In which I am mildly non-plused by sci-fi: Alphaville
I am almost certainly being a Philistine here, but here goes. Alphaville, 1965, directed by French New Wave dude Jean-Luc Godard.
Premise: Rumpled hard-boiled gumshoe Lemmy Caution* infiltrates the squeaky-clean, tyrannical-computer-run dystopia of Alphaville on a mission to destroy it - preferably by talking the computer to death with paradoxes and the concept of love and so on, because that's always a laugh.
Why I thought it might be cool: I... okay, I was trying to sneak up on the whole French New Wave thing, all right? And this one's all "gumshoe-meets-sci-fi", so that can't be too much of a grind. Godard's supposed to do some fun things with recontextualized pop culture.... In fact, I didn't know this at the time, but let me tell you about Lemmy Caution*. "Lemmy Caution" is an actual literary gumshoe, hero of a forgotten series of British pulp mystery novels that were in turn made into a series of French B-movies. Godard sought out the guy who played Lemmy and hired him to do exactly the same thing, except you're in a squeaky-clean sci-fi dystopia quoting poetry at evil computers.
Buut...: Well, A, to show Godard's contempt for the cold sterile mechanized future ca. 1964, the brainwashed citizens of Alphaville all dress, behave, and spout philosophy as though they're in a particularly dire episode of Rocket Jones, Space Pilot. (And if first season Mystery Science Theatre has taught us nothing else, it's that satirical intent doesn't make that stuff any more lively.) B, Lemmy Caution, Character Actor, never quite congeals for me, as he wanders around shooting / punching random citizens (they take it calmly) and grimacing at the evil-futurity of it all. And C,...
Well, I just had trouble engaging with the movie. It's anti-science and pro-love; and that's a little dorky but I've enjoyed movies on that theme before. It's just... it's like there's something... manly hero teaches the girl how to love, shouts angry philosophy about the importance of emotion and... human... individuality! at the evil computer - it's almost as though something came along exactly one year later and repeatedly ripped off the film's central concept, making it impossible to take seriously**. Oh well. You win this round, French New Wave!
*Worst celebrity perfume ever.
**
Premise: Rumpled hard-boiled gumshoe Lemmy Caution* infiltrates the squeaky-clean, tyrannical-computer-run dystopia of Alphaville on a mission to destroy it - preferably by talking the computer to death with paradoxes and the concept of love and so on, because that's always a laugh.
Why I thought it might be cool: I... okay, I was trying to sneak up on the whole French New Wave thing, all right? And this one's all "gumshoe-meets-sci-fi", so that can't be too much of a grind. Godard's supposed to do some fun things with recontextualized pop culture.... In fact, I didn't know this at the time, but let me tell you about Lemmy Caution*. "Lemmy Caution" is an actual literary gumshoe, hero of a forgotten series of British pulp mystery novels that were in turn made into a series of French B-movies. Godard sought out the guy who played Lemmy and hired him to do exactly the same thing, except you're in a squeaky-clean sci-fi dystopia quoting poetry at evil computers.
Buut...: Well, A, to show Godard's contempt for the cold sterile mechanized future ca. 1964, the brainwashed citizens of Alphaville all dress, behave, and spout philosophy as though they're in a particularly dire episode of Rocket Jones, Space Pilot. (And if first season Mystery Science Theatre has taught us nothing else, it's that satirical intent doesn't make that stuff any more lively.) B, Lemmy Caution, Character Actor, never quite congeals for me, as he wanders around shooting / punching random citizens (they take it calmly) and grimacing at the evil-futurity of it all. And C,...
Well, I just had trouble engaging with the movie. It's anti-science and pro-love; and that's a little dorky but I've enjoyed movies on that theme before. It's just... it's like there's something... manly hero teaches the girl how to love, shouts angry philosophy about the importance of emotion and... human... individuality! at the evil computer - it's almost as though something came along exactly one year later and repeatedly ripped off the film's central concept, making it impossible to take seriously**. Oh well. You win this round, French New Wave!
*Worst celebrity perfume ever.
**
