- film character and action-image -

Gilles Deleuze, in his taxonomy of cinema, describes cinematic realism as the action-image. Realism, or action-images in general, express the way in which situations and character behaviours inter-relate in specific ways. On the one hand, situations can spiral down to be embodied by characters that, through their actions, effect the situation. Alternatively, actions can gradually reveal a situation, each disclosure provoking new actions. The most distinctive, or familiar, sign of the action-image is the binomial. Here we encounter the duel. The duel-film proceeds by two dominant lines of force embodied in the characters. These duels may be violent or romantic, and it matters not which side of the binary emerges triumphant, whether the duel ends in victory or disappointment. Rather, it is the process that describes the action-image. This process is organised, again, in general, by alternate parallel montage that converges two lines of force emerging from the situation (S) towards a central, final and privileged duel (A).

The binomial, then, as a sign of the action-image, of realism, is the mechanism of much popular cinema. However, the binomial is a tendency that is presupposed, or presupposes, a situation. In other words the binomial emerges from a determinate space-time, the milieu. While the binomial is more interested in action-in-and-for, the milieu describes, as Deleuze puts it, ‘determinate, geographical, historical and social space-times’.