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April 16, 1999
Rev: September 23, 2004
When I was a kid in New York,
The local TV stations still
used old movies as cheap
programming for the off-prime
hours.
I would guess they got
access to movies in batches
and then had to figure out The video/cable markets seem
what they wanted to do with to have killed this business...
them. No reason to just dump old movies
like this when some other income
Somehow one of the local is still a possibility.
stations had got a hold
of Jean Luc Goddard's For whatever the
1965 movie "Alphaville". reason, broadcast
television got And they began to
They decided that this really bad in the totally trash the
was a Science Fiction 80s: late night movies they did
movie, and therefore slots were filled show with
they programmed it to with 70s re-runs. commericals.
appear on Saturday
mornings, opposite the E.g in the
network cartoons. musical "Guys
and Dolls", ABC
I saw this movie stuck some
a number of times commercials in
as a kid, and the middle of
puzzled over it's Brando's "Luck
strangeness -- no be a Lady".
one who actually
*watched* this
movie would think
it was ideal To quote a letter to a friend of mine:
Saturday morning
fare -- "I've put my last two girlfriends to
sleep, trying to get them to watch
Alphaville..."
One of the really striking
scenes: near the end the
man and woman are escaping
Murky, noir, the city, and they're
existential shown just driving a car (I thought the
dystopian... down a highway at night, central computer
though the dialog seems to with flashing neon
indicate that they're lights on the front
flying away in a spaceship. was stupid and
cheesy back then,
The woman says though now I think
something like "The I was missing the
stars are beautiful point.)
tonight", but you
can't see anything
but the glare of the Checking my memory:
streetlights. that line doesn't seem
to really be there.
If only more
science fiction MEMORY
films took this
attitude toward
Since then, special effects...
"Alphaville" "La Jette"?
has assumed
iconic status Alphaville is an attack
in my mind. on the syndrome of
Science Fiction films
full of flash and color
Incompetence is but devoid of ideas.
a selling point.
Competent salesmen If there's a problem
always pander to with this movie, it's
precisely what you Or what that the ideas
want, they leave no everyone themselves are perhaps
cracks for any thing agrees not really all that
in the delivery you're strong; the notion of
system for anything supposed a dystopian city ruled
really new and to want. by an all powerful
unusual to slip computer just doesn't
through... seem that heavy, not
even taken as some
So you have no hope sort of symbolic allegory.
of getting what you
really need. I guess in 1965
there was still
the fear that
IBM mainframes
were going to
conquer the earth.
Watching it again in
2010, I see there are
repeated suggestions
that we are being shown
a "legend" rather than
the literal truth.
If anything seems
exaggerated or simplified
And many things do... they've got it covered.
"Lemmy Caution": a tough
guy noir secret agent.
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