This research starts with a quote of the French cultural critic Georges Duhamel who wrote it in 1930, describing his experiences with cinema. “I can no longer think. The thoughts in my head have been removed by moving images.” In this article we wish to use Duhamel’s words and see them as a positive impetus to (re)think cinema education. The object of this research is to examine how educators use and have used cinema as an educational activity. To do this we wish to distinguish two opposite responses to the quote of Duhamel. An educational response that surrenders to the exercise of seeing, giving a passive response to cinema. We describe it as an exercise in ‘thinking through not-thinking’. The other response activates the subject watching cinema. We will begin with the latter and discuss how the American cultural critic Henry Giroux gives shape to the idea of using cinema to let students become critical thinkers. Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ (1936) will be used to compare Giroux’ perception on cinema as a political and pedagogical vehicle with Benjamin’s interpretation of industrial art and its political potential. Benjamin’s interpretation shows how the specific cinematic consciousness brings the viewer in the position of a critic, but a critic in a state of distraction. This distraction for Benjamin carries the potential to rethink political art. We claim that in Giroux’ cinema education an ethos is required that actually mistrusts this particular cinematographic consciousness and that uses cinema from a different political perspective. Benjamin’s article will be used to create an opening for the cinema theory of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Not only to give us cinematographic insights in Henry Giroux’ cinema education, but also to give a cinematographic critique on this way of relating to cinema and to introduce a passive response as an alternative. Deleuze’s books on cinema (L’image-Mouvement and L’image-Temps) help to discuss the political and educational aspect of cinema from within the cinematographic concepts he uses.

Benjamin, Walter (1936) The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Deleuze, G. (1986) Cinema 1: The movement–image (trans: H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam). London: The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (1989) Cinema 2: The time-image (trans: H.Tomlinson and R. Galeta). London: The Athlone Press. Deleuze, G. (2004) Desert Islands and Other Texts. 1953-1974 (trans: Michael Taormina). Los Angeles: Semiotext(e) Giroux, H. (2002) Breaking in to the movies. Film and the Culture of Politics. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Inc.