Is 1945 a rupture or a model?
Postwar Europe is a crucial constellation, not the sole birthplace of the time-image.
GILLES DELEUZE · CINEMA 2 · 1985—2026A living, bilingual research infrastructure
TIME—IMAGE
L’IMAGE–TEMPS / THE TIME–IMAGE
Not cinema representing time, but movement ceasing to govern it: action fails, actual and virtual form a circuit, and the interval between sound and image forces thought.
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An open research programme for scholars, students, curators, makers, and film viewers.
18core concepts
10Cinema 2 chapters
55translation terms
34Chinese corpus gates
75verifiable scholars
70tiered film cases
88source gateways
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START HERE / ORIENTATION
Where do you enter?
One research object needs several reading speeds. Choose an entry; every path returns to text, shot, and evidence.
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Concept atlas
Term-by-term distinctions beyond slowness, flashback, and mirror motifs.
02Chapter guide
Ten chapter problems, concept clusters, filmmakers, and close-reading prompts.
03Film atlas
Primary, scholarly, and editorial cases separated by P1 / P2 / S1 / E1.
04Scholar map
From system reconstruction to world cinemas, bodies, digitality, and death.
05Translation glossary
Compare French, English, and Chinese terms, with explicit editorial choices.
06Chinese corpus
Index Chinese community translations and cinema pages without mistaking them for primary texts.
07Research library
French editions, standard translations, seminar audio, papers, and open issues.
08Seminars & practice
Turn seeing, crystals, sheets, cuts, and sound autonomy into production exercises.
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THE DECISIVE REVERSAL
The decisive reversal
The time-image does not abolish movement; it reverses the relation of subordination.
MOVEMENT–IMAGE
PERCEPTION→AFFECTION→ACTION
Time appears indirectly through movement and montage
SCHEMA BREAKS
TIME–IMAGE
ACTUAL↔VIRTUAL
Movement becomes a consequence of direct time
Three negative baselinesFlashback ≠ time-imageMirror ≠ crystal-imageLong take ≠ direct time
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Sensory-motor schema
sensory-motor schemaThe body-world structure that links perception, affection, and action into an effective circuit. Its crisis is not mere stillness but the failure of perception to lead naturally to an action capable of resolving the situation.
↗02Pure optical / sound situation
opsign / sonsignSound and image cease to function merely as cues for action or narration and acquire autonomous density. The character becomes a seer or witness, reaching a threshold condition of the time-image.
↗05Actual / virtual
actual / virtualThe actual is what has been actualized; the virtual consists of differential relations, memories, and tendencies that are not actual yet remain fully real and operative. It is not a possible awaiting realization, nor are the two truth versus falsity: they are two states of the real.
↗06Crystal-image
crystal-image / hyalosignAn actual image and its virtual image form the smallest circuit: two faces differentiate, pursue, and exchange with one another until they become indiscernible without becoming identical. The circuit lets us see the present split into an actual present and a coexisting virtual past.
↗09Sheets of the past
sheets of the pastThe past is not a queue of vanished events but coexisting planes at different degrees of contraction. Recollection selects a sheet from the whole past rather than returning to a former present.
↗13Powers of the false
powers of the falseNarration abandons a recoverable model of truth and lets characters, testimonies, memories, and worlds mutate through a series of falsifiers. The false gains creative power by freeing itself from a model of truth.
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A FIELD, NOT A CREED
Research begins in disagreement
The field is not a school organized around a fixed definition, but an open programme divided by unresolved problems.
Replacement or coexistence?
The time-image reverses the subordination of time to movement without abolishing the movement-image; local shifts can occur within one film.
How can the field de-centre Europe?
Adding countries is insufficient; world cinemas must be allowed to modify the taxonomy itself.
Taxonomy or generator?
Fixed labels invite mere example-hunting; an open taxonomy requires new concepts to transform existing relations and explain across cases.
Does the digital require a Cinema 3?
The neuro-image, no-time-image, and interface theories test the boundary, but no third regime has achieved consensus.
primaryPurchase
L’Image-temps. Cinéma 2
Gilles Deleuze
Official French source for the time-image’s synopsis, chapter architecture, and stable conceptual vocabulary.
Visit authoritative sourceprimaryPurchase
Cinema 2: The Time-Image
Gilles Deleuze; trans. Hugh Tomlinson & Robert Galeta
Authoritative source for the standard translation, translators, ISBN, and publication date.
Visit authoritative sourceseminarOA
Cinema, Truth and Time: The Falsifier, 1983–1984
Gilles Deleuze
Primary background for powers of the false, temporal crisis, Leibniz, Nietzsche, Welles, and the series of falsifiers.
Visit authoritative sourcephilosophyPurchase
Matter and Memory
Henri Bergson
Foundational for the universe of images, perception, bodily interval, pure past, memory cone, and actual/virtual relations.
Visit authoritative sourcephilosophyPurchase
Difference and Repetition
Gilles Deleuze
Key bridge for the syntheses of time, actual/virtual, repetition, and image of thought; the nine-cell mapping is a later interpretation, not an explicit table in Deleuze.
Visit authoritative sourcejournalOA
Death-Images: Revisiting Deleuze’s ‘Time-Image’ in Cinema after 1985
Nassif, Grosoli, Marques & Viegas, eds.
Open-access issue marking forty years of Cinema 2 through death, genocide, Kiarostami, Ceylan, archives, and Global South cinemas.
Visit authoritative sourceP4 THEATER · FORTHCOMING PROGRAMMES
From philosophical reading to shot practice
The research seminar handles close reading, concepts, and films. The practice lab turns sensory-motor rupture, crystalline circuits, sheets of past, irrational cuts, and audio-visual autonomy into executable exercises.
View programme blueprint75
A LIVING EDITION
Not a final answer, but a verifiable working method
Scholar counts use bounded conservative samples; films carry evidence tiers; terms retain French and English keys; links prioritize publishers, universities, journals, film institutions, and rights holders.
Read method & edition statement