violentwavesofemotion:Alphaville (1965) dir. by Jean-Luc Godard: “Capitale de La Douleur 

violentwavesofemotion:Alphaville (1965) dir. by Jean-Luc Godard: “Capitale de La Douleur (The Capital Of Sorrow, 1926) is perhaps the best-known book of poetry by Paul Eluard, who is one of the founders of the French Surrealist movement launched in the 1920’s. Eluard is, with Robert Desnos one of Surrealism’s leading lyric poets and also one of the most engaging 20th century French love poets. Love, & the transforming power of Love—particularly erotic love but not limited to erotic love—is at the core of & some might say at the heart of,  Surrealist doctrine. (Andre Breton,  poet and leading theoretician of French Surrealism, proposed that centrality in his First Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924 & then in later writings such as—to name only one example of many—his 1928 novel Nadja. As we learn early on in the film, the central problem in AIphaville is that nobody except a few misfit & seemingly impractical poetical types (who like Henri Dickson live in “condemned sectors”) is doing any living in, much less dying of, love. “What is the privilege of the dead?” giant computer Alpha 60 asks Caution in its hoarse, electronic voice during one of several interrogations. “Not to die any longer,” replies Caution. Meaning, according to Surrealist doctrine—which in effect cites dying of love as a prequisite for living—not to live any longer, either.” (x) -- source link

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