It can be over obtuse and erratic at time but upon a second viewing Histoire(s) du cinéma is an achievement, far more interesting than his cinematic work. Less a history of cinema than the moral issues within it, and Godard looking back at his career, this is can be provocative and abstract, but its also intelligent, mesmerising, and surprisingly emotional. Like his other essay video work, Godard shows his intelligence, sincerity and thought within it, making this the peak of them.

Simultaneously Godard at his worst and Godard at his best, so obviously I love it and can't wait to watch the rest of the series. "FILM IS A GIRL AND A GUN."

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)

i've graded all of histoire(s) as one single movie/tv program/video. this is one of my favorite videos/movies ever, and I can barely speak about it without feeling stupid. this is Big, Significant art - everybody with even a slight interest in movies/moving pictures/movie history should watch this, if only for the sheer plastic beauty and scope of it.

As mysterious as life.

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.

I always felt that towards the 90s cinema had started to get older and it could throw a retrospective eye on itself in a self-reflexive way. And that's exactly what G. does, he doesn't try to present a fixed narrative but plural possibilities and impressions, personal remnants from his experiences with movies however in a very political way, I'll elaborate that further but the reason I didn't enjoy this much is his obsession with fascism and Hitler, come on G. cinema was not a German invention.

Look, i love me some Godard but this project is pretty ridiculous and patience-testing, even by his challenging standards. I barely even want to rate this as a 'Godard film' per se, since it's really more like experimental video art (replete with clumsy, dated transition effects), which is probably why it was being screened in a room at the MoMa when i was there a few years ago. The most tedious thing about it, besides the exhaustive length, is that i'm not sure he's actually saying anything...

This was like watching a chaotic tumblr.

"Trade follows films." "Cinema replaces our gaze with a world that conforms to our desire" (also in CONTEMPT, wrongly attributed to André Bazin instead of Michel Mourlet). "For fifty years we have, in the dark, burned imagination in order to heat reality." (Score applies to the series taken as a whole.)

710

# 687

716