THE CAMERA STYLO AND THE TIME-IMAGE

"I think he was determined to make his peace with me. I got the impression that there is something precarious about his relationship with the outside world. With me, I believe, Godard felt something he rarely encounters, a meeting on equal terms. We are not in competition, we are working on different planets. He finds that relaxing, and interesting...

At the end I asked him: 'Don't you want to make another film?' He answered: 'Yes, yes, I do. And I want to make it with these.'

He pulled out two gadgets from of his pockets. The first was a ball point pen. He held it up and said: 'Look, this is what spies have today, it has a camera in the head' The second was an alarm clock. It also had a built-in camera."

Ah, the pathos of old spies. Godard knows he's leaving the American Sector.

GODARD FROM THE MINARETS

News of the all-too-very-clever Swiss ban of the minarets made me instantly think of that Helvetian fraud, J-L Godard, and not just because he was the first infidel hipster to wear the keffiyeh. It’s possible that that quicksilvery quality that lies behind the famous shit-eating grin is somehow a national trait. Passive Aggression as the key to the Swiss psyche? So-called Neutrality? Ask no questions, tell no lies banking? The Polanski thing? Hmmm….

Always canny, Godard has cut a deal to have Histoire(s) du Cinema broadcast from the remaining minarets when they are not otherwise being used.