Histoire(s) du cinéma: Les signes parmi nous

A perfect culmination to Godard's challenging and rewarding overview of cinema. This is a film intended only for those who love movies, not for those who are trying to learn about movies. Recontextualizing classic films and adding his own narration, Godard ultimately provides an excellent document of the importance of cinema in our lives.

The final summation (sort of) of what seems like an attempt to tell not the history of cinema but the history of a century that would be that of cinema, or, he seems to want to say, it is the nineteenth century that through the invention of the cinema gives birth to a century that is perhaps still in want of the art, or the technique, or rather the mystery, that would be capable of discerning its essence. Elusive, but there are great things here, and in the end the attempt seems quite genuine.

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.

Godard is great at a number of things, but being Chris Marker is not one of them. To be fair, Chris Marker was only good at being Chris Marker a small handful of times...

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)