Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #27
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #48 (tied with The Battle Of Algiers)

Looks like I’m gonna have to adjust my reviewing procedures in order to properly tackle Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinema. Just five minutes into this extended movie (which is broken up into eight individual segments), it was apparent I couldn’t use the same reviewing barometers I used for, say, Going In Style recently. This isn’t a conventional narrative film, but that’s true of a lot of Godard’s work. Histoire(s) du Cinema goes even further and isn’t even trying to be like Godard’s more abstract and unconventional dramas, it’s basically an exercise in exploring the past of cinema in incredibly avant-garde ways that’s mostly been made for himself and film academics.

So yes, a slight tune-up in terms of how I review this motion picture is in order, and taking it for what it is (taking a look at the history of cinema while also heavily dabbling in experimental editing techniques), Historie(s) du Cinema is…..OK, honestly. My main issue with it isn’t that it doesn’t adhere to traditional narrative tropes, but it rather that its avant-garde presentation was just not as absorbing for me personally as the similarly unconventional editing and filming styles found in Godard’s other work like Pierrot Le Fou. The film failed to rivet me with its unorthodox being with the barrage of odd cuts and weird transitions generating more of a headache for me than anything else and that made being engaged with its for its 260+ minute long time more of a hassle than anything else at various points.

Historie(s) du Cinema has eight individual segments that (kind of) revolve around a central theme that’s accompanied by Godard’s narration, footage from other films edited together in an abstract way and frequent pieces of live-action footage depicting human beings like Godard himself or actor Juliette Binoche engaging in brief diversions meant to tie into the larger themes of the segment as a whole. That’s mostly how each part of this movie goes about presenting itself and sometimes it results in intriguing sequences, like an extended explanation for why initial photography was in black and white or examining the traits of the film industry of individual countries (Godard does not think highly of British cinema it seems!)

But the main issue with this style of presentation for the project becomes readily apparent is it can be incredibly difficult to even ascertain what specific ideas the individual segments are trying to tackle. The incredibly unorthodox editing created more headaches than clarity or intrigue for me personally while Godard’s narration is…boy, his narration really is so oddly done. Sometimes, he comes off as incredibly eloquent and insightful, a man whose got experience to spare and is looking to impart wisdom in an unconventional way. His best moments of narration lend insight into what makes Godard tick and his thoughts on the state of cinema as an artform in the 20th century, an incredibly intriguing idea to learn about.

And then there’s the other times in the documentary where he just comes off as (for lack of a better word) rambling on and on about, well, even he seems to lose track of what he’s talking about. The guy comes off like Rick Sanchez drunkenly begrudging against the advent of television or other aspects of the world of visual storytelling at times, it’s a really odd phenomenon considering how the movie seems to be aiming for an intellectual aesthetic otherwise that gets undercut be the convoluted narration provided by its own director. For every moment Jean-Luc Godard provides incredibly interesting insight into his view of cinema as an artform, there’s another moment where his narration just devolves into nonsense.

I admire the sheer audacity of this project in the abstract sense, especially since it ended up getting released in 1998 (the first two segments were made in the late 1980’s) so it ends up feeling like Jean-Luc Godard ruminating on an entire century of cinema. It feels at times like Histoire(s) du Cinema is channeling the same atmosphere of Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt, an elder statesman who revolutionized an art form of creative expression looking back on the past not with rose-colored glasses but with solemness and introspection. Whereas Johnny Cash’s Hurt is a flawless piece of music though, Histoire(s) du Cinema ends up being a massively mixed bag, one that swings wildly from being thoughtful to being outright nonsensical even when examining it as a retrospective avant-garde academic exercise.