Movement Through Space:
Deleuze’s Theories on the Movement-Image in Documentary BY PETER TOTTEN | Ryerson University
ABSTRACT The use of movement and time as medium sets film apart as an art form. While the language of film is spoken by virtually everybody to some degree, the knowledge to fully decipher the film-image is often out of reach for most casual viewers. In order to understand the images inundating the modern world, Gilles Deleuze establishes three theses for understanding the movement-of-the-image which—when applied to nonfiction film—tells a spectator what to think, who to trust, and how to view the world presented to them.
The camera pans back as the villain looks over the rubble: the last obstacles to his goal finally obliterated. The crackling fire around him signifies the utter defeat of the hero and his people. The scene cuts abruptly to the throne room shown upside down, the camera rotating 180 degrees as the villain—the new king—approaches his throne. In this pivotal scene from Black Panther (2018), camera movement and the mise-en-scène explain everything the audience needs to know about the transfer of power, how it happened, how they should feel about it, and what will happen next. Every movie, video, TikTok, Instagram live, and Marco Polo rely on the nonverbal language of cinema to tell their stories and make meaning. The manipulation of movement and time sets film apart as a medium and allows an infinite number of variations of form, genre, and theme. While much has been written about camera movement through historic, political, social, technical, and aesthetic lenses, there is still much to be understood about how movement within a frame affects the meaning of an image. What follows is an analysis of the use of the static, handheld, and fluid motion camera through Gilles Deleuze’s writing on the movement-image as it pertains to nonfiction film, television, and social media while noting
The voiceover situates the speaker (Keiller) as an observer of life and history, and the static shots invite the viewer into the same position.
how movement within the frame changes the relationship between image and spectator from the latter end of the twentieth century up to the current documentary moment. Understanding how camera movement works within an image makes image production more obvious, leading creators to attempt to make rarefied images: shots or clips of such resonance and clarity that that they are clearly understood and stay with the viewer. In attempting to make such images, a thorough understanding of what is happening in an image while using a given movement technique is paramount. BACKGROUND Camera movement can be used in a myriad of ways, but no matter the technique it is vital to recognize its implications for one’s interpretation of an image. At its core, movement physically changes the frame through which one views the image. These shifts have ideological and psychological ramifications; the inherent moving image of a video causes changes in the meanings and how it is read. The case studies explored in this analysis draw on important works of nonfiction from the twentieth century, each one using a different kind of movement within the frame to affect how the images presented are understood. This analysis of three general types of camera movement will touch on the qualities of the movement, how it impacts how time is measured within the shot, and how it impacts the spectator’s experience and relationship to what is seen. To begin this analysis it’s important to lay out the major theses through which Deleuze (through Henri Bergson) is viewing the movement-image. For the term of movement-image, there are some facets that get lost in translation from the MISE- EN - SCÈNE
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