Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinéma or Cinema Surpasses Itself

Abstract

This text, which constitutes the introduction to Céline Scemama’s book Histoire(s) du cinéma de Jean-Luc Godard: La force faible d’un art, is a double tribute: to Céline, who scrupulously deciphered the multiple artistic references contained in Godard’s masterpiece and to JLG who, from the start of his oeuvre to Livre d’images (2018), sought in the obstinate invention of a post-cinema the very essence of this art. Halfway between Montaigne’s essay and Rembrandt’s self-portrait, Histoire(s) du cinema is also halfway between the origin of cinema and its destiny as post-art.