Image Book 06/20 Blu-ray (Rental)

The legendary Jean-Luc Godard (La Chinoise, Goodbye to Language) adds to his influential, iconoclastic legacy with this provocative collage film essay, a vast ontological inquiry into the history of the moving image and a commentary on the contemporary world. Winner of the first Special Palme d’Or to be awarded in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, The Image Book is another extraordinary addition to the French master’s filmography. Displaying an encyclopedic grasp of cinema and its history, Godard pieces together fragments from some of the greatest films of the past, then digitally alters, bleaches, and washes them, all in the service of reflecting on what he sees in front of him and what he makes of the dissonance that surrounds him. He uses his own voice to guide us through the fascinating labyrinth of his mind. In some cases, it is to reflect on the metaphysical properties of the world — time, and space, and where meaning is found — but more importantly it is the image, the thing that has obsessed Godard for his entire career, that anchors this film. His ontological enquiry into the image continues to be one of the most moving in history. — Piers Handling, CEO/Director Toronto International Film Festival Special Features: Interview with producer and DP Fabrice Aragno • Trailers • Booklet essay by James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque • Conversation with researcher/critic Nicole Brenez at the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam (94 minutes)