Gilles Deleuze from A to Z

I purchased this DVD in France, watched it in French, and was so pleased to be able to share an English sub-titled version with friends. I am a real "groupie" of this unclassifiable French philosopher, and my husband and I made it a habit a couple of summers ago of watching one "letter" i.e. one theme every evening before dinner. Food for thought but no particular prior knowledge required to enjoy it. One worries only about the state of the perpetually smoking interviewer's lungs!

I was so happy to eventually get the whole Thing, after watching samples on Youtube, on and on. You don't need to be in philosophy to enjoy Deleuze talking from A to Z about his practise. What you need is to be alive, and to think about this simple ... concept.

I cant stop watching this like I cant stop reading Proust

This film is truly wonderful in that it shows Gilles Deleuze without all of the fame, glory, and metaphorical "red carpet" that gets rolled out for him as a "famous leftist thinker" (whatever that means). He comes across as an eccentric, decrepit sage, that is to say, one who has been to many places, and affirmed most of them. The special thing about this video series is that he seems approachable, and perhaps even vulnerable throughout its duration.Deleuze's academic writings are well-known for their impenetrability. Even some of the so-called "brightest bulbs on the tree" have been mystified and puzzled by his style and concepts. Reading his writings gives one the impression that one has landed somewhere one does not belong; everything seems foreign and out-of-place. It is not unusual for readers of Deleuze to give up their studies of his works out of feelings of inadequacy.While this (giving up in the face of Deleuze's obscurity) is certainly an understandable response, it should always be remembered that Deleuze himself had a very complex and antagonistic relationship with academics. Although his writings are without a doubt "academic", the only things that make a professor more likely to read his work than a homeless man or a prostitute are:1) likelihood of exposure (typically Deleuze is only discussed in academic contexts)2) intellectual narcissism: the professor or graduate student is likely to have an insane amount of faith in their intellectual abilities, and is thus more than likely to have come under the impression that "nothing is too complex" to comprehend.This video series, however, has something for everybody, and is not at all intimidating to watch, except perhaps in the case of viewers who are easily bored by low levels of visual stimulation. The title, which invokes the alphabet is expressive of this fact. This is a notoriously obscure and complex thinker who has chosen to make a video series based on the first thing we all learn in school: THE ALPHABET. Need I say more? "From A to Z" is splendidly, gloriously mundane, and perhaps, dare I say, a little bit heartwarming?

Pregunta... el video tiene traduccion Al español?

The abecedaire (from A to Z) by Gilles Deleuze (interviewed by Claire Parnet) is very important for the thinking during the second half of the twentieth century. This set of discs is a great example of Deleuze because here he clearly explains the meaning of his experience of thinker in the years in counterculture (after May '68). Deleuze never abandoned his point of view : it is the value for everybody that wish to know from a thinker that was in leading position in post '68 the feeling of such an important era. He underlines the fact that bourgeoisie does not forget the fear of that time of May 68.About the heritage of May 68 : for example the item “desire” in the interview is explained in very frankly manner, it is named “constructivism” that is the opposite of the vulgar meaning of desire as spontaneity politics or crazy behavior. In the same time Gilles Deleuze interviewed by a great Claire Parnet tell us that he was among the crazies with the purpose to help this people preventing the disaster of hospitalization in a psychiatric facility. This concept is worth to link to the video tapes filmed during the lessons of philosophy in Vincennes in the half of 70s. (And I suggest to evaluate the great experimentalism of Deleuze in the field of multimedia.) The DVDs of abecedaire are almost of ten years later (1988) but contains the same feeling of that years when people was more hopeful toward the ideo of changing the world.It is a posthumous interview (made seven years before the death of the philosopher), this underlines the fact that it seems the "last" word of Deleuze. And in a point of the interview he tell that he (and Guattari) was a sort of Bouvard et Pecuchet encyclopedia (said that smiling) thereby establishing the actuality of time. He was (in my opinion) seeing the coming 1989.Some opinions are a bit controversial e.g. the statement about Umberto Eco or Wittgenstein. But it is out of doubt that Deleuze sometime exaggerates his thought. This freewheeling interview (greatly subtitled in English) supports the idea that "revolution" is always a failure hence the "revolutionary" must view his future with the lens of tragedy. At last the philosopher declares himself as a witness of the experience of thinking composed with ideas that can stand alone. Perfectly matches the european philosophical thought. Deleuze does not wish represent himself like a politician therefore this interview is a great evidence of his sincerity.

Una guía indispensable para el pensamiento de uno de los filósofos más importantes del siglo XX, capital para la comprensión del siglo XXI.

Maybe not exactly quintessential Gilles, but a uniquely fascinating DVD nonetheless which captures a side of the man perhaps unobtainable elsewhere and which I still thoroughly recommend.

Great!!