Would younger viewers look at Godard and say “Well, I guess you had to be there at the time”?

A friend sent me this link to an edit of early Godard movies.


Godard in Fragments from Criterion Collection on Vimeo.

Inspired by this, and if it wasn’t a school night, I would stay up and watch La Chinoise and Two or Three Things I Know About Her. But it is, and I have the last two episodes of S7 of Sons of Anarchy to watch.

Watching this made me wonder: would younger viewers look at it and say “Well, I guess you had to be there at the time”? Or is the sheer style and innovation still clear today? Or does it come across as “Yeah, they did that avant-garde stuff in the 60’s. Have you seen Cremaster?"