Jean-Luc Godard's cinematic oddities First Name: Carmen, Détective, and Hélas pour moi, newly released on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, embody the vast landscape of possibilities open to the director during the '80s and '90s.
Our pop culture landscape is controlled by capitalistic saturation and a deeply-entrenched machismo ethic. It might not be powerful enough to erase Agnès Varda's genius, but it is shameless enough to eliminate her from the common discourse.
Jacques Rivette's first French New Wave film, Paris nous appartient, is infused with the look and feel of Hollywood's more paranoid, conspiratorial and apocalyptic films noir.
When we objectify Agnès Varda as a "harmless granny" in pop culture, we lose perspective of her important work. DeRoo's book works toward rectifying this.
Jacques Rivette's film features two female characters who exhibit feminine strength and solidarity in a masculine world.
Under the lens of cultural and historical context, as well as understanding the reflective nature of popular culture, it's hard not to read this film as a cautionary tale about the limitations of isolationism.
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