Gilles Deleuze from A to Z

Although Gilles Deleuze never wanted a film to be made about him, he agreed to ClaireParnet's proposal to film a series of conversations in which each letter of the alphabet would evokea word: From A (as in Animal) to Z (as in Zigzag). These DVDs, elegantly transtlated and subtitledin English, make these conversations available for English-speaking audiences? for the first time.Indialogue with Parnet (a journalist and former student of Deleuze), the philosopher exhibited themodest and thrilling transparency that his seminal works (such as Anti-Oedipus and A ThousandPlateaus) reveal. The sessions were taped when Deleuze was already terminally ill; he and Parnetagreed that the film would not be shown publicly until after his death. The awareness of mortalityfloats through the dialogues, making them not just intellectually stimulating but also emotionallyengaging. Because Parnet knew Deleuze so well, she was able to draw him out--as no one else had--towhat might be the 1001st plateau: a place of brilliance, rigor, and charm.In "A as inAnimal," for example, Deleuze vents his hatred of pets: "A bark," he declares,"really seems to me the stupidest cry." Instead, he praises the tick: "... in anature teeming with life, [the tick] extracts three things": light, smell, and touch. This, heclaims, in a sense is philosophy. "And that is your life's dream?" Parnet wryly asks."That's what constitutes a world," he replies. For Deleuze, doing philosophy meant notjust creating concepts but living a life in philosophy. Gilles Deleuze from A to Z presents the mindof a great philosopher at work.

Gilles Deleuze (1925--1995) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII, Vincennes/Saint Denis. He published twenty-five books, including five in collaboration with Felix Guattari.