I know that Pauline Kael would get upset when younger critics would despair about Godard, and say something like maybe he wasn't as good as we once thought, because, for her, that extraordinary burst of creativity from BREATHLESS to WEEKEND represented all that she had ever hoped for in terms of film. Films that were alive and so resolutely of the moment. Not that all the films were on the same level: Pauline had reservations about LE PETIT SOLDAT, A WOMAN IS A WOMAN, MY LIFE TO LIVE, THE MARRIED WOMAN, ALPHAVILLE and PIERROT LE FOU. "Even a film like Godard's LES CARABINIERS, hell to watch for the first hour, is exciting to think about after because its one good sequence, the long picture-postcard sequence near the end, is so incredible and so brilliantly prolonged. The picture has been crawling and stumbling along and then it climbs a high wire and walks it and keeps walking it until we're almost dizzy from admiration." One ironic note: there were those films which Pauline felt were truly original and great, and she wanted to be the one on record to explain those movies. For Godard, those movies would have been: BREATHLESS, BAND OF OUTSIDERS, MASCULINE FEMININE, 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER, LA CHINOISE and WEEKEND. She was able to write on all those movies with the exception of 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER, and, after she retired and was interviewed, she always mentioned her regret that she never got to write about that film. But seeing MASCULINE FEMININE again, i'm reminded of her excitement about that film: "MASCULINE FEMININE is that rare movie achievement: a work of grace and beauty in a contemporary setting."