French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Dymek, Cinema and Semiotics: Deleuze in Question
Art and Visual Culture

Cinema and Semiotics: Deleuze in Question
Anne Dymek

Publication date: 21/02/2015 Publisher: Le Bord de l'eau Series: Ciné-politique ISBN: 978-2-35687-366-8 EAN: 9782356873668 Format: Paperback No. of pages: 113 p.

Although essential, Gilles Deleuze's works Cinema I and II exhibit numerous philosophical flaws. For while the question of the relationship between image and sign haunts Deleuze, he did not truly employ the fundamental theories of Charles Sanders Peirce to address it. Instead, he preferred to establish a "film semiotics" that is half-Bergsonian, half-Peircean, attempting to reconcile the immersive power of cinema with the cognitive force of its representations.

Is this phenomenological theory valid? This is the question we wish to raise in this book. Indeed, in our view, it is the fundamental question of Deleuzian Cinema.

Anne Dymek holds a PhD in Film Studies. Her research focuses primarily on the semiotics of the image and film perception.

This volume contributes to the broader tradition of film theory and philosophical aesthetics, engaging closely with the intersections of semiotics, phenomenology, and the philosophy of the moving image. By questioning the methodological foundations of Deleuze's cinematic studies, the work addresses foundational debates concerning how narrative and experimental films construct meaning through visual and cognitive representations. It is particularly useful for scholars, graduate students, and researchers in film studies, philosophy, and media theory who seek a rigorous critical assessment of structuralist and post-structuralist approaches to visual culture.

Rooted in contemporary academic research on image perception and semiotics, the book invites readers to reevaluate established paradigms in film analysis. It serves as a valuable resource for those investigating the theoretical frameworks that govern how audiences interpret cinematic signs and movement-images. By closely analyzing the underlying tensions between Bergsonian intuition and Peircean semiotic categories, the study illuminates ongoing methodological challenges within the academic discourse on film and philosophy.