ABSTRACT
This chapter follows the enduring relationship between the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the post-1968 critics at Cahiers du cinéma. While references to Deleuze were largely avoided during the journal’s Marxist-Leninist phase, the period of openness after 1973 saw a fascinating pseudo-interview published with the philosopher in 1976, centering on a discussion of Jean-Luc Godard’s television work. At the time, Jean Narboni taught alongside Deleuze at Paris-VIII, and their conversations helped shape Deleuze’s magisterial diptych Cinéma, published in the early 1980s. Both volumes of this text are suffused with the influence of numerous Cahiers critics, but it is with Serge Daney that the most fruitful dialogue took place, as exemplified in Deleuze’s preface to Daney’s book Ciné journal, “Optimisme, pessimisme et voyage,” where the state of contemporary cinema in the age of the electronic image is addressed.
