Close-up in Cinema, in Line with the Time-Image Concept of Deleuze: An Analysis Focusing on the Film Sivas

Abstract

According to Gilles Deleuze, time-image is a critical image that proceeds with pure visual and auditory situations, creates its own time, does not contain metaphors, and communicate directly with thought and time. The crystal image generated by the time-image allows the perception of virtual powers. Irrational cuts interfere with the indirect presentation of time as a kind of aberration of movement and reverse the relationship of subordination that continues with movement.  Due to the exchange of the virtual and actual, the randomness of events is affirmed. Unfinished, multi-faceted and always in dialogue with the subject; it breaks the routine, allows us to rarefy the image by removing everything that we added to the image in our minds, and activates the powers of intuition. The time-image does not have to be close-up, but it can be said that the close-up has an organic connection with the time-image due to it being a frame that has been formally broken away from the context, due to its flat appearance that negates depth and perspective due to its tendency to become abstract. This article aims to elaborate this connection between time-image and close-up and to describe the qualities of close-up as a time-image, via the film Sivas (Kaan Müjdeci, 2014).  In this axis, based on the characteristics of time-image, seven basic categories were created under the titles of subjectivity, deterritorialization, virtuality, intuitiveness, randomness, irrationality and becoming. The film was analyzed thematically in the context of these categories. Hereby, It can be seen that the close-ups accompanying the shaky motion of the camera on the shoulder in this film remind us of two points of view on and off the character; with the random determination of the images, the viewers are invited to the time of the incomplete. It has been determined that the variability of the frame during the movement makes the ongoing state of becoming perceivable, and the unconnectedness of the relationship between the whole and the part reveals the state of deterritorialization and virtuality.  The subjective, deterritorialized, virtual, intuitive, random and irrational close-ups of the film create areas in which the concepts of masculinity, self-realization, competence and power are questioned and discussed, and reveal a transformative time-image cinema in which permanent meanings are produced.

Key words: Deleuze, Time-image, Close-up, Film image, Turkish cinema