My Hermès Handbag!

In a day in age where everything moves in not just an unprecedented, but also simultaneous speed – as we, all in one singular movement, binge-watch an episode, while also scanning the latest newspaper headlines on our laptops, scrolling through Instagram on our phones – there doesn’t seem to be patience left for anything slow. And that rings particularly true for movies. As sad as it sounds, a lot people no longer have the mental endurance; finding it easier to commit to a 12-hour long series, as it comes in shorter installments, than a 90 minute movie that requires constant attention.

In that sense, the final words of the film Weekend, End of Story / End of Cinema, also ring true. But as the iconic car scene from Jean Luc Godard’s 1967 masterpiece so perfectly illustrates, slowness was not always an enemy. Such patience did once exist. And it should be celebrated. The scene itself clocks in at 7 minutes and 40 seconds, but never finds time to be boring – even though it’s all one (impressive) shot. The richness of detail, and the depth of humour and social commentary is uncanny, with an abundance of political references for those who care to look. As perfectly put in The New Yorker:

“It has become a commonplace (…) to call the movie a screed against bourgeois life. It would be more accurate to call it sublimely contemptuous rage against consumerism, against a way of life that draws its values from advertising and current movies (including and especially Hollywood).”

If the movie served as such an antidote even back then, what should we call it in our current predicament of excessive streaming?

Godard, of course, is one of the most influential filmmakers, or auteurs if you will, of the French New Wave era. Perhaps the most cinematic era in all of cinema. Which, then, makes this car scene one of the most iconic in cinema to date, only slightly rivaled by Hitchcock’s Family Plot, at least in my humble opinion.

Enjoy :

And if are you still wondering about the title of this piece? Please go watch the whole film. Perhaps this weekend.