is a new practice of images and signs, whose theory philosophy must produce as conceptual practice. For no technical determination, whether applied (psychoanalysis, linguistics) or reflexive, is sufficient to constitute the concepts of cinema itself.”

[Samuel Dumas · Rating 5 out of 5]

La théorie du cinéma la plus touchante, parce qu’elle parle de bien d’autres choses. Ce qui intéresse Deleuze, ce n’est pas tant le cinéma que l’image, le corps, le cerveau, la guerre. Il englobe le médium dans une série d'idées, de réflexions, pour aller vers l’essentiel, toucher au point le plus fécond, pour non pas fermer le regard et lui imposer une grille d'analyse de tels films, mais plutôt ouvrir sur un océan de sensibilités, de points d’attaque, pour s’y perdre mieux apprendre à vivre par le regard de son corps.

[Manex]

Me siento super poderoso después de haber entendido creo que gran parte de esto (las conclusiones del mismo tomo son buenísimas). No sé qué voy a hacer ahora con el cine

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first picked up The Time-Image, it wasn’t from idle curiosity or late-night philosophical indulgence—it was necessity.

I had been drafted into teaching an online film studies course, a replacement teacher navigating students, cinema, and syllabus across flickering Zoom windows. Somewhere between introducing mise-en-scène and decoding post-war aesthetics, Deleuze entered like a whirlwind—with his cryptic poetry, his brain-bending taxonomies, and his signature lack of chapter summaries.

If The Movement-Image was a primer on cinema as action and cause-effect logic, The Time-Image took a sharp, almost meditative turn. Here, the images weren’t moving to fulfill narrative progression—they were lingering, pulsing, breaking chronology. Time, in Deleuze’s world, wasn’t a backdrop; it was the protagonist. Films like Hiroshima mon amour, L’Avventura, and Mirror no longer seemed slow—they seemed necessary. Each shot, each silence, each lingering gaze was time folding in on itself.

At first, teaching Deleuze to undergrads felt like explaining quantum physics using emojis. But slowly, together, we cracked it. When a student compared The Time-Image to “a silent scream in slow motion,” I knew they had felt it. Deleuze doesn’t just describe cinema—he rewires how you see it. His distinction between the movement-image and the time-image became our framework for understanding a fractured world—post-war, post-narrative, post-simplicity.

As a teacher, I found myself transforming. I was no longer guiding students through genres and camera angles—I was asking them to think about duration, absence, memory. Why does nothing happen for three minutes in Ozu’s Tokyo Story? Suddenly, that nothingness was everything.

This wasn’t an easy read. It was, in parts, maddening. But it was also essential. The Time-Image gave me—and my students—a new vocabulary for cinema. Not popcorn cinema. Not syllabus-bound cinema. But cinema as philosophy. Cinema as rupture. Cinema as a clock that has forgotten how to tick.

Reading Deleuze, especially for teaching, felt like time-traveling through thought. Confusing? Often. Rewarding? Absolutely. It's not a book you read so much as one you walk through, slowly, in the rain—like a Tarkovsky frame that refuses to cut.

And in the end, that’s what cinema should be. Not just movement, but time made visible.

[Marye odom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nearly caused a mental breakdown in college. Of the most delightful sort. Another title I intend to reread, or to finish completely. I'm pretty sure I read chunks of this but not all of it straight through.

[Peyman Gh · Rating 5 out of 5]

جلد یکمش رو شروع کردم به ترجمه. بزودی در میآد. تا برسم به جلد دو یک سالی طول میکشه

[Lindsay Thomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"peaks of present" & "sheets of past"

[امیرمحمد حیدری · Rating 1 out of 5]

خلاصه بگویم: هدف دلوز ابداً از نوشتن این کتاب مشخص نیست. نه سینما را فرمیک بررسی می‌کند نه فلسفه‌اش را واکاوی می‌کند؛ فلذا کتاب ضعیفی‌ست که خواندنش خالی از لطف است.

[scrapespaghetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chez Antonioni, dès sa première grande œuvre, « Chronique d’un amour », l’enquête policière, au lieu de procéder par flash-back, transforme les actions en descriptions optiques et sonores, tandis que le récit lui-même se transforme en actions désarticulées dans le temps (l’épisode de la bonne qui raconte en refaisant ses gestes passés, ou bien la scène célèbre des ascenseurs)6. Et l’art d’Antonioni ne cessera de se développer dans deux directions : une étonnante exploitation des temps morts dela banalité quotidienne ; puis, à partir de « L’Éclipse », un traitement des situations-limites qui les pousse jusqu’à des paysages déshumanisés, des espaces vidés dont on dirait qu’ils ont absorbé les personnages et les actions, pour n’en garder qu’une description géophysique, un inventaire abstrait.

Déjà, dans « Chronique d’un amour », l’enquête a pour conséquence de provoquer elle-même la suite d’un premier amour, et pour effet de faire résonner deux souhaits de meurtre, au futur et au passé. Si nous sommes malades d’Eros, disait Antonioni, c’est parce qu’Eros est lui-même malade ; et il est malade non pas simplement parce qu’il est vieux ou périmé dans son contenu, mais parce qu’il est pris dans la forme pure d’un temps qui se déchire entre un passé déjà terminé et un futur sans issue. Pour Antonioni, il n’y a pas d’autre maladie que chronique, Chronos est la maladie même. C’est pourquoi les chronosignes ne sont pas séparables de lectosignes, qui nous forcent à lire dans l’image autant de symptômes, c’est-à-dire à traiter l’image optique et sonore comme quelque chose de lisible aussi. Et, ensuite, Antonioni coloriste saura traiter les variations de couleurs comme des symptômes, et la monochromie, comme le signe chronique qui gagne un monde, grâce à tout un jeu de modifications délibérées.

----
Le cinéma lui-même est une nouvelle pratique des images et des signes, dont la philosophie doit faire la théorie comme pratique conceptuelle. Car aucune détermination technique, ni appliquée (psychanalyse, linguistique), ni réflexive, ne suffit à constituer les concepts du cinéma même.

[Octavio Aragao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sim, é um livro teórico sobre cinema, mas que funciona às mil maravilhas para as HQ por destrinchar as relações entre os códigos visuais e sonoros. Sei que as HQ não têm som, mas o cinema, em sua origem, também não, e os diálogos funcionavam ali da mesma maneira como os recordatórios nas HQ: outro tipo de imagem, decodificada de maneira distinta.
Assim sendo, mesmo como base para estudar os meandros de outra área que não aquela idealizada originalmente, trata-se de um livro de leitura fluída, cujos exemplos ilustram com maestria as propostas teóricas.

[helia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering it was written in 1989, 'the cinema of memory' is remarkably apt at applying psychoanalytic theory. However it falls short in the light of recent scholarship on trauma in the post war era. Deleuze gets too hung up on the term 'flashback' as a cinematic or theatrical term, which means certain 'recollection-images' of the 50s and 60s don't get the credit and exploration they deserve. However, this is in no way a criticism of the work in its contemporary context, simply something I found myself desiring more of.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential cinema books... just be aware it's Deleuze so it's going to take time to sink in and to really hook with you. I read both of these books cover to cover years ago and honestly not much has stuck with me but when I was fully invested in that world (and writing my dissertation!) these were fascinating rubik's cube like puzzles to fall into and get lost in. Some very very unusual ways of looking at cinema that are often incredibly inspiring.

[Alexander Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there are times in which this book veers towards incomprehensible, Deleuze never loses sight of the original goal that began in the program of Cinema 1. Also I find it entirely very useful that he never precisely leaves Peircian semiotics while still maintaining an insistence on ontological moments and affect.

In a sense, this is the ultimate theoretical take on affordances of how to approach all media as a "cinema" of time exploration, expression, and design.

[Anton Løkke Laursen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Demanding, confusing, haphazardly constructed, yes. However the time-image is still a thought-provoking concept, questioning the seemingly drifting nature of modernist film art. I'm glad i finished it, I'll most likely shy away from re-reading it for the next couple of decades.

[Amanda Cavalcante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bom. é isso. acabei de conhecer o livro o qual eu vou reler dez vezes pelos próximos anos :)

[Dany · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://twitter.com/grindingthefilm/s...

[Scott Weyandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_...

From. Amy Herzog on Delueze Cinema I and II

“Deleuze's assertions in the Cinema books can be read as a call to action on two fronts. On the one hand, the distinction he draws between images that rely upon movement-images and time-images challenge artists to create works that transcend the representational, that explore the interstices between memory and perception, that approach what we might call a pure image of time, an image of thought. I would argue that Deleuze's work on cinema poses an equal challenge to those who think and write about/through film, a venture with perhaps even higher stakes. In opposing the movement- and time-images, Deleuze inadvertently constructs a structure of valuation that I find suspect (particularly when the images which he cites as most closely approaching the time-image-Godard, Passolini, etc.-coincide with those championed by elitist, modernist traditions). Yet the tools that he provides for conceiving of film beyond the confines of representation carry invaluable potential for theorists to manipulate toward their own ends.”

“This is the dark thought I have had about representation for so long; we are immersed in it and it has become inseparable from our condition. It has created a world, a cosmos even, of false problems such that we have lost our true freedom: that of invention.[17]
What Bergson and Deleuze both point to in their writings is a means of restating the question of representation, rending it open to the forces of creation and invention.
These forces are tapped into when perception, rather than isolating an image for the purposes of action, orients itself toward memory, the virtual potential of the past. "When perception is attentive," Olkowski writes, "every perception becomes an act of creation in which the perception opens as many circuits as there are memory images attracted by this new perception, making of every perception a qualitative multiplicity."[18] “

But in order to claim for philosophy what is its activity by right, the philosopher must invoke the more fundamental 'movement' of the impersonal form of time and eternal recurrence."[20] This is what leads to the distinction between the movement-image and the time-image: a qualitative difference, where what is seen, what is conveyed becomes less significant than what is not revealed, what is unknown.

[O]nly the movement-image pretends that thought can be presented directly in or by the image. Alternatively, time always divides thought from the signs that express or represent it. Through the force of the eternal return, time affirms a specific power, or rather "impower" of thought: "we are not yet thinking."[21]

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This second volume of Deleuze's 2-part series on cinema and philosophy deals with what he considers to be, following philosophical developments by 20th-century French philosopher Henri Bergson, to be the dominant trait of post-World War II cinema, the shift from the movement-image domination pre-War to the time-image domination in most post-war, and much experimental and so-called avant-garde cinema. However, he doesn't limit his assessment (in either book) to high-brow films. He has a deep appreciation for American comic films, for musicals and for the Western, so there are surprises at every turn.

For a more detailed analysis of the the chapters that constitute this book, see my thumbnail (if you have massive thumbs) sketches of each of Deleuze's seminars during 1983-4 (Cinema, Truth and Time: the Falsifier, 22 sessions) and 1984-5 (Cinema and Thought, 26 sessions) that lay out slowly, often painfully, with many zigs and zags, the chapters of this book, at deleuze.cla.purdue.edu .

[Pranaya Rana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cinema 2 encompasses almost all the trajectories of Deleuze's thought. He uses cinema as a concatenation of the various prongs of his thought, including a discussion of 'forking' time, difference and repetition, and becoming while establishing cinema firmly within our social sphere as a rhizome. Cinema 2 might not be the most accessible of the Deleuze books but if you are a cineaste and religiously follow films, then this book will provide an entrypoint into Deleuze that is much easier to follow. When he talks about Orson Welles' and the his compression of time, Alain Resnais and Robbe-Grillet's peaks of present and sheets of past, or Ozu's still life, he is talking not just about cinema but the possibilities it affords us. Especially after World War II, cinema took a turn because it couldn't function in the same way it did before. Now, many years after Deleuze's death, cinema has become much more complex, and so much more of a rhizome in our lives.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

What makes Deleuze's reading of cinema so engaging is his sketching the structural changes within classical and modern cinema, which demonstrates how cinema is creating new precepts, concepts, and signs. Particularly strong are the chapters on constitution of the time within modern cinema. Deleuze is one of the few philosophers to embrace aesthetics within his philosophy from its inception, making his dealings with artists and realms very productive: Deleuze resists the tendency to render an art form as a mere product of a philosophical view. This allows the investigation of how art creates new ideas, just as valid within the confines of theory. I will note that it would be immense help to have Difference & Repetition to understand the structure of Deleuze's thought and his conception of time.

[Yen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deleuze discutait très compréhensivement l'aspect sonore et visuel d'image, ainsi que les liens sensori-moteurs qui distinguent de la situation purement optique qu'on s'impose souvent sur le cinéma classique. Ce qui m'intéresse est les cristaux du temps usés dans les films, et aussi les techniques différents de chaque auteur ou chaque mouvement. Quand même, ça fait mieux d'avoir une compréhension complète du cinéma, cela pourra vous aider à le lire efficacement. C'est-à-dire, voyez tous les films listés dans l'index. Si non vous rencontrerez souvent la difficulté de digérer les réferences cinématographiques ou les énoncés exprimés dans les films que vous ne voyez pas encore.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant continuation of Deleuze's thinking through of cinema. However, in this volume he argues that the cinema that appears after 1945 reflects the growing fascination with time and the ways in which time are destablized by human experiences. Of real interest in this volume is Deleuze's discussion of postcolonial cinema and its connection to time as well as his fascinating and challenging explanation of how sound in cinema also reflects the changing qualities of time.