Ontology of Time in Cinema; a Deleuzian reading of Still Life and Prince Ehtejab with an emphasis on the concept of Time-Image*

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin

2 PhD of Performing Art, Ferrara University, Italy (corresponding author)

Abstract

Gilles Deleuze, the notable post-modern philosopher, in his two-volume cinematic books Cinema 1: movement-image (1986) and Cinema 2: time-image (1989) recognizes two major periods in history of cinema (classic and modern) in terms of representing movement and time respectively. Referring to various films of modern cinema especially post-war European cinema like Italian neorealism, Cinema 2 speaks about the possibility of direct presentation of time in cinematic works. Explaining Deleuze’s theories and his two formulations of direct presentation of time as ‘pure optical situations’ and ‘sheets of the past’, in this essay we try to give an analysis of the two most important films of Iranian history of cinema: Still Life (1974) and Prince Ehtejab (1974). Finally, we will conclude that these films are not mere representation of preexisting philosophical concepts, rather in contrast to linguistic thought, they provide some kind of visual and non-linguistic philosophical meditations of time, cinema of time.

Keywords

References

  • Bogue, Ronald (2003), Deleuze on Cinema, London & New York: Routledge.
  • Colebrook,Claire.(2002a), Gilles Deleuze. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Colebrook,Claire.(2002b), Understanding Deleuze, London: Allen and Unwin.
  • Dabashi, Hamid (2001), Close-Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present and Future, Verso, London, New York.
  • Deleuze, Gilles (1986), Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlison, Barbara Habberjam, London: Athlone Press.
  • Deleuze, Gilles (1989), Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlison, Barbara Habberjam London: Athlone Press
  • Deleuze, Gilles (1994), Difference and repetition, Continuum: Athlone Press, London
  • Marrati, Paola (2008), Gilles Deleuze: Cinema and Philosophy, trans. Alisa Hartz, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Rodowick, D.N (2010), Afterimages of Gilles Deleuze’s Film Philosophy; edited by Rodowick, University of Minnesota Press. London.
  • Prince Ehtejab (Bahman Farmanara, Iran, 1974)
  • Still Life (Sohrab Shahid-Sales, Iran, 1974)
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Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 11, Issue 21
Articles
December 2017
Pages 39-52

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