NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Kino Blu-ray (May 2019): Godard's "The Image Book" arrives on Blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber. This is on a dual-layered disc, with the film having a high bitrate. Though the pictures and scenes stitched together here have been seen before, the image itself is tinkered with, whether cropped, zoomed, blown-out and overexposed, etc. Stylistically, this keeps the film from seeming like a clip-show collage, especially with the political and also somewhat cropped narration. This sort of revisionist clip technique was recently used in Director Guy Maddin, Evan and Galen Johnson's "The Green Fog" (an interpretation of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Vertigo, pieced together using footage from old films and television shows shot in and around the San Francisco area.) The film is a collage of film, reliant on the clip's source being shown, not to mention what has been done with it. A solid Blu-ray transfer from Kino.

"The Image Book" is available with either 7.1 DTS-HD Master audio surround sound, or 2.0 DTS-HD, both French and 24-bit. Having not tested the 7.1 option yet, I can only imagine what Godard would have done in that sense (I'm thinking of the brilliant 3-D middle finger masterpiece that was "Goodbye to Language" and imagining all kinds of trouble Godard could be getting into with 7.1 channels to f*** around with). There are subtitles, though in true late Godard fashion, they are not always transcribing what is being said, even skipping whole lines of dialogue (intentional). This is a Region 'A'-locked Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

The main bonus features here are a 99-minute conversation with researcher/critic Nicole Brenez (and others) at the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam. Also here is a 30-minute interview with producer and DP Fabrice Aragno. Rounding out the disc are trailers for other late period Godard films, "Goodbye to Language", "Film Socialisme", and "The Image Book" as well. There is an included booklet featuring an essay by James Quandt, programmer for the TIFF Cinematheque.

Godard sort of misses the pure collage bliss that was Histoire(s) du Cinema, and the non-narrative tomfoolery of his "goodbye to language" and "film socialisme", his other recent cinematic (de)constructions. Taken as a whole, this late period Godard seems to represent an opus of obfuscation and trickery of the film form. Though this piece is certainly no different, it left me a little cold, though I suppose others might get a kick out of it. The Blu-ray transfer is as good as it can be, especially considering that this is mostly a collage of film, reliant on the clip's source being shown. This pastiche of imagery is absolutely fascinating, and the Blu-ray features some lovely and in-depth extras.  

Colin Zavitz