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THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD
2015
Director
Thom Andersen
Starring
Runtime
108 minutes
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Happy 100th birthday, Gilles Deleuze! (1/18/25 - 4/11/95)
In academic cinema studies circles, Deleuze is an atom bomb — he entered film discourse in the late 1980s at a time when theoretical approaches to understanding cinema (the so-called “Grand Theory” tradition) were being upstaged by the new formalist methods developed by David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson. With his impossibly wordy prose, the French Deleuze also rejected the traditions of psycho-analytical and semiotic approaches to understanding cinema. In its place, however, he created a more elusive theory of cinema as a space where “thought” could be produced.
Master cinematic essayist Thom Andersen (LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF) turns Deleuze’s writing into a template for his latest film essay. But THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD is no lecture. The film, composed of clips by directors from Griffith to Godard, doesn’t explicate the French philosopher’s dense texts. Rather, it’s a wordless, associative, haunted journey—sometimes rueful and sobering, sometimes very funny—not just through the history of cinematic innovation, but through the 20th century itself
Its raw materials include the work of sainted auteurs and Hollywood workhorses, with diversions into porn and propaganda, Patty Hearst and Cheech & Chong. In passing Andersen manages to squeeze in comments on longstanding preoccupations, including (but not limited to) modernist architecture, rock ‘n’ roll, and historical whitewashing. In this context the phrase “Marxist analysis” refers to Groucho no less than to Karl.
“This is a film made by a person who knows that cinema will never die.” - Neil Bahadur
In academic cinema studies circles, Deleuze is an atom bomb — he entered film discourse in the late 1980s at a time when theoretical approaches to understanding cinema (the so-called “Grand Theory” tradition) were being upstaged by the new formalist methods developed by David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson. With his impossibly wordy prose, the French Deleuze also rejected the traditions of psycho-analytical and semiotic approaches to understanding cinema. In its place, however, he created a more elusive theory of cinema as a space where “thought” could be produced.
Master cinematic essayist Thom Andersen (LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF) turns Deleuze’s writing into a template for his latest film essay. But THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD is no lecture. The film, composed of clips by directors from Griffith to Godard, doesn’t explicate the French philosopher’s dense texts. Rather, it’s a wordless, associative, haunted journey—sometimes rueful and sobering, sometimes very funny—not just through the history of cinematic innovation, but through the 20th century itself
Its raw materials include the work of sainted auteurs and Hollywood workhorses, with diversions into porn and propaganda, Patty Hearst and Cheech & Chong. In passing Andersen manages to squeeze in comments on longstanding preoccupations, including (but not limited to) modernist architecture, rock ‘n’ roll, and historical whitewashing. In this context the phrase “Marxist analysis” refers to Groucho no less than to Karl.
“This is a film made by a person who knows that cinema will never die.” - Neil Bahadur