Paul’s Boutique was released a couple months after the first installment of Histoire(s) du cinéma (1989-1999, Jean-Luc Godard). This is of course merely a coincidence. The Dust Brothers’ use of samples primarily to craft a new type of soundscape has nothing to do with Godard’s crowning achievement, which segues into his late period with a work that sets itself in the no man’s land between fiction and non-fiction categories of film while densely layering, splicing, backmasking, sampling, and invariably distorting an assortment of disparate film clips defining the twentieth century curated by a lyrical narration in his own voice. But I like to think there’s a profound link between these two works simultaneously evolving film and music into the mixtape era.
Although a better analog to Histoire(s) du cinéma is Prick by the Melvins.
Okay I’ll admit my biggest nerd moment is probably while watching a documentary about the history of cinema and identifying the clips shown—during film school this also became a thing. But Histoire(s) du cinéma was the first doc where I realized how many foreign films from the past that I’d never seen. It was humbling. Yet there are texts quoting Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer or Proust that I spotted. Yeah yeah yeah it’s not a competition. Despite and because of all Histoire(s) du cinéma’s pretentious self-indulgent idiosyncrasies I get thrilled anytime I watch it.
The Image Book (2018, Godard) is composed of several clips taken from Histoire(s) du cinema—like “Shit Storm” by the Melvins. And I reacted in awe, because intermediate works like In Praise of Love (2001, Godard), Notre Musique (2004, Godard), Film Socialisme (2010, Godard) or Goodbye to Language (2014, Godard) are all similarly filmed essays with V.O. narration but none use any of the footage from Histoire(s) du cinéma. The big difference between Histoire(s) du cinema and The Image Book though is the ratio of cinema to political poetry. The Image Book is esoteric and elliptical although features fewer movie clips—aside from a lengthy montage of scenes of passengers on railcars. I love Godard’s work almost as much as I love movies so The Image Book is every bit as compelling and more so than anything he’s done since Histoire(s) du cinéma. I’ll also admit the sections on remakes and the Arab world were way over my head, but just more reasons for me to rewatch this first chance I get.
There was something else new I noticed: the aspect ratios of many of the clips after a few seconds get alternately stretched or compressed. I've gotten over what used to be a huge nuisance for me around the time 16x9 TVs replaced 4x3 on the market, which was seeing other people watch movies that were shot in 4x3 (square) stretched or cropped to fit their new flatscreen 16x9 TVs (rectangle) to avoid negative space (black bars). I just don't see why anyone wouldn't want to watch an image in its native format. My take on Godard's using this as a device is to show how arbitrary the aspect ratio is because people can choose now at home, or the people broadcasting these images don't care and that's what we're stuck with. What still does make me angry though is when studios do it. You can believe I still get stressed out wondering why HBO released blu-rays of The Wire in 16x9 as the only option. (Not the best example though because The Wire is supposed to look gritty so maybe borrowing my dad's standard def bootleg dvd boxset is more aesthetically pleasing than an HD master. Still, I'd like the option.) And come to think of it my most exhilarating joy from home video viewing last year was finally getting to see the Criterion blu-ray of Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick) in its OAR 1.66:1.
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