1968 set Godard on a path upon which radical political and cinematic experimentation were inextricable from one another. What resulted was a series of films that explored different modalities of cinematic politics, celebrated as much for their militant commitment as they were vilified for the tortured aesthetic transformations they wrought upon cinematic norms.

In 1937, the young American author Delmore Schwartz published the short story “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” a terrifying scenario of existential eradication. In it, an unnamed protagonist recounts a dream where he finds himself in a cinema watching a film that depicts his youthful parents coming together as a couple.