The Automatic Turn of the World. Joseph Mankiewicz. Sleuth

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[The following is quotation. My notes are in red.]

The Automatic Turn of the World

Joseph Mankiewicz

Sleuth

Gilles Deleuze

Cinema 2: The Time Image

Cinéma 2: L'image-temps

Chapter III. From Recollection to Dreams: Third Commentary on Bergson

Chapitre III. Du souvenir aux rêves (troisième commentaire de Bergson)

2c: The two poles of the flashback: Carné, Mankiewicz

2c: Les deux pôles du flash-back : Carné, Mankiewicz

Two characters are eternal enemies, in a universe of automata; but there is a world where one of the two maltreats the other and forces a clown costume on him, and a world where the other takes on the dress of inspector and becomes master in turn, until the unleashed automata shuffle all the possibilities, all worlds, and all times (The Bloodhound [sic: Sleuth]) [Deleuze Cinema 2, 1989: 47d]

Deux personnages sont ennemis pour l'éternité, dans un univers d'automates ; mais il y a un monde où l'un des deux malmène l'autre et lui impose un costume de clown, et un monde où l'autre prend une tenue d'inspecteur, domine à son tour, jusqu'à ce que les automates déchaînés brassent toutes les possibilités, tous les mondes et tous les temps (« Le limier ») [Deleuze Cinéma 2, 1985: 69bc]

In its very essence, memory is voice, which speaks, talks to itself, or whispers, and recounts what happened. Hence the voice-off accompanies the flashback. In Mankiewicz this spiritual role of memory often gives way to a creature more or less connected with the beyond: the phantom in Mrs. Muir's Adventure, the ghost in Whispers in the City [sic. People Will Talk], the automata in Bloodhound [sic. Sleuth]. [Deleuze Cinema 2, 1989: 49b]

Dans son essence même elle est voix, qui parle, se parle ou murmure, et rapporte ce qui s'est passé. D'où la voix off qui accompagne le flash-back. Souvent chez Mankiewicz ce rôle spirituel de la mémoire fait place à une créature plus ou moins liée à l'au-delà : la fantôme de «L'aventure de Mme Muir », le revenant de « On murmure dans la ville », les automates du «Limier ». [Deleuze Cinéma 2, 1985: 71b]

[The young man in this story is arranging with the old man to peaceably take the older man's wife off his hands. The old man uses this predicament to play a humiliating trick on the young man. But then later, it is the young man who turns the tables. He explains that he killed the old man's mistress and hid her body somewhere on the premises. He arranged for the police to come that night, and gave the authorities the impression that the old man had killed her. The old man has fifteen minutes to find the hidden evidence that would incriminate him. To discover each, he must solve a riddle that will lead him to these murder clues. The young man continues to torture him with this urgent hunt. There is even a clue that is hidden in one of the automata. But in the end, this was all just a game of humiliation now played on the old man. It turns out the young man told the police not about the murder, but about the original game. So the police might visit the old many anyhow on that account. But the old man could not live with the humiliation, and shoots the young man as the police arrive.]

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Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time Image. Transl. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. London & New York: 1989.

Deleuze, Gilles. Cinéma 2: L'image-temps. Paris:Les éditions de minuit, 1985.