The Relation between Philosophy and Cinema A Research based on Gilles Deleuze’s Cinematic Philosophy

Gilles Deleuze, the great postmodern philosopher, in his cinematic works, Cinema 1: movement-image and Cinema 2: time-image, provides a profound and unique narrative of the relation between philosophy and cinema, which seems to go beyond the usual theory of film. It is the very idea of a connection between image and reality, or cinema and ontology of the image, which makes a huge distance between his views on the cinematic and conventional theoretical-cinematic approaches. In this paper, by depicting Deleuze’s cinematic thinking, we will show its special significance in the film critique field and even in the philosophical thought. It is not by accident that his philosophy begins with the priority of simulacrum and image in a project called ‘overturning Platonism’. We consider how Deleuze regards cinema as a form of philosophizing (and vice versa) and how they can change or expand the boundaries of each other; at the same time, we examine the powers and limitations of this approach, in terms of some sort of elitism which we can find in his books. Understanding Deleuze’s cinematic thought allows us to rethink the constantly consolidated themes of traditional philosophy and even to recognize the mutual dynamism and linkage of thought with modern phenomena such as cinema, as a special field which works with movement, time and image.