Deleuze and Moving Time

Introduction

Rodowick describes the way artists think as fundamentally different from philosophers or scientists:
"Artists also think, but because they consider their ideas to be inherent in the materials they work with, they think through the construction of time and space" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 11).

Recently, I revisited Deleuze’s Time Machine by Rodowick. Given that I have read it at least twice, I still find it a challenging book, though my comprehension has slightly improved. As I reflect on its ideas, I also consider connecting them to Jon Rafman’s works and extending this discussion towards contemporary images. Additionally, I aim to explore time-image in more depth, examining Western philosophy’s obsession with time, which could support my spatially centred research.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on Deleuze’s engagement with Bergson, while the second examines time-image, the expression of cinematic time, and how film reshaped our understanding of time. However, towards the end of the second part, the discussion abruptly shifts to politics, which seems somewhat sudden. Given that Deleuze’s perspective on cinema is not simply about establishing a theory of film or analysing cinematic images but about producing a strategy for image-making—similar to Foucault’s approach—this transition is conceptually consistent. However, personally, I find the shift abrupt and less relevant to my research, so I will omit it from this discussion.

Deleuze’s Methodology: Philosophy, Science, and Art as Creation

One of the key aspects of Deleuze’s approach is that he considers philosophy, science, and art within the realm of creation. This methodology is what makes his discourse on different disciplines so significant. According to Rodowick, Deleuze’s concepts of movement-image and time-image are rooted in Bergson’s philosophy of time, and their respective analyses are linked to Peirce and Nietzsche. While Deleuze’s association with Peirce is relatively clear, his engagement with Nietzsche is still something I struggle to fully grasp—I hope to revisit this in a future discussion.

For Deleuze, Bergson’s concept of time is not a totality that can be perceived but rather an open system. However, in order to perceive time, artificial segmentation is necessary. Movement-image, then, represents this logical and artificial segmentation of time.

"Movement-image develops in accordance with a Hegelian and dialectical conception of history, whereas time-image is Nietzschean and genealogical" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 12).

Films traditionally depicted time only in an indirect manner. However, after World War II, a significant rupture occurred, leading to a distrust in perception and an increased interest in the incomprehensibility of the world. As a result, cinema, as Deleuze reads through Bergson, began to move closer to the plane of immanence, focusing more on perceptual impossibilities.

Because time-image deals with imperceptibility, the second part of the book becomes even more complex. Movement-image and time-image often coexist in films, and clear examples of time-image remain relatively rare, making this distinction even more difficult to grasp.

Interestingly, while Deleuze clearly expresses his preference for auteur cinema, he does not extensively discuss the creative process of filmmakers. Instead, he classifies films based on a taxonomic approach, much like philosophy categorises classical, modern, postmodern, and structuralist schools of thought. Within movement-image, different qualities of time correspond to variations in montage:

• Silent cinema
• Soviet montage school
• French impressionist cinema

These films are further analysed in terms of their signage material, comprising sensory, motoric, emotional, rhythmic, tonal, and even linguistic elements:
"These cinematic materials are modifiable and encompass visual and auditory elements, motion, intensity, affect, rhythm, tone, and even linguistic components (both spoken and written)" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 37).

This perspective aligns with Deleuze’s view of cinema as a machine for weaving time.

Reconfiguring Classical Cinematic Oppositions

Rodowick argues that Deleuze restructured the classical binary oppositions in film theory—realism vs. modernism, illusionism vs. materialism, continuity vs. discontinuity, identification vs. distancing—rather than simply taking sides.

"Deleuze redivided the classical oppositions of cinema" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 18).

At the same time, Deleuze extended France’s cinematic discourse into the future. He maintained close ties with Cahiers du Cinéma, the influential French film journal, and his interview, later published as The Brain is the Screen, was conducted through this platform.

Rodowick notes that Deleuze responded to Mitry’s concerns from a Bergsonian standpoint, critiqued Metz, and adopted aspects of Pasolini’s arguments while also acknowledging the pitfalls of cultural elitism. However, Deleuze’s method ultimately overlaid classical cinema analysis with French postmodernism. While I do not necessarily support rigid binary oppositions in film theory, it is also important to recognise that Deleuze’s perspective is not absolute. As I engage with this text, I remind myself to maintain a critical and analytical stance.

Cinema as an Assembly of Movement, Image, and Signs

Cinema fundamentally consists of multiple interconnected images, whether in traditional film stock or in contemporary digital media. Deleuze viewed film as the closest 20th-century art form to Bergsonian intuition, containing both the universal transformation of matter and the movement of thought within time.

Thus, he classified cinema into:

• Movement-image → indirect representation of time
• Time-image → direct representation of time

The key distinction between these two forms lies in their approach to fragmentation and totality. Cinema, for Deleuze, expresses time—the question is whether it does so indirectly (through movement-image) or directly (through time-image).

"Cinema introduces a system that reproduces movement as a function of arbitrary moments, that is, as a function of selected equidistant moments designed to create the impression of continuity" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 66–7).

Cinema was born within modern science, and its early structure followed the principles of rational segmentation of time.

"Mechanical and reductionist scientific views are characterised by fixity. While our understanding of nature evolves, the constants of nature do not. Progress assumes that if the universe is an immutable totality, it can be understood through its constituent parts and their assembly" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 70).

This is reflected in early cinema, which operated on predefined spatial units, structuring sequences into logically interconnected wholes.

Deleuze categorises cinematic movement into:

• Vertov’s analytical speed manipulations
• Eisenstein’s abstract or intellectual movement
• Epstein and Dulac’s rhythmic and metrical variations

Montage serves as the restoration of thought through reconstructing the logic of movement.

"Montage reconstructs the laws governing thought, restoring reality in its process of development" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 92).

Bergsonian Time and Cinematic Time

Bergson sought to re-establish the continuity of consciousness, matter, and time:
"One of Bergson’s goals was to re-establish the continuity of consciousness, matter, and time" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 73).

For Bergson, matter is image. He rejected the classical philosophical notion of material representation, instead arguing that matter itself is image:
"Objects exist in themselves […] as images; they are not supplementary representations of reality but are reality itself" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 92).

Deleuze extended this idea by suggesting that cinema constructs time through artificial segmentation—either by spatialising time (movement-image) or by temporalising space (time-image).

"The two primary ways cinema organises time are through the movement-image (spatialisation of time) and the time-image (temporalisation of space)" (Rodowick, 2005, p. 148).

This shift in film theory marked a departure from classical cinematic realism, introducing new forms of montage based on non-linear, irrational cuts.

Conclusion

Deleuze’s philosophy can be understood through the interplay of order and chaos. While often associated with chaos, his work is fundamentally about how new energy emerges through their interaction. In a monistic perspective, the two are distinct yet inseparable.

This summary captures the core themes of Rodowick’s interpretation of Deleuze’s cinema theory, offering insights into how cinema functions as both a philosophical and artistic medium.