Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T05:31:23.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

6 - Henri Bergson

from I - WHAT IS CINEMA?

By
Dorothea Olkowski
Edited by
Felicity Colman
Dorothea Olkowski
Affiliation:
University of Colorado
Felicity Colman
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
Get access

Summary

Henri Bergson (1859–1941) was appointed Chair of Ancient Philosophy at the prestigious Collège de France in 1900. In 1922 he became president of the International Commission for Intellectual Cooperation (a precursor to UNESCO). His life work includes a paper on observed hypnosis sessions, “De la simulation inconsciente dans l'état d'hypnotisme” (On unconscious simulation in states of hypnosis) (in Revue Philosophique, 1886), Time and Free Will (1889; English trans. 1910), Matter and Memory (1896; English trans. 1911), Laughter (1900; English trans. 1901), Creative Evolution (1907; English trans. 1910), his reflections after a debate with Albert Einstein in Duration and Simultaneity (1922) and The Creative Mind (1946; published in French as La Pensée et le mouvant, 1934).

THE LOSS OF INNOCENCE

For philosophers and film theorists today, there can be no innocent account of the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and especially no innocent account of Bergson and film. The latter is due in large part to the two books on cinema written by Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1 (1983; 1986) and Cinema 2 (1985; 1989). Both books acknowledge Bergson's rich and inventive notion of the image, but simultaneously seek to circumvent Bergson's own so-called “overhasty critique” of cinema, a critique that apparently arises when he characterizes the medium as a model for the forces of rationality that immobilize and fragment time (Deleuze 1986: xiv).

Type
Chapter
Information
Film, Theory and Philosophy
The Key Thinkers
 , pp. 71 - 80
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2009

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 coreplatform@cambridge.org 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
×