In the late 1990s, I toured California in a roofless Jeep. After a long day of “tough” (windy) driving, I ended up, rather accidentally, in the “no-nonsense services town” of Barstow. On the historic Route 66, I took a cheap room in a Best Motel. Fatigued and dazed by the trip, I nestled down on the queen-sized bed and switched on the color TV, one of the motel's amenities. There were probably over 100 channels. And, inevitably, I started zapping. I would prefer to see myself in this specific situation not as a couch potato, but as an active “homo zappens” who is taking control of the multiplicity and the simultaneity of signs (or channels). This is, of course, self-deceit.

While “mindlessly surfing” typical American television (soaps, sports, weather channels, CNN, lots of commercials…), I suddenly stumbled upon something different, something bizarre: it was a sequence of black and white images, in French, with English subtitles. In my zombie mood (or mode) I zapped forward; then, abruptly, I stopped and went back. I had to go back to those images. These were Nouvelle Vague images, there was no doubt about that. I was sure it wasn't Truffaut because it was too surreal. It had to be Godard. Once back in the Old World, I did some research and discovered that it was, indeed, Les carabiniers (France: 1963, THE RIFLEMEN).

“To Collect Photographs Is to Collect theWorld”

I was able to trace back LES CARABINIERS thanks to its picture postcard sequence, which is one of the most remarkable moments of the film. During this 12-minute sequence, the riflemen's wives (and the spectator) get a summary of their war conquests. Because: “To collect photographs is to collect the world,” according to Susan Sontag who pays close attention to Godard's film from page one of her collection On Photography: