David Deamer
This video essay explores the relationship between film and history in Deleuze’s Cinema books. This does not simply mean the relationship between film and the history of cinema, though this too is considered. Rather, the crucial focus is the relationship between film and history in general, which has to large extent been ignored in secondary commentaries of Deleuze’s Cinema books. Further, it might seem on the face of it that Deleuze has little to say on history in this context, yet, that it is a philosophical problem for him is without doubt. Indeed, approaching Deleuze and history through the Cinema books gives an exemplarly way to explore the nature of an event and its relationships with history.
The impetus for this paper is the extension of an argument first offered in ‘Cinema, chronos / cronos: becoming an accomplice to the impasse of history’ in Deleuze and History (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).