Cinematic Time in the Odyssey : Deleuze’s “Crystal Images” in Homer

This book explores Homer’s Odyssey through Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy and film theory, focusing on how time operates in the epic. Using Deleuze’s concept of the “crystal image”, which holds past, present and future in suspension, it examines the Odyssey’s temporal complexities alongside key films. Each chapter engages with a distinct aspect of time: metapoetics, trauma and the afterlife.

Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (1961) and Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963) illuminate metapoetics, while Deleuze’s concept of the “crystal image” reveals how films and the Odyssey interweave past, present and future. Case studies from both works highlight the temporal complexity of Homeric epic. Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour (1959) explores trauma, paralleling Odysseus’ fragmented memories, while Theo Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze (1995) and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) engage with death, exile and return. By applying Deleuze’s theory, modern films are placed in dialogue with ancient texts, offering fresh insights into Homeric temporality and the Odyssey’s themes of metapoetics, trauma and death.