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To tell the story of one hour, I need an eternity.
The movie is sui generis.
The movie is chop suey.
Its about 85 minutes, as Ive said.
But theres nothing random about those minutes fluky, yes, random, no.
There is a schema of sorts.
There are artful segues inThe Image Book, but theyre not the ones that register.
Godard insisted mistakes be left in.
Nothing should be finished.
There are Eisenstein, Pasolini, and even Godard (Breathless).
Gus Van Sants Columbine fantasias punctuate a senseless real-world killing.
Cocteaus Orphee returns from the underworld.
Samurais, French revolutionaries, World War I soldiers in period footage all on a damnable continuum.
Between clips, we see hyperbright flowers growing between the rails.
Is Godard saying that he has traded his soul to be that damnable artist?
I think he is, but I dont know.
I do know that he is, in a way, playing God.
Now, in his final years, his canvas consists of the defaced canvases of other artists.
He is Brecht plus Herman Melville Ahab stabbing at the universe.
He is not going out with a whimper.
He will stab at our hearts until his dying breath, from hells heart.
