Histoire(s) du cinéma - 2A: Seul le cinéma

Highlights of this entry: The return of Godard's dreaded typewriter being accompanied by a particularly dramatic music cue. Also, Julie Delpy.

Poncelet, in prison in Russia, without access to books, facing a blank wall, writes his treatise on projective geometry, thereby supposedly describing the mathematics of conical projection that would make cinematic projection possible. (Score applies to the series taken as a whole.)

I'm giving these all one rating, but i think this was my least favorite part (this is the one that's mostly a taped interview right?)

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)

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.