Gilles Deleuze, l’image mouvement, chapitre 1 : theses sur le mouvement

1st these of Bergson on “Matiere et memoire” 1896

The movement is not a succession of different points.

The movement is what is ongoing between two position : whatever close you take your two points, we will never been able to reproduce the movement, which is done between these two points.

A succession of immobile images can not reproduce any movement, as the cinema try to do.

So, we can critic the cinema by two ways :

1) It try to remake the movement with a serie of instantaneous images

2) It is an art of illusion.

Also Bergson note that in cinema, the image broadcasted is not equals to the sum of the instantaneous photos. Something bigger appears : by the projection, an average image is created, which give an average image, already containing the movement : a movement-image.

2nd these of Bergson on “evolution creatrice” 1907

In this second thesys, Bergson mainly treat the second critic about cinema : the art of illusion.

For Bergson, there are different ways to make illusion :

Antique way	Moderne way
For Grecian people, the movement is an incarnation of eternal ideals. The universe is one, unique and eternal, with some gods who are here since the beginning and forever. The time is unique, essential, transcendental. The movement of universe and things obey to these eternal ideas and gods in a time who is unique.	In the moderne way, the science try to build up a philosophy on which the time is independent of the movement and things : you can repeat the same experiment in another day with the same result, and the rules of science should style be working. The movement of planet can be calculated, predicted and do not depend of any time : the rules are here to work in any case. The movement is done on echanical way on a succession of whatever instants.
Time is a strategically unique instant.	Time is an independent variable.
	Cinema is done with 24 images by second, without regarding the specific moments on which they are taken. In this sense, cinema’s time is an independent variable. This make cinema modern illusion.
But in both conception, we miss the movement, because both are based on the idea that the whole as been given : the whole of eternal poses in Antique time, and the whole of all the instants in Modern thoughts.
Eternal poses = the whole	all the instants = the whole
This change the concept of time, which will be representing eternal ideas or which will be the consequence of the whole because composed of instants.
Time = eternity	Time = consequence of the whole because composed of instant
None of these two definition of time allow the real movement to be. The real movement is defined on a concrete duration which is not eternity, and which is not a succession of instants. Mouvement is done between two instants, in a concrete duration.
The Antique way is linked with Antique philosophy, which tried to think the eternity , with gods and eternal universe.	The moderne way do not try to think eternity anymore, but need a new philosophy, on which we should be able to think the possible production of new things at any time. Like “big bang”.

So in this second thesis, Bergson call for a new way to think time, duration and movement.

It is the content of its 3^rd thesis.

3rd these of Bergson on “evolution creatrice” 1907

For Bergson, the mistake is to think the movement just as theoretical translation of elements without changing qualities.

In modern science the movement of the planet or of a ball is not considered as changing the qualities of it.

For Bergson, the qualities of the element are changing as soon as the element is moving : There is not only translation movement, but there are also quality transformation during the movement.

The movement is always ongoing with a quality transformation.

For example : if I take a glass of water with a sugar in it, the movement of the particules of sugar to dissolve themselves in the water give as a result not only a translation movement, but also a change on quality of the water, which will change to a sweet water rather than a pure one. It is the double idea of translation movement and quality transformation that Bergson generalize about the whole : all the elements having a translation movement have also a quality change.

As everything has to be in the whole, the movement of any element make the transformation of the whole by itself.

Bergson redefine the whole, and said that it is never given. (This way he avoids the mistake of antique and modern way. )

The whole is never given because it is always changing, he is always giving something new.

In fact, to have something existing, you need to have something new happening, because anything happening happen in a movement, and the movement give you the time and the duration. Nothing exist if there is no time, no movement, no translation changes, no quality changes.

So the whole is always changing, and by so can not be given.

”Duration is depending of the possibility of creation inside universe” (la duree de l’univers ne doit faire qu’un avec la latitude de creation qui y peut trouver place”.

So, the movement express two things :

1) The translation of an element

2) The existence of the whole / The duration / The time

We call each instant an immobile slice (of the whole) and we call the movement a mobile slice (of the whole).

This way, an instantaneous image can be considered as an immobile slice of movement while the movement given by average image of cinema can be considered as a mobile slice of movement, a movement-image.