Self-Reflexivity in Movies: Gilles Deleuze on the “Crystal-Image”

Abstract

In this article I will argue about what is the most important and basic characteristic of self-reflexivity (auto-réflexivité) in movies. My answer is that it is a direct evocation or presentation of a split or a dividing in two (dédoublement) of time into the present and the past. This dédoublement of time is the origin of any and every self-reflexivity, and therefore can be called archi-réflexion (this is my neologism).

According to Gilles Deleuze (and Henri Bergson), it is not that the present changes into the past as it passes away, but that they are both constituted at the same time in each moment. “The past does not follow the present that it is no longer, it coexists with the present it was.” (Cinema 2: The Time-Image, p. 79, translated by H. Tomlinson & R. Galeta.)

Movies can present directly and concretely this dédoublement of time, this archi-réflexion through a “crystal-image (image-cristal)”, which is an image with two sides, that is, a coalescence of an actual image and a virtual image.

I will furthermore discuss several reasons why movies in particular, among many genres of art, can evoke or present such dédoublement of time so directly and concretely.