Puissance de la parole

Another of JLG's experimental films. This one is similar to another film of his made after this one (Nouvelle Vague) where the dialogue is from literature written by others. At least in that one, he had actors (Alain Resnais starred) who tried to construct some kind of narrative. It seemed as though Godard was uninspired to write any dialogue of his own and created films based on a major case of writer's block. Frankly, I think it's a copout to filch the words of others to create dialogue for a poorly constructed film. Poe features prominently in this film and I highly doubt he would be pleased to see what Godard did with his words. Poe understood that poetry and literature were for the enjoyment of readers. I am a huge Poe fan and I was disgusted to hear Poe's words used in such a repetitive and ponderous way. I didn't think it was possible to make Poe's words boring but Godard managed to do it.

The more of his films I see, the more I'm convinced that Godard's visionary days were left in the 1960s. It seems like once he discovered socialism, his creativity went out the window. None of his films from the 70s up to the present were of the same calibre as Breathless or Masculin/Feminin. Godard seemed to relish the fact that he left all semblance of narrative behind and put his viewers to sleep. Maybe it was his contempt for film audiences. And sheeple critics kept reviewing these worthless experimental films positively not because they were works of genius, but because they didn't understand what he was trying to do. But since it was Godard, they figured it had to be a work of art. WRONG. Even da Vinci had bad days.

This film is useless, boring, and pretentious (watch words for Godard after the 60s). Do yourself a favor and skip it. Even 25 minutes of an 80s Godard film is far too long.