What Does Deleuze Do When He Does Film Criticism?

Abstract

Gilles Deleuze’s 1987 lecture “What is a Creative Act?”, true to its interrogative title, opens with the questions: “What do you do exactly, those of you who do cinema? And what do I do exactly when I do or hope to do philosophy?” Both practices, Deleuze suggests, involve an act of creation. If philosophers invent concepts, filmmakers invent “cinematographic ideas” by means of “blocks of movement-duration”. As a philosopher who thinks seriously about film, Deleuze is renowned for coming up with concepts about the medium. But his writings on movies can indeed be considered as reflections on the unique cinematographic ideas invented by filmmakers. This chapter explores what the concept of the cinematographic idea, central to Deleuze’s conception of the aesthetic possibilities of film, can tell us about his practice as a film critic and, by doing so, probes what his work can teach us about film criticism.