Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:20:23.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Attraction-images (first reflection-image; sixth mental-image)

from Section II - Second Introduction – A Series of Images and Signs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2019

David Deamer
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Get access

Summary

The first reflection-image, the first transformation of the action-image, is the figure of attraction, the attraction-image. Action-images concern the link between world and bodies where action reveals situation (action-image small form, action → situation) or situation determines action (action-image large form, situation → action). These two forms constitute a bi-directional reciprocity, a complementarity where both already reflect one another, but only virtually via the trajectory proper to each. The attraction-image will bring these two forms into immediate contact, actualising the reflection and as a consequence transforming the small and the large alike. One such contact occurs through the signs of composition of the attraction-image, where one form of the action-image is ‘injected’ into the other (C1: 182). Deleuze is here concerned with cinematic figures equivalent to tropes. A trope is a non-literal application of a word or a phrase that transforms the text in which it operates. Similarly, Deleuze writes: ‘cinematographic images have figures proper to them’ (C1: 183). There are two types, or degrees, of tropes. Perfect tropes appear as a distinct moment: as metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche. Imperfect tropes are where a figure is sustained over time: as allegory, mythology, allusion and irony. Perfect and imperfect tropes designate the two signs of composition of the attraction-image, which Deleuze names the plastic figure (perfect, first sign of composition) and the theatrical figure (imperfect, second sign of composition) (C1: 182). Plastic figures and theatrical figures – in the cinema – refer to the way in which the small form action-image is transformed by the large; and, the way in which the large transforms the small. When a film of the action-image small form (action → situation) has the large form within it, we encounter the perfect trope, a plastic figure. When a film of the action-image large form (situation → action) has the small form within it, we encounter the imperfect trope, a theatrical figure. In both cases, writes Deleuze, ‘there is no longer a direct relation between a situation and an action, an action and a situation: between the two images, or between the two elements of the image, a third intervenes to ensure the conversion of the forms’ (C1: 182). This third is a mental-image: the figure.

Type
Chapter
Information
Deleuze's Cinema Books
Three Introductions to the Taxonomy of Images
, pp. 105 - 109
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×