Philosophy Seminar Series: Robert W. Luzecky

Friday, March 10, 2023 1:30 PM to 2:45 PM EST
Online Location, zoom

Speaker: Robert W. Luzecky

Title: Memory and Cinema

Abstract: My argument progresses through three stages: (1) I suggest that Gilles Deleuze’s innovative reading of Henri Bergson’s concept of duration is key to understanding how time is expressed in cinema; (2) I observe – through reference to Alain Robbe-Grillet’s theory of artistic descriptions – that a direct image of time enjoys nascent expression in the form of ‘pure optical and acoustic situations’ (i.e., moments of profound change in any of the diegetic elements of a film story); (3) finally, I suggest that time gains direct cinematic expression in the peculiar ‘crystal-images’ that proliferate in post-Second World War cinema. I observe that time’s expression in cinema involves a diminishment of the relative importance of the relation of temporal succession, a prioritisation of time’s involvement with fundamental ontological change, and a specification of the strictly simultaneous emergence of past and present.

Though Seminar Series talks are oriented to faculty and grad students, this is a space where all who are interested in the topic are welcome and encouraged to attend. Any questions about the event should be directed to the colloquium committee organizer Dan Nicholson (dnicho@gmu.edu).