The Splendid Iconoclasm
19 June 2011
The party was real and the thugs were real, hired by the young director for this movie. So the partiers were really beaten. Polanski was about to be expelled from the film school. The splendid iconoclasm of the New Wave everywhere it emerged: think Skolimowski, think Godard, think Oshima. Their disdain for old conventions, for any conventions, for old masters, for any masters, for old art, for any art. The movie that's anti-movie.

Decades earlier Bunuel foresaw the New Wave with his Chien Andalou. Decades later Van Sant would demonstrate New Wave was over, with Gerry. While the tension between reality and artistic rendering of reality remained a constant in the great cinema. Think at today's Kiarostami or Panahi, for instance.
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