Anyone who criticizes Godard and his work, especially Alphaville, must be some sort of horrendous, filth-ridden film snob. Godard represents a very important part of film history and to call him hack and so forth is a great injustice, not only to him but to anyone who enjoys his work.
Godard is a deconstructionist. His films are designed and structured(?) with the intent that there be no easy or simple interpretation. This, I believe, is best illustrated by Alphaville. In this film Godard is doing two things: 1) he is expressing his fear that humanity is moving into a future in which emotion is sacrificed for logic, and 2) he is using his ingeniously creative visual and narrative style to point fun at the pretentious slickness of big budget studio films. Many simple minded film watchers, numbed and drained of any natural intuitive understanding for art by the studios, view this film as pure gobbeldegook. An example of this might be the scene in which Caution is being interrogated by Alpha 60. The machine is doing its best to penetrate into Caution's mind by using its seemingly infinite logic. In response Caution fires back with poetry, a form of expression that follows no certain logic and yet is infinitely expressive; something that confounds the machine. As I said before, many viewers may consider this scene to be incomprehensible. I suggest that perhaps that was exactly Godard's intent. If you are unable to gather any insight from this film, it is not because Godard makes no sense, but because you, probably longing for a slickster Michael Bay movie as you watch this film, have become like Alpha 60, a being incapable of abstract thought. I assume that is why Godard shot the film using modern architecture instead of sets. He is making a point: this dark, soulless future is now.
Godard is a deconstructionist. His films are designed and structured(?) with the intent that there be no easy or simple interpretation. This, I believe, is best illustrated by Alphaville. In this film Godard is doing two things: 1) he is expressing his fear that humanity is moving into a future in which emotion is sacrificed for logic, and 2) he is using his ingeniously creative visual and narrative style to point fun at the pretentious slickness of big budget studio films. Many simple minded film watchers, numbed and drained of any natural intuitive understanding for art by the studios, view this film as pure gobbeldegook. An example of this might be the scene in which Caution is being interrogated by Alpha 60. The machine is doing its best to penetrate into Caution's mind by using its seemingly infinite logic. In response Caution fires back with poetry, a form of expression that follows no certain logic and yet is infinitely expressive; something that confounds the machine. As I said before, many viewers may consider this scene to be incomprehensible. I suggest that perhaps that was exactly Godard's intent. If you are unable to gather any insight from this film, it is not because Godard makes no sense, but because you, probably longing for a slickster Michael Bay movie as you watch this film, have become like Alpha 60, a being incapable of abstract thought. I assume that is why Godard shot the film using modern architecture instead of sets. He is making a point: this dark, soulless future is now.