Jean–Luc Godard, one of cinema's most influential artists, has made significant contributions to the field of video. He began making films in the mid–1950s, and since 1974 he has been working with video technologies, employing techniques such as deconstruction, reassemblage, and collage to create a fresh aesthetic that is both resonant and intriguing. Godard overlaps music, sounds, and dialogue and establishes visual rhythms through juxtaposing slow takes and rapid cuts to create what he calls son image, that is, sound and image. In Puissance de la parole, explosive sequences from nature abut those consisting of passionate discussions by two couples. One pair argues in dialogue spoken by the lovers in the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James Cain; the other couple quotes a tale by Edgar Allan Poe. Regardless of his chosen medium, Godard has always expressed a wide range of thematic interests—art, politics, history, television, communication, anxiety, sex, desire, music, and the history of the movies.
Publication excerpt from In Still Moving: The Film and Media Collections of the Museum of Modern Art by Steven Higgins, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2006, p. 306.