The Cinematic Brain: Between Deleuze and Bellour

This article aims to make some sense of Gilles Deleuze’s conception of the brain and show how it not only provides a framework for his film-philosophy, but also connects issues raised in his cinema books to the major abiding themes of his overall project. I consider in detail how the work of Raymond Bellour elucidates the contours of Deleuze’s concept of the brain by showing the various ways in which it builds upon ideas from science, philosophy, and art (including, of course, film). It also shows how the cinematic brain, no longer conceived as a mere fleshy organ, provides one way to theorize an expanded notion of cinema to include video and new electronic media. This brain also provides clues to both Deleuze’s and Bellour’s non-Freudian concepts of the unconscious. However, while Bellour perhaps goes the furthest in describing the contours of the Deleuzian brain, his reliance on hypnosis – which he employs in order to move beyond psychoanalysis – ultimately betrays key aspects of Deleuze’s cinematic philosophy, especially the ethical and political implications we find in the conclusion of Cinema 2.