Presentation Schedule
The Splendor of the Insignificant: Hitchcock, Rancière, and Deleuze (106051)
Session Chair: Amresh Sinha
Monday, 11 May 2026 18:40
Session: Session 5
Room: Room G405 (4F)
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
This paper examines the often-overlooked elements within Alfred Hitchcock's films, focusing on objects and sights that tend to be ignored or bypassed by audiences. Typically, viewers direct their attention toward the spectacle of the plot, or muthos in the Aristotelian sense, privileging narrative over the sensory aspects, known as opsis. This results in a neglect of the "sensible effects" of the spectacle, which play a vital role in cinematic experience. In this context, the image is subordinated to the ideas it represents, rather than appreciated for its own sensory reality.
Two significant philosophical issues—one from Deleuze and one from Rancière—are explored in relation to Hitchcock’s films. Through various examples, the paper illustrates the status of "marked" and "unmarked" images as presented in Deleuze’s Cinema Books. By extracting these images from their narrative status, the analysis, following Rancière, postulates that the cinematographic apparatus is fundamentally a device for recording, rather than a medium for reproducing objects or representing stories.
Hitchcock’s images embody the "intimate presence of things", or "things-in-themselves", resisting assimilation into the coherent plot structures of his films. By projecting these images—pure-image icons reminiscent of the plastic arts—which have been absorbed into the narrative, the paper seeks to restore what Rancière calls "the splendor of the insignificant." In doing so, it aims to highlight the aesthetic and philosophical significance of these overlooked cinematic elements.
Authors:
Amresh Sinha, School of Visual Arts, United States
About the Presenter(s)
Dr Amresh Sinha is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at The School of Visual Arts in United States
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