I remember thinking in 1999 that cinema was the art of the Twentieth Century. In 2024, I feel that literature is the art of the Twenty-First Century. It is more like it is because of seeing films throughout the 20th century and thinking of it as a new medium. The distribution of cinema through VHS, DVD, and now streaming had pretty much destroyed the romance of seeing a film in a theater. I enjoyed the discipline of being at a movie theater at the scheduled time. If you’re late, then the whole day could be crushed. Going to the movies was a live event because one never knows how the audience would behave or if the projectionist would fall asleep and allow the film to unspool and burn. For me, those are the typical things I thought about when in a movie theater watching a film. It is not only what is on the screen but the size of the theater itself and the clientele inside that space. I have seen many good films, mostly at home, but none were masterpieces. One masterpiece I did see in my house, on the Criterion Channel, is je t’aime, je t’aime (I Love You, I Love You) by Alain Resnais.
The film is about memory or how we remember, which is a subjective inner journey. The editing’s fragmentation of this film is how one thinks back to an incident or a particular action. The movies in our head are very much of a cut-up process, which is the one thing William S. Burroughs has contributed to literature, but Resnais is the artist of memory and how it plays with our consciousness.
Technically, the main character Claude Ridder is time traveling to his past, and the time-machine misfunctions, but what is the past but memories? Physically, he goes back into the past, before he shot himself, so in a manner, he is experiencing his suicide attempt more than once, as well as facing what troubled him in the first place. The scientists who sent Claude to his past want a narration that is A to B and so forth, but human existence may crave a straight-ahead narration. Instead, we get the fragmentation of thoughts and actions that often juxtapose life and thought fighting against each other.
I saw je t’aime, je t’aime a few days ago, and I’m relying on my memory, which is how I remember all the films I see. But seeing a movie in a theater is even more fragmented than watching it at home. I have never been concerned about a film’s plot, but more about the experience of being in the audience or seeing a work of art and how I process the image that is before me. I don’t know how true this is, but both Jean-Luc Godard and the Surrealist writer/poet Andre Breton would go to the movies without concern for what is playing or the scheduled times. Once bored, they leave that theater and go to another film. I never do something like that, but as I sit there, I feel like I’m re-editing the film or daydreaming at its most crucial moment when the audience should pay attention to the details being projected.
So, a movie is a dream, and a dream is a movie. When I wake up, I often can’t remember the dream; sometimes, I’m that way with a film. Perhaps this is why some viewers see the main film repeatedly. Are they reliving an experience or finding something new in the mix? I have had dreams that seem familiar to me, but I can’t recall the exact memory or why I felt I had been here before. je t’aime, je t’aime is that type of film like one of my dreams.
Thanks for this Tosh. I too love movies and how they give me a stored memory that seems as real as it is. My past is a series of movies of places and times where I’ve traveled in my imagination as well as my life.
When I was young, my father, to help his friend took tickets at the Gayety Theatre in a very small town in Nebraska. I was allowed to see movies for free. It was a certain kind of heaven that’s still with me.
“I enjoyed the discipline of being at a movie theater at the scheduled time. If you’re late, then the whole day could be crushed.” – I couldn’t relate more to this sentiment.
I wonder if the mimesis, Olga Georges-Picot, ever found her time machine. Suicide, arguably, is an immense longing for one.
And you are correct. Such a brilliant movie.