Hi Bernie, Thanks for clarifying. Since I'm not writing from my phone, this will be a bit long.
I don't see the opposition of "doing philosophy" and "talking about cinema" that seems to be at the center of your comments. Why can't someone make philosophical comments about cinema? Anyway. Deleuze. He makes his limited scope apparent when he says this, in the preface to *Cinema 1*: "The great directors of cinema may be compared, in our view, not merely with painters, architects and musicians, but also with thinkers. They think with movement-images and time-images instead of concepts." (np) His assertion is that these presentations, "movement-images and time-image" are expressions. The elaboration of *Cinema 1* and *Cinema 2* is the definition of these forms. The limitations become self-evident from his restrictions: who are these "great directors of cinema" and which films does he mean? He is not talking about anything ever produced by the avant-garde, nor any work of animation (in any of its forms). What concerns his analysis is the commercially produced/distributed (and industrially made) products of film studios: i.e. "commercial cinema" by the same directors that concern theorists such as Bazin, Cavell, et. al. His argument confuses narrative, diegetic space of depiction for reality—the "movement-images and time-image" are his attempt to address and resolve the problems with syntagmatics (cinema semiotics), as he states in Cinema 2: "The principle according to which linguistics is only a part of semiology is thus realized in the definition of languages without a language system (semes), which includes the cinema as well as the languages of gestures, clothing or music. There is therefore no reason to look for features in cinema that only belong to a language system, like double articulation. On the other hand, language features which necessarily apply to utterances will be found in the cinema, as rules of use, in the language system and outside of it: the syntagm (conjunction of present relative units) and the paradigm (disjunction of present units with comparable absent units). The semiology of cinema will be the discipline that applies linguistic models, especially syntagmatic ones, to images as constituting one of their principal ‘codes.’ We are moving in a strange circle here, because syntagmatics assumes that the image can in be assimilated to an utterance, but it is also what makes the image by right assimilable to the utterance. It is a typically Kantian vicious circle: syntagmatics applies because the image is an utterance, but the image is an utterance because it is subject to syntagmatics." (pp. 25-26) Deleuze does not escape the narrative fallacy: the assumption that narrative form and its elaboration is the same as the articulation and enunciation of cinema. The circularity and disconnection between semiotics, narrative, and cinema is common to theoretical analyses that focus only on realist, commercial cinema. This approach situates meaning within the material properties of an assumed motion picture ontology derived from photography rather than in the audience’s invented justifications that explain their beliefs about what they have encountered "in" the film. It makes the assumption that the identification of what appears on screen is not an interpretation guided by past experience.The problem of syntagmatics for cinema is a product of the refusal of perception as the foundational moment of the cinematic sign—the assumption that non-linguistic forms of semiosis can or should behave like language. Unfortunately phenomenology doesn't provide much insight into this problem; Derrida's critique of Husserl makes the a priori nature of interpretation apparent. That's why he also writes about Durer's *Knight, Death and Time* -- the identifications of all these figures, much like the contents of the image depend on specific cultural knowledge that frames perception. For Deleuze and cinema, this is where narrative becomes important; the ascription of narrative to the essential character and nature of cinema in Bazin, Metz, or Deleuze is typical of all these theoretical approaches, as he says in *Cinema 2*: "So-called classical narration derives directly from the organic composition of movement-images [montage], or from their specification as perception-images, affection-images and action-images, according to the laws of a sensory-motor schema. We shall see that the modern forms of narration derive from the compositions and types of the time-image: even ‘readability.’ Narration is never an evident [apparent] given of images, or the effect of a structure which underlies them; it is a consequence of the visible [apparent] images themselves, of the perceptible images in themselves, as they are initially defined for themselves." (pp 26-27) Recognizing these limitations derived from both realism and narrative is inherently tied to a recognizing how historical "cinema" is actually a narrowly defined thing. The issue of narrative increasingly becomes apparent to discussions as “cinema” moves beyond the parameters of historical shot-on-celluloid feature films and into digital productions. Which brings us to the issue of animation and the conception of *shot* versus *differential between frames*. Because Deleuze's analysis is concerned with narrative (i.e the audience's invented, causal account of what they see) the conception of cinema necessarily depends on the conception of 'shot' as the foundational unit of articulation: that the presentation of what happens on screen is a distinct and unitary structure. (This basis is also foundational to the realism it accompanies). To focus on the correlations of individual frames undermines the concern with the shot as a unit by splitting it into smaller and independent parts. The 'movement-image' concerns the motions shown and their role as expressions within a narrative construct; the 'time-image' is even more dependent on narrative since it articulates durations within the fictional construct. While it might be possible to apply these to the depictions within some animated narratives, it will create contradictions with other parts of Deleuze's analysis when it moves outside that commercial, narrative construction because it is built around the reality of what the depictions within the shots show, rather than addressing anything outside that narrative artifice. That's about as succinct as I can get, short of writing an actual essay or book. There's a lot more that could be said, and lots more argument to make, but this is an email. Michael Betancourt Savannah, GA USA michaelbetancourt.com | vimeo.com/cinegraphic On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 2:05 PM Bernard Roddy <[email protected]> wrote: > Yes, a fair question. I will be repeating myself, but that's ok. > > I disagree with Pip when he suggests that Deleuze is describing shots in > classic cinema, I think he sees himself as doing philosophy. And often it > is whole films that serve his purpose. > > Now, all I had in mind, Michael, when I posted under the label > "animation," was what I understand of early points made in Cinema !. And we > can put it like this: > > For Deleuze, there is a context. It consists in a history of philosophy > that has conceived of movement in a certain way. And if I understand it, > the conception of movement belongs to a conception of time, namely that > time consists in a series. Bergson also discusses perception, which would > be central to any full account of what matters here. > > But a phenomenologist rejects the idea that time is to be understood as > "clock time." That is the idea that there are these points in the past and > in the future, and we are to distinguish between the experience of time, > one one hand, and the correct time, on the other. That distinction has to > go. > > So movement isn't this series of points or frames. The question has > concerned a relationship between what you collect in empirical study > (measured in minutes, say) and movement of different kinds. Now, the lab > tests demonstrate that movement isn't the various frames. They can lie > there without producing movement. You can see each one without seeing > movement (if, say, each is held for too long). > > Deleuze seems to refer back to a much earlier time when poses would > constitute a movement. You know, it's like just taking those key frames of > Daffy in certain poses. There are frames between, but in this understanding > of movement, a move isn't something that has parts not currently in front > of you. It isn't something spatial at all. I imagine Deleuze elaborating by > suggesting that there are these movements in something like the way there > are the Forms in Plato. > > But, for my purposes here, what we get is not a lot of flicker films, but > a reading of moments in cinema of significance, according to Deleuze. > > Bernie > > On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 12:28 PM Michael Betancourt < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Bernard, >> >> What do you mean by Deleuze then? >> >> It's very easy to reject or deny what someone else says when you haven't >> explained your view yet. How about you explain it yourself? >> >> Michael >> >> >> >> Michael Betancourt, Ph.D >> https://michaelbetancourt.com >> cell 305.562.9192 >> https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Betancourt/e/B01H3QILT0/ >> Sent from my phone >> >> On Aug 22, 2020, at 1:19 PM, Bernard Roddy <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> proofing my post: >> >> 'It's as if the lab *protects* the writer from philosophy.' >> >> '*Now*, all these tests [. . .]" >> >> Bernie >> >> >> On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 12:13 PM Bernard Roddy <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Hi Pip: >>> >>> The perceptual experiments you describe don't seem to me to be >>> necessary. We already have the moving image of cinema. What I have noticed, >>> however, is that there is an attraction to the various lab studies. And >>> this will be of particular interest for "experimental" animation. >>> >>> One of the things I am a little impatient with is this continual >>> observation that Delueze is somehow not saying anything about whatever we >>> want to identify as this "phi phenomenon." It's as if the lab protests the >>> writer from philosophy. All I have to do is open these first pages of >>> Deleuze to see that his thinking begins with broader questions than some >>> sort of film history. >>> >>> You write that "Deleuze rejects the notion that motion is an illusion >>> created from stills [. . .]." The very reliance on illusion, as far as I >>> can tell, has no relevance in what I understand of Deleuze. So, in a sense, >>> I can agree. But this point doesn't shed any light on what Deleuze thinks. >>> (I don't think A Thousand Plateaus is a reference.) >>> >>> No, all these details about tests with lights going on and off reminds >>> me of Bergson, who is also reading that kind of research, or what we would >>> today call cognitive science (only it's usually involving people who have >>> suffered injury of some kind and can thus provide a case study without any >>> ethical difficulty). >>> >>> Let's go to this Gary Beydler. I've never heard of him. But the >>> description lends itself to what goes for "experiment" in film. And that >>> would belong also to what we encounter in psychological research that >>> subscribes to the same philosophical orientation. That orientation, if I'm >>> not mistaken, is rejected by Deleuze. For one thing, it fails to recognize >>> the conception of movement and time that we find in Bergson. But we're all >>> pretty versed in these effects, and so (as I see it) we present these as >>> the philosophy of relevance. >>> >>> Deleuze isn't easy. But he's damn interesting, and this is in part >>> because he'll formulate all these notions of images to talk about changes >>> over the history of narrative cinema (he's selective, and says this history >>> doesn't include all the screen work we might be paying for). >>> >>> (And I signed on to open a thought about the avant-garde.) >>> >>> Bernie >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> - - - - - >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >> FrameWorks mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks >> >> _______________________________________________ >> FrameWorks mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks >> > _______________________________________________ > FrameWorks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks >
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