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Gilles Deleuze’s Time-image In Theory And Practice: An Introduction To Modern Political Cinema

Vak
2023-2024

Admission requirements

None

Description

“if there were a modern political cinema, it would be on this basis: the people no longer exist, or not yet… (for) the moment the master or colonizer proclaims ‘there have never been a people here’, the missing people are a becoming, they invent themselves in shanty towns and camps or in ghettos, in new conditions of struggle to which a necessarily political art must contribute.” Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image.

In this course, students will work in groups to investigate, analyze and present findings on a series of key socio-political film concepts proposed by Gilles Deleuze in his dense, lyrical and seminal theoretical texts for Cinema 1: The Movement Image and Cinema 2: The Time Image.

Deleuze’s argument for the creation of cinematic forms with the power to transform social and political paradigms has only grown in relevance since first published thirty years ago. The goal of this research class is for students to discover new or contemporary relevance to Deleuze’s texts, both as groundbreaking film theory and as a postcolonial reflection on the creative potential to be found in cultural disruption and ensuing experiences of discrimination and displacement.

As a diasporic Greek-South African filmmaker and doctoral candidate at ACPA exploring the generative relationship between Gilles Deleuze’s theory of modern political cinema and intergenerational experiences of displacement, I will structure and lead the discussions in class, co-presenting my discoveries alongside student research groups. Our goal is first to contextualize Deleuze’s ideas in relation to theorists, philosophers and artists who inspired his formulation of the time-image. Secondly, we will relate Deleuze’s exploration of cultural-political representation through cinema ¬ together with its limits and failures ¬ to our own personal histories, rhythms and fields of study. In doing so, the aim is to discover evolving perspectives on Gilles Deleuze’s theories through an ever-shifting relationship to new cultural and academic contexts.

Each week concepts laid out in Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 will be introduced and explored through 1) weekly reading assignments, 2) in-class screenings of films Deleuze references in his texts, 3) field research exercises involving a process of attunement that relate the time-image to a student’s own experiences and 4) ensuing bi-monthly class presentations and discussions.

Key concepts and theories we will cover per week will include:

  • movement, time and the crisis of the action-image

  • the time-image born out of the cataclysm of World War II

  • Henri Bergson’s concept of recollection

  • the virtual potential of the crystal-image

  • a process of attunement in relation to Antonin Artaud’s concept of the body without organs

  • associative montage, Andrei Tarkovsky’s concept of time pressure and the power of interstice

  • a cinema of the body as a form of expression for the people who are missing (from the history books).
    Students will complete this class better able to:

  • contextualize, articulate and utilize Gilles Deleuze’s key theoretical concepts as laid out in Cinema 1 and 2

  • relate Deleuze’s theories back to their own personal histories and fields of study

  • understand what is meant by a process of attunement or deep listening and how it relates to the creating of modern political cinema

  • watch, understand and analyze cinema forms in relation to Deleuze’s ideas on movement, time and a politics of exclusion

  • research and present ideas in collaborative work groups -- and by doing so, gain insight into what it means to contribute to a larger postcolonial discourse on representation, the failure of representation and the generative or creative potential in cultural disruption

Course objectives

Students who complete this class will be able to:

  • contextualize, articulate and utilize Gilles Deleuze’s key theoretical concepts as laid out in Cinema 1 and 2

  • relate Deleuze’s theories back to their own personal histories and fields of study

  • understand what is meant by a process of attunement or deep listening and how it relates to the creating of modern political cinema

  • watch, understand and analyze cinema forms in relation to Deleuze’s ideas on movement, time and a politics of exclusion

  • research and present ideas in collaborative work groups -- and by doing so, gain insight into what it means to contribute to a larger postcolonial discourse on representation, the failure of representation and the generative or creative potential in cultural disruption.

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

Choose from:

  • Lecture

  • Seminar

  • Research

  • Excursion

  • Internship

  • Thesis BA or Thesis MA

Assessment method

Please indicate here how the course is assessed.
Possibilities (Note that in case of mid-term examinations the weighting must be specified and how the final mark is established):

  • Written examination with closed questions (eg multiple choice)

  • Written examination with short open questions

  • Written examination with essay questions

  • Take home examination/assignment

  • Active Participation/coöperation in class/group

  • Essay, paper

  • Oral examination

  • Abstract, oral presentation.

To complete the final mark, please take notice of the following:
the final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average
or
the final mark for the course is established by (i) determination of the weighted average combined with (ii) additional requirements. These additional requirements generally relate to one or more of the subtests always be sufficient

Please describe how the resit will be arranged. The resit may consist of the same subtests as the first opportunity, but this is not compulsory. The alternative is to combine subtests for the resit. Offering a resit is mandatory.

Assessment

Weighing

Resit

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

The booktitles and / or syllabi to be used in the course, where it can be purchased and how this literature should be studied beforehand.

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.

Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.

For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: [Naam Onderwijsadministratie](link naar contactgegevens OA)

Remarks

About the lecturer

Etienne Kallos is a Greek-South African filmmaker and educator whose 27-minute fiction Firstborn became the first Afrikaans-language film to win a 'Golden Lion' at Venice in 2009. His first longform film, the South African-set The Harvesters, premiered at Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2018 before winning 'best first feature' at the Rome International Film Festival.