There's another way of looking at the idea of the action-image vs. time-image distinction as historical. I.e., there is a difference between an historical concept and a descriptive concept which may be embodied in different historical eras. Namely, even if Deleuze uses historical markers as points of reference, this no more means that the concept he's articulating is historical than the fact that any of the other kinds of images he analyzes are drawn from specific national cinemas, directors, movements, and films. E.g., what Deleuze calls "liquid perception" is either drawn from or embodied by French poetic realism--it's very hard to tell which. Might Deleuze have invented the concept had cinema not formed it? Unlikely. It's from certain films in a certain period that Deleuze claims he draws this concept. Yet this concept is not a "theory" of French film in the 1930's. It is something of a description of a certain body of films, but it is not therefore an historical description, even if the films which embody the concept are taken from one particular period. And so on for all the other concepts Deleuze outlines. His examples may be historical, national, or generic--the 'small form' is found in comedy, the 'large form' in the western--but this does not thereby convert the concepts he gives, which are abstracted descriptions, into histories, nations or genres. That is: the 'small form' may be found in comedy, but one cannot therefore substitute for a definition of comedy "the small form." Chaplin may use in the 'small form,' but this does not make the concept of the 'small form' identical with the historical period from which Deleuze draws his examples. The selection of examples may be one of necessity or convenience, but the concept illustrated using the examples does not thereby become wholly identical with the examples cited. (Compare: "When I say the color orange I mean something like this orange sitting on my desk." "Oh, you mean when something's on your desk, it's orange!" "No!") The intellectual problem is similar to that of defining styles which can also be seen as movements and which are dominant in given historical periods--e.g., Romanticism, Modernism, etc. Such terms may be used to refer to periods or they may be used as shorthand for stylistic markers. They describe movements which emerge during eras, but once they are synonymous with a style, they are no longer purely historical terms. Deleuze may describe the emergence of a new kind of image in a certain period, and one might even think of filmmakers who specialize in this image as a kind of 'movement,' but this does not mean that the concept is then one that summarizes an historical event. The initial assumption that the concept *itself* is historical produces all the further contradictions which then need to be 'ironed out.' Damian Peter Sutton writes: > I'm still not convinced, Ed, (and other 'listers') > Deleuze makes himself clear, in the preface to Cinema 1, that > his job is not a historian's, that point is not in dispute. Okay, so this much should be clear: the cinema books are not a history; they are not articulating concepts which are identical to historical periods. > Nor is the fact that Deleuze himself muddies his own water by > analysing Renoir and the time-image after he had placed the > 'break' in film development at WWII. But Deleuze doesn't "mudd[y] his own water" because Deleuze never said he was giving a history. That's *you* who insist on taking it that way and then become upset when it doesn't pan out. > However, he _does_ make the break, and sets this out in the > preface to Cinema 2. But what do you mean by "break" here? And, more importantly, what does Deleuze mean? After WWII it become more possible to produce the time-image. The action-image did not disappear. It had not been as possible before to give such a direct image of time. That is Deleuze's claim. NOT that the action-image 'takes place' before WWII and the time-image after. Each subsequent species of time image is not thereby synonymous with a period. I.e., the concept of a time-image is not itself an historical concept. There may be historical reasons why the time-image become more possible at this point, but Deleuze does not address this question because he is not in fact writing a history--as you wish to make him out to do. > On the whole, he is not absolutely clear. (most of the > Hitchcock films his praises as being classic movement-image > stuff are in the post war period[....] Actually, Deleuze is quite clear. But when you refuse to follow what he says, he becomes "not absolutely clear." >[....] The point I > would make is that Deleuze contradicts himself, and that this > should be seen as an opportunity to view his work as > presenting a history. But Deleuze doesn't contradict himself in the details while giving an historical picture. It is you in reading who refuse to accept his qualification that he is not offering a history, and it is only then that the text can be seen as contradictory. It is you in reading who have made the text contradict itself by refusing to read its patent sense. >When Deleuze says that he is not going > to write a film history, I do believe he means that a > categorical history based on arbitrary points of invention > and social incident is not his intention. I don't think that > he would ever have been interested in such a project. No, Deleuze doesn't want to write that kind of film history--nor the kind you want to make him write, either. Sincerely, Edward R. O'Neill UCLA ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]