Moral Perfectionism and Clichés: The Ethics and Ontology of Film in Cavell and Deleuze

This article explores the ethical and ontological intersection of film theory in the works of Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze, focusing on the philosophical tension between the cinematic image and the cliché. The ethical foundations of cinema are questioned by confronting the divergent perspectives of Stanley Cavell and Gilles Deleuze on the “crisis” of cinema. First, how 1960s American cinema exposed a crisis of stereotypes and cinematographic clichés in and out of Hollywood will be examined. While Cavell finds democratic potential in film’s ability to capture singular individuality and a return to the ordinary, Deleuze sees postwar US cinema as saturated by pervasive psychological and visual clichés. Then the article addresses their divergent evaluations of European modernist cinema, particularly the French Nouvelle Vague. Whereas Deleuze praises Jean-Luc Godard’s “time-image” for subverting clichés to liberate thought, Cavell critically rejects Godard’s approach as an artificial, elitist entrapment that abdicates artistic responsibility toward the viewer. Finally, how ethics itself risks becoming an oversimplified “cliché” is investigated in both Cavell’s and Deleuze’s perspectives. Drawing on Emersonian moral philosophy, the article examines how Deleuze’s concept of the “false choice” in Sternberg’s and Bresson’s films echoes Cavell’s “moral perfectionism”.