Cinema, Truth, and Time: The Falsifier: Lecture 3, 29 November 1983

<p><em>The Deleuze Seminars</em> is a collection of audio recordings, transcriptions, and English translations of, and supplemental materials from, the lectures French philosopher Gilles Deleuze gave during his career at the University of Paris 8.</p>

<p>“Cinema, Truth, and Time: The Falsifier” was a 22-lecture seminar given from November 1983 to June 1984. This seminar, the third of four consecutive seminars Deleuze gave on cinema, shifts focus from the movement-image to the time-image. In these lectures, Deleuze continues to elaborate his theory of cinema through various theoretical and aesthetic frames including: Ancient Greek philosophy; Nietzsche’s reconsideration of the concept of truth; principles of formal logic; literature; the time-image as crystallization; and the filmmakers he thinks are particularly influential in creating the time-image. As a precursor to the publication of Deleuze’s second of two volumes on cinema, <em>Cinema 2: The Time-Image</em> (1985), this seminar is a valuable resource to researchers interested in Deleuze’s film theory, as well as his larger philosophical oeuvre.</p>

<p>In session 3, 29 November 1983, after restating the premises developed in sessions 1 and 2, Deleuze proposes to “tell some tales” based on the distinctions that he derived from crystalline formations on two levels: descriptions (both organic and crystalline) and narrations (truthful and falsifying): first addressing Alain Bergala’s 1983 “Faux-fuyants”, he returns to the trio, Welles, Resnais (“Stavisky”), and Robbe-Grillet, pondering why these “auteurs” develop the series of powers of the false while colliding with the problem of time. Deleuze shifts focus to trace the history of the “crisis of truth” in philosophy, starting with the Ancient Greek Stoics, a reflection that results in Deleuze adding two more definitions of “falsifier”, and to clarify these definitions, he pursues the “tales”, first, from Leibniz’s <em>Theodicy</em>, then from Borges’s <em>Fictions</em>, finally from a novel by Maurice Leblanc (cf. also the Leibniz and the Baroque seminar, session 8, 27 January 1987). These “tales” lead Deleuze to conclude, for the future sessions, that truth’s interrogation can only occur at the same time as a pure line of time is revealed, since it is time that formally places into question the form of the truth. [NB: The order of this session’s three parts is entirely confused both at Paris 8 and WebDeleuze: the part 1 transcription is inappropriately located in session 2 with its first segment, while part 2 appears twice on each site.]</p>

<p>This dataset includes: the complete French transcription and English translation of the recorded lecture in Open Document Text (odt) format, and the original Paris 8 French transcript. [Please note: the mp3 recording for this session is unavailable, which is fortunate as its first part is misplaced on the Paris 8 site to the first part of the previous session; hence the Paris 8 recording for session 3 starts with its second part, and the second part is then repeated, followed by the correct part 3. Also, the Paris 8 transcription corresponds to the erroneous misplacement and repetition of session parts, which we preserve solely for the sake of complete documentation. The transcription and translation for the Deleuze Semianrs have been prepared based on the YouTube recording posted by WebDeleuze for this session which provides the complete seminar in its proper order and content.] [WebDeleuze was founded by Richard Pinhas -- a student in Deleuze's seminars -- who, with the Deleuze family's support, developed transcripts and translations of many of the seminars.]</p>

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<p><em>Les Séminaires de Deleuze</em> sont une collection d'enregistrements audio, de transcriptions et de traductions en anglais et de documents complémentaires des conférences que le philosophe français Gilles Deleuze a donné lors de sa carrière à l'Université de Paris 8.</p>

<p>«Cinéma, vérité et temps: le faussaire» était un séminaire de 22 conférences donné de novembre 1983 à juin 1984. En tant que précurseur de la publication du deuxième de deux volumes de Deleuze sur le cinéma, <em>Cinéma II. L'Image-temps</em> (1985), ce séminaire est une ressource précieuse pour les chercheurs intéressés par la théorie du film de Deleuze, ainsi que sa plus grande œuvre philosophique.</p>

<p>Dans la séance 3, le 29 novembre 1983, après avoir rappelé les prémisses développées dans les séances 1 et 2, Deleuze propose de « raconter des histoires » à partir des distinctions qu’il a tirées des formations cristallines à deux niveaux : les descriptions (à la fois organiques et cristallines) et les narrations (véridiques et falsifiantes) : abordant d’abord « Les Faux-fuyants » d’Alain Bergala (1983), il revient au trio, Welles, Resnais (« Stavisky ») et Robbe-Grillet, s’interrogeant sur les raisons pour lesquelles ces « auteurs » développent la série des pouvoirs du faux tout en se heurtant au problème du temps. Deleuze déplace le regard pour retracer l’histoire de la « crise de la vérité » en philosophie, en partant des Stoïciens de la Grèce antique, réflexion qui l’amène à ajouter deux autres définitions du « faussaire » et, pour clarifier ces définitions, il poursuit les « contes », d’abord de la <em>Théodicée</em> de Leibniz, puis <em>Fictions</em> de Borges, enfin d’un roman de Maurice Leblanc (voir aussi le séminaire Leibniz et le baroque, séance 8, 27 janvier 1987). Ces « contes » amènent Deleuze à conclure, pour les séances futures, que l’interrogation de la vérité ne peut se faire qu’en même temps que se révèle une ligne pure du temps, puisque c’est le temps qui met formellement en question la forme de la vérité.</p>