Histoire(s) du cinéma: Le contrôle de l'univers

Highlights of this entry: Godard cutting back and forth between porn and Tod Browning's Freaks, and his ruminations on Hitchcock, which end with this stunning proclamation: "Hitchcock succeeded where Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler failed. Taking control of the world."

Seems like Godard had discovered the Power-Point and thought it was very impressive.

"Spirit is true only when it manifests itself. The root of 'manifest' is the word 'hand'. Love is the epitome of spirit... Loving others is an act. A hand reaching out, not a draped sentiment... But man's true condition is to think with his hands... True violence is the work of the spirit. Every creative act contains a real threat... If thought refuses to do violence, it exposes itself in vain to all the brutalities which its absence released." And check out what images go with these words.

A loosely-connected smattering of barely related clips and really bad video effects, with Godard occasionally muttering something meaningless. This kind of free-association essay format can be interesting, and occasionally Godard nails an intriguing transition, but most of the time you're just wondering where he's going with all this. Answer: eh, nowhere in particular. The best thing is that it reminds you of better movies that you'd like to see again, without all the surrounding nonsense.

Not much fun to watch; it's hard to shake the feeling that this is just an extended exercise in arbitrary visual rhyming & juxtaposition. The theme of cinema's relation to humanity is perhaps so fundamental as to be impenetrable, so maybe I expect too much, but Godard's narration is only occasionally interesting to me. I will however say that I believe this is a sincere work that is more meaningful than I'm perceiving. It's just not for me. (review for full series)