Time Image

Objective

Creating a description in the Augmented Treatment based on time-inage and associated signs. The objective is to apply Deleuze's taxonomy to the frame, shot and montage. As with the Movement-image, there is a two way process at work. I may have a frame, shot or montage concept and refer to the taxonony for ways to express the themes of the film, usually in a narrative cinematic manner. I may independently create the scene, and subsequently use the taxonomy to analyse and further refine the treatment. This would usually take the form of rewritting the prose description, the charater dialogue, changing or creating the story document imagery and sounds or music.

Gilles Deleuze's concept of the time-image, as discussed in "Cinema 2: The Time-Image," identifies several detailed types of signs that mark a significant shift from the movement-image cinema.

These signs primarily deal with the representation and experience of time in a more direct, non-linear, and complex manner. Here's an overview of the types of time-image signs and how you might recognize them in Apples and Oranges:

Opsigns (Optical Signs)

Characteristics: Opsigns are pure visual compositions that detach perception from action. They often present a tableau or visual environment that invites contemplation rather than immediate understanding or action.

Recognition: Look for scenes that linger on landscapes, faces, or objects, where the visual composition holds the viewer's attention without leading directly to an action. These scenes often evoke a sense of time passing or a moment suspended.

For example In this scene,

"Henri whirled about, looking for the original woman, finding only the autumnal version holding her bonnet as her child’s blew away, and across the meadow. The set off in pursuit leaving Henri in amazement, to ponder what to do. "

Sonsigns (Sound Signs)

Characteristics: Sonsigns decouple sound from the direct representation of action, using audio elements (music, ambient sound, dialogue) to evoke memories, emotions, or a sense of temporality independent of visual cues.

Recognition: Identify moments where sound or music plays a dominant role in shaping the scene's mood or meaning, especially when it seems to float free of the immediate action or visuals, perhaps invoking a time or place beyond the present scene.

For example In this scene, when the bells chime, in this scene, when the Green Faery sings or the descent into the Absinthe glasses

Chronosigns (Time Signs)

Characteristics: Chronosigns directly represent or manipulate time, often through flashbacks, flash-forwards, or other non-linear narrative techniques. They express pure time by breaking away from the traditional narrative sequence.

Recognition: Look for sequences that disrupt the chronological flow of the narrative, such as scenes depicting memories, future possibilities, or alternate realities, emphasizing the flow of time as an experience rather than a sequence of events.

For example the jumping in time throughout the sequences in the World of Art where all time prior to 1914 is simulateously present. The scene here is in 1896, this scene is situated in the early 1800s. This scene in the Paon Cerulean / Blue Parrott is a mash up / crash up of early 1800s and the early 1890s. The cave in the Art underworld here, moves us to a pre-Art historic time

Lectosigns (Reading Signs)

Characteristics: Lectosigns involve a layer of interpretation or reading beyond what is seen or heard. They suggest a depth of meaning that requires intellectual engagement, often linked to literary, philosophical, or psychoanalytic references.

Recognition:Identify moments where the film seems to pause for reflection or invites a deeper, interpretive engagement, possibly through symbols, allusions, or narrative ambiguity that demands active interpretation from the viewer.

Noosigns (Thought Signs)

Characteristics: Noosigns embody the characters' or film's contemplation, reflection, or inner thought processes. They foreground the act of thinking itself, often without immediate resolution or action.

Recognition: Look for scenes focused on introspection or philosophical inquiry, where characters grapple with existential questions, moral dilemmas, or abstract concepts, often without moving towards a decisive action.

How to Recognize Time-Image Signs in Apples and Oranges

To identify these signs in this Augmented Treatment, it's important to pay attention to scenes that seem to break from traditional narrative or sensory-motor schemas. The Time-image cinema of ACT II and IV in particular should feel more meditative, reflective, or disjointed, prioritizing the experience of time, memory, and thought over the straightforward storytelling of Henri's narrative. This film may challenge conventional viewing habits by creating spaces for viewer interpretation, reflection, and engagement with time as a multifaceted and complex dimension.

The stepping into The World of Art, by Henri, is presented as accidental, or coincidental, (i.e. without specific intentionality by Henri). After all he has, to this point, largely been a character-as-observer. He is by nature, and training, a scientist. This curiosity could be thought of as the automatic motor scheme that pulls him into The World Of Art.

This transformation and translation by the movement-image is also the marker in Apples and Oranges of the change from a predominately movement-image world of 'our world, in 1914 to the time-image world of The World of Art.

In the montage of Henri, Chapter 8,

Henri went to retrieve the apple and noticed the boy has left the page with the half-finished sketch on the ground. He retrieves it. Henri takes out the pencil he has in his breast pocket.

As Henri sketches he is suddenly perturbed as it seems as though as he fills in the apple’s shadow on the page, the shadow the on the plinth appears. He adds detail and the apple changes further. He looks perplexed but continues. ...The eyes on the page suddenly change and look at Henri, and he realises...The numb sound of the tonic becomes almost deafening. The notebook falls to the floor hit the plinth, disturbing the apple. The apple totters and falls from the plinth on to the open page and disappears.

This is the interuption between the affectation image and the action image that creates the time-image. It is Henri's realisation.