The Grandfather Paradox

Abstract

Deleuze observes that when one is caught in a Vicious Circle, and trapped in the topology of a Möbius strip, one can get out only by breaking open the space itself. “It is only by breaking open the circle,” Deleuze writes, “by unfolding and untwisting it, that the dimension of sense appears for itself”.¹ To reintroduce Euclidean geometrics, the strip must be first cut, then unfolded and rotated through an external axis; external, that is, to the surface of the strip itself. There are two ways to “break” the past. The first way is to simply break with it, quite literally, as is the case with retroactive continuity, in which a filmmaker alters the official series timeline to effectively shift the canon in a new direction, usually to accommodate a reboot or revival of a franchise. When a film franchise is rebooted, it is often the case that the new film will open with the destruction of a key image tied to the earlier series, marking the ending of the popular franchise to be “reborn” in the present film. One of the more ingenious of these images of rebirth occurs in the opening shot of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the prequel to the cult television series. The opening credits play over static from a television screen which, following the directorial credit, is brutally smashed along with a young woman who is violently murdered. Lynch is saying: forget television; film can go much further.

One must multiply the sides, break every circle in favour of the polygons.

(Deleuze)