A Deleuze glossary

The two regimes (top-level)

the movement-image

cinema organized by the sensory-motor link: perception → action → new situation; time given *indirectly*, through movement and montage. On screen: a character perceives a situation and acts to change it; action resolves situations; continuity editing serves the chain. 78 films →

the time-image

what appears when the sensory-motor link breaks: time given *directly* (as memory, duration, coexistence); the character becomes a seer. On screen: action no longer resolves; the protagonist watches/endures; time is felt as itself, not as the measure of movement. 143 films →

Bergsonian foundations

any instant whatever

movement built from equidistant ordinary moments (vs. privileged poses). On screen: mechanical/continuous sampling of motion; the ordinary instant, not the posed climax. 26 films →

privileged instants

the older conception: movement reconstructed from transcendent poses/forms. On screen: tableaux, posed climactic forms, the "decisive" stylized instant. 38 films →

the Open

the whole as ceaseless change/duration, not a closed set; montage relates the image to it. On screen: a sense that the framed set opens onto a larger changing whole; the "absolute" out-of-field. 32 films →

the interval

the gap between received and executed movement, from which perception/affection/action are derived. On screen: a living center that hesitates between perceiving and acting. 38 films →

the plane of immanence

the universe as a field of images acting on each other; consciousness *in* the image. On screen: acentered, "non-human" vision; the world filming itself. 16 films →

Cinematographic concepts

the closed set (cadre)

the artificially closed system holding everything in the image; makes it legible + visible. On screen: emphatic, information-dense composition treated as a system. 78 films →

out of field relative

offscreen space continuous with a larger set. On screen: the frame opens onto an implied adjacent space. 23 films →

out of field absolute

a disturbing presence that *insists* rather than exists: the open whole/duration/spirit. On screen: a sense of something beyond the frame that can't be located in space. 85 films →

the mobile section (plan)

the movement-image: a mobile slice of duration relating set to whole. On screen: camera/figure movement that expresses a change in the whole. 38 films →

montage

the composition of shots into a whole; the indirect image of time. On screen: the cut as the unit of meaning. 14 films →

montage organic american

the whole as organic binomial unity; parallel/alternate montage, the duel. On screen: convergent parallel montage, last-minute rescue. 101 films →

montage dialectical soviet

the whole as dialectical leap producing the new; montage of attractions, the kino-eye. On screen: colliding shots producing a third meaning; the qualitative jump. 24 films →

montage organic

the two poles of Soviet montage: the *organic* (the spiral/growth, the set of any-instant-whatevers) and the *pathetic* (the qualitative leap/shock, the genesis of the new); the pathetic presupposes the organic. On screen: organic = accumulating growth/spiral; pathetic = the shock-collision producing a new quality. 14 films →

montage organic

the two poles of Soviet montage: the *organic* (the spiral/growth, the set of any-instant-whatevers) and the *pathetic* (the qualitative leap/shock, the genesis of the new); the pathetic presupposes the organic. On screen: organic = accumulating growth/spiral; pathetic = the shock-collision producing a new quality. 17 films →

montage quantitative french

the whole as the greatest quantity of movement; the mathematical sublime. On screen: maximal fluid mobility, superimposition, machines/water. 3 films →

montage intensive german

the whole as intensive struggle of light and dark; the dynamic sublime. On screen: light–shadow gradient, the non-organic life of things. 6 films →

Movement-image: PERCEPTION-IMAGE *(Zeroness)*

perception image

the image attuned to *how/who* perceives. On screen: the film foregrounds the act and angle of perception itself. 55 films →

dicisign

"solid" perception; a perception framed within another (free indirect / semi-subjective). On screen: the camera perceives a character who is perceiving; we feel the camera's presence. 133 films →

reume

"liquid" perception; fluid, decentered. On screen: flowing, unanchored perception; water, currents, drift. 11 films →

engramme/photogramme

"gaseous" perception; molecular, non-human, acentered vision. On screen: vision freed from any human center; the camera-eye as pure matter. 27 films →

AFFECTION-IMAGE *(Firstness)*

affection image

feeling held in the interval, before action; home is the close-up/face. On screen: the close-up; a feeling registered but not yet discharged into action. 87 films →

icon of quality

affect as an expressed *quality*; the reflecting/contour face. On screen: an immobile reflecting face expressing a single quality (wonder, contemplation). 294 films →

icon of power

affect as a *power/intensity*; the intensive/feature face crossing a threshold. On screen: micro-movements building intensity across a face; the desiring/threshold face. 137 films →

reflexive vs intensive face

the two poles of the close-up (quality vs power). On screen: a contour/reflecting face vs a feature/intensive one. 40 films →

espace quelconque

emptied/disconnected space, drained of coordinates and dramatic function. On screen: deserted, fragmented, or void spaces no longer serving as a setting for action. 114 films →

asw disconnection

built by shadow/fragmentation (expressionism, Bresson's part-spaces). On screen: space cut into disconnected affective fragments. 39 films →

asw emptiness

built by void/whiteness (lyrical abstraction). On screen: white/empty fields. 56 films →

dividual

affect as neither divisible nor indivisible; the collective/massed face, or an icon split across faces, expressing one quality common to several things. On screen: a crowd or collective rendered as a single affective unit. 67 films →

qualité-puissance

the affect itself (quality *or* power) considered apart from any state of things; underpins both qualisign and potisign. On screen: a pure quality/intensity presented for itself. 3 films →

expressionism

light defined by its struggle with *darkness/shadow*; the non-organic life of things. On screen: shadow-gradient, chiaroscuro, things charged with non-organic life. 99 films →

lyrical abstraction

light defined by its struggle with *white/the void* (not shadow). On screen: white/luminous fields, alternation of light and white, the spiritual alternative. 19 films →

affective colour

colour as an absorbent surface that soaks up the affect (not merely coloured objects). On screen: a colour that absorbs the scene and its feeling. 121 films →

IMPULSE-IMAGE *(degenerate Secondness — naturalism)*

impulse image

brute drives tearing fragments from a milieu; naturalism (distinct from realism), governed by entropy. On screen: compulsion, degradation, appetite, a downward slope toward exhaustion/death. 190 films →

symptom

a behavior betraying a buried originary impulse. On screen: acts that read as symptoms of a hidden drive. 89 films →

fetish

the torn-off partial object the drive seizes. On screen: a part-object (food, body-part, relic) charged with compulsive force. 145 films →

naturalism

the impulse-image *regime* (distinct from realism): an originary world doubling a real milieu. On screen: a world of pure drives erupting beneath the social surface. 91 films →

derived milieu

the real geographical/historical milieu the originary world doubles and feeds on. On screen: a concrete setting revealed as the surface of an originary world. 130 films →

originary world

the primitive predatory world beneath the social milieu. On screen: a milieu revealed as a savage "originary world.". 255 films →

entropy / degradation

the originary world's inherent tendency toward exhaustion and the death-drive. On screen: an irreversible downward slope toward ruin/death. 169 films →

ACTION-IMAGE *(Secondness)*

action image

qualities/powers actualized in real milieus; characters act and react. On screen: the sensory-motor circuit at full power; situation ↔ action. 99 films →

action image large form

situation → action → modified situation. On screen: a global situation presses until a decisive act transforms it. 209 films →

the encompasser

the total milieu as an organic set of forces. On screen: an encompassing situation/milieu that calls forth action. 226 films →

binomial

the structured duel. On screen: force-against-force, hero vs villain, man vs milieu. 231 films →

empreinte

the milieu stamping the character. On screen: the bond by which situation and character imprint each other. 88 films →

action image small form

action → disclosed situation → new action. On screen: an act discloses a partly hidden situation. 74 films →

index of lack

action pointing to a withheld situation. On screen: an elliptical gesture implying an unseen situation. 33 films →

index of equivocity

an ambiguous gesture fitting two situations. On screen: the same act could belong to two different situations. 36 films →

line of the universe

the broken line threading heterogeneous spaces. On screen: a zig-zag trajectory linking disconnected spaces. 31 films →

respiration space

the large form's encompassing breath vs the line of the duel. On screen: alternation of vast milieu-space and the taut line of the action. 111 films →

respiration space

the large form's encompassing breath vs the line of the duel. On screen: alternation of vast milieu-space and the taut line of the action.

REFLECTION / TRANSFORMATION-IMAGE *(2nd→3rd hinge)*

the Figure

the action-image bent so situation/action appear through a Figure; the image begins to think. On screen: action transposed into figure/spectacle/discourse rather than acted directly. 65 films →

attraction image

*1st reflection* — composition signs `plastic-figure` + `theatrical-figure`, genetic sign `mise-en-abyme`. On screen: the "montage of attractions"; staging that figures rather than acts. 64 films →

inversion image

*2nd reflection* — `sublime-figure` + `enfeebled-figure`, with `the-quotidian` (the everyday as at once trivial and unfathomable) as its genetic limit. On screen: the sublime hero or his feeble inversion; the uncanny everyday. 10 films →

discourse image

*3rd reflection* — the limit-figures where large and small form articulate unanswerable questions. On screen: the image posing a discourse/problem it cannot resolve. 74 films →

RELATION-IMAGE *(Thirdness)*

the mental-image

relations themselves are the object; the spectator is folded in to assemble them. On screen: meaning built from relations the viewer holds; the audience as a knowing third. 251 films →

mark

a term in its habitual relational series. On screen: an object meaningful by its customary chain ("when you see X, expect Y"). 151 films →

demark

a term torn from its series; "out of place." On screen: an anomaly that disrupts habit and forces interpretation. 187 films →

symbol

an object bearing an abstract relation / the law of the whole. On screen: an object condensing the film's organizing relation. 170 films →

The crisis of the action-image *(the hinge)*

crisis of the action image

the sensory-motor schema breaks; the agent becomes a seer. On screen: characters who can no longer react adequately to what they perceive. 228 films →

dispersive situation

scattered ensemble, no single englobing situation. On screen: many weakly-linked characters. 112 films →

weak links

events connect by chance or not at all. On screen: slackened causality, elliptical cuts. 92 films →

voyage balade form

aimless wandering replacing goal-directed action. On screen: the trip/stroll that transforms nothing. 143 films →

consciousness of cliches

the world experienced as ready-made images. On screen: characters/films aware they move among clichés. 58 films →

condemnation of the plot

a hidden power/conspiracy sensed behind events, unconfrontable. On screen: a diffuse plot-behind-the-plot. 21 films →

Time-image: the break

pure optical & sound situations

perception severed from action; the image opens onto time. On screen: a character (and we) can only look/listen, with no action available. 324 films →

voyant

the protagonist who registers rather than acts. On screen: a watcher/endurer, not an agent. 291 films →

temps mort

dedramatized empty duration. On screen: stretches where nothing advances the action; the everyday held. 191 films →

Indirect time-images

two recognitions

habitual (sensory-motor) vs attentive recognition. On screen: recognition that stalls and reaches for memory instead of action. 15 films →

mnemosign / image-souvenir

a localizable memory-image (flashback); still *indirect* time. On screen: a dated flashback representing a former present. 129 films →

onirosign

the virtual as impersonal circuit (dream/fantasy/hallucination). On screen: dream/fantasy circuits not tied to a localizable memory. 81 films →

movement of world

personal movement relayed to a supra-personal movement of the *world* itself. On screen: the character grows still while the world moves (the dance absorbing the dancer). 170 films →

The crystal-image

hyalosign

actual & virtual become indiscernible; the direct image of time. On screen: present and memory/dream/reflection that can't be told apart; mirrors. 238 films →

formation

the crystal growing from a seed that crystallizes its world. On screen: spontaneous "entrances," the inner world crystallizing. 27 films →

saturated

a sealed crystalline totality; characters incarcerated. On screen: an enclosed, mirror-saturated world with no outside. 74 films →

crystal cracked

a flaw/line of escape through the crystal. On screen: a fissure/background line of flight out of the totality. 48 films →

crystal decomposition

a crystalline world decaying. On screen: an aristocratic/ordered world rotting from within. 196 films →

The powers of the false

puissances du faux

narration that abandons the form of the true; becoming over identity. On screen: truth/falsity made undecidable as a creative principle. 284 films →

crystalline description

description that creates and erases its object (vs organic description that assumes a prior reality). On screen: images/words that compose then replace their own object. 140 films →

falsifying narration

incompossible, contradictory simultaneous presents (vs truthful/organic narration). On screen: mutually exclusive versions presented as co-true. 166 films →

le faussaire

the falsifier/counterfeiter as the genetic figure; a chain of metamorphoses. On screen: a protagonist who forges/creates truth; serial shifting identity. 285 films →

Chronosigns (direct images of time)

chronosign

a direct image of time. On screen: time presented in itself, not via movement. ⚠ Deleuze uses narrowly + broadly. 32 films →

order of time / coexistence

coexisting regions of the past (Bergson's cone); non-chronological leaps. On screen: the past as an order one moves through non-linearly (not a dated flashback). 72 films →

series of time

incompossible simultaneous presents (present-of-past, present-of-present, present-of-future coexisting). On screen: contradictory presents coexisting; before/after as becoming. 45 films →

the genetic chronosign

the *third* chronosign beyond sheets-of-past (order) and peaks-of-present (series): time as becoming, i.e. the as the genetic principle of time. On screen: time as the productive power of the new/false. ⚠ Deamer's label; do NOT double-count with `powers-of-the-false` — `genesign` is that concept seen as the genetic chronosign. 6 films →

diagram

superimposed maps/sheets transforming into one another (cerebral cartography). On screen: layered maps/plans morphing across time. 7 films →

The lectosign

the readable image

an image that must be *read*, not just seen; legible/stratified. On screen: the image loses sensory-motor self-evidence and asks to be deciphered. 220 films →

audiovisual disjunction

sound-image and visual-image become autonomous/incommensurable. On screen: voice and image tell different stories; speech detached from visible bodies. 113 films →

the archaeological image

the visual as a geological layer to be read. On screen: an emptied landscape spoken over by an absent past. 37 films →

heautonomy

the *reciprocal* autonomy of the sound-image and the visual-image in the audiovisual time-image (the precise name behind audiovisual-disjunction). On screen: sound and image each a self-standing whole, communicating only across the interstice. 32 films →

acte de parole

speech as autonomous act (telling/fabulation/testimony). On screen: a "legending" or testimonial voice, not dialogue. 40 films →

regime straub huillet

the speech-act as resistance/struggle over a stratigraphic, "telluric" empty earth-space. On screen: a voice of the buried past over a depopulated landscape. 2 films →

regime duras

the autonomous voice/sound floating free of a depopulated visual space. On screen: voices-off detached from the bodies; image and sound telling two stories. 5 films →

regime syberberg

the speech-act and visual become information/back-projection. On screen: projection/information-space; the visual as a surface to be read. 2 films →

The noosign

the image of thought

cinema and the brain; the image confronting thought with its outside. On screen: the film thinks rather than depicts; the screen as a brain. 36 films →

spiritual automaton

thought set in motion by the image — or, in modern cinema, its powerlessness to think. On screen: the image forcing/blocking thought (Eisenstein's noble version, or Artaud's impower). 24 films →

the unthought

contact with the unsummonable/incommensurable; the Outside. On screen: an encounter with what thought cannot think; the undecidable. 34 films →

the unthought

contact with the unsummonable/incommensurable; the Outside. On screen: an encounter with what thought cannot think; the undecidable.

interstice / the "AND"

a cut belonging to neither shot, a term in itself; relinkage not linkage. On screen: cuts that join across a gap (the between), not by continuity. 34 films →

Body and brain cinema

attitudes & postures

the body, no longer an instrument of action, makes time appear (tiredness, waiting, ceremony). On screen: the everyday or ceremonial body carrying duration. 250 films →

the gest

the bodily/theatrical making-visible of relations (Brecht's gestus). On screen: a posture/attitude that exposes a social or theatrical relation. 292 films →

cinema of the brain

the world as a topological brain; irrational relinkage; the death of the integrable whole. On screen: world-as-brain architecture; probabilistic/topological structure. 28 films →

Modern political cinema

people are missing

no unified present people; the people are absent, to be invented. On screen: the political passing through the absence/impossibility of "a people.". 124 films →

free indirect discourse political

filmmaker and people fused in an impersonal enunciation. On screen: author/character vision fused; the camera speaking-for. 61 films →

story-telling / legending

the legend-making speech-act that brings a not-yet people into being. On screen: subjects caught "in the act of legending" themselves. 231 films →

Contemporary extensions (NOT Deleuze — attributed)

neuro image

Pisters (2012) — a proposed third regime for digital/networked cinema; the screen as brain, database logic, future-oriented time. On screen: 21st-c. digital cinema moving *through* a mind; recombinant/database structure. *Not Deleuze's term.*. 26 films →

post continuity

Shaviro (2010) — digital editing abandoning spatial-temporal continuity for pure affective intensity. On screen: incoherent space/time, immediate affect over continuity. 28 films →

mind game film

Elsaesser (2009) — puzzle/unreliable-narration films breaking the "films don't lie" contract. On screen: reality-destabilizing twists, reward re-viewing. 66 films →