According to ECM Records:

Histoire(s) du cinema; - as TV series/video essay - was made for Canal+, ARTE and Gaumont, from 1988 to 1998. The work subdivides into four chapters of two parts each. Of those four chapters,the first was broadcasted on five European channels simultaneously, the three others have been screened at film festivals. The series was shown as part of an installation at Documenta X, the interdisciplinary arts festival in Kassel, Germany, in 1997. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has screened each episode as it has become available.

Undeniably a work of enormous scope, Jean-Luc Godard's Histoires du cin魡 eludes easy definition. An extended essay on cinema by means of cinema. A history of the cinema, and history interpreted by the cinema. An hommage and a critique. An anecdotal autobiography, illuminated by Godard's encyclopaedic wit, extending the idiom established by JLG par JLG. An epic - and non-linear - poem. A freely associative essay. A vast multi-layered musical composition. Histoire(s) du cin魡 is all of these. It is above all, a work made by a man who loves and is fascinated by the world of film.

For American movie critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, Godard's video series represents the culmination of 20th century filmmaking, and is a work "of enormous importance": "Just as Finnegans Wake, the art work to which Histoire(s) du cin魡 seems most comparable, situates itself at some theoretical stage after the end of the English language as we know it, Godard's magnum opus similarly projects itself into the future in order to ask, 'What was cinema?'." _________End of ECM____

So, I got my hands on the book which accompanies the artwork and scanned some of the pages into digital format and put them here. What I want you to see is simply a bit of how Godard presents the images he works with.

In the first one, you see Godard at his desk in a shot very similar to shots we get of him in his self-portrait film, JLG/JLG, one of my favorites. But superimposed with it is a blue face of a woman from film history. Forgive me I don't yet know which film. But I think it's a beautifully composed shot -- consider the red, white and blues here.

Histoire du Cinema uses other films and creates evocative montage. It also includes a lot of montage of paintings. Godard has said he wanted to do a history of film like a history of painting. So keep your eyes open for paintings.

Also Godard is interested in World War II and cinema's role in image-making, then and now. That's why I've included the Hitler still.

This is just preliminary.

• Background on Histoire du Cinema at ECM Records

Sidebar

	Still from part 1 of Histoire(s) du Cinema by Jean-Luc Godard
	'Painting' still from part 1 of Histoire(s) du Cinema
	Hitler still from part 1 of Histoire(s) du Cinema
	Second 'painting' still from part 1 of Histoire(s) du Cinema
	'Movies' still from part 1 of Histoire(s) du Cinema

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