Straker

I read Jamie S. Rich's DVD review of Made in U.S.A. - Criterion Collection at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=37915 and...I'm a little confused about the reference to "the new rule of Richard Nixon..." According to IMDB, the film was produced in 1966 and released in September of 1967. Nixon, of course, was elected president in November of 1968 and took office in January of 1969. After his crushing defeat in the California gubernatorial race of 1962, Nixon returned to private law practice and was by no means a certainty to be elected president (or anything else) at the time of the film's production. Whatever the director's reason for naming one of his characters after Nixon, it didn't have anything to do with a "new rule"

jamieoni

Well, the way I interpret it, in 1966, Nixon is said to have been consolidating power by working on behalf of the GOP and paving the way for his 1968 victory. Robert McNamara was also at that time urging Johnson to change Vietnam policies. I assume Godard was reading the writing on the wall that there was going to be a shift. I can only guess, though, and perhaps "new rule" is a bit off the mark if we're talking on a more literal timeline, but given that it's Godard, I felt free to extrapolate.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes, though.

Chas Speed

The mistake was trying to make any sense out of a Godard film.