In the phrase "the new sensibility"—it may or may not have been coined by Susan Sontag—the operative word is, of course, new, not sensibility. (p. 272)

[The] concept of "the new sensibility" … is supposed to account for the revolution in the arts …; and for a realm of film-making whose summit is Godard and bottom the "underground movies" or "New American Cinema," as, in its newly sensible way, it likes to call itself. These and many more the Pandora's box of contemporary pseudo-art has unleashed upon us: every kind of plague in fact, excepting only hope.

Who was the Pandora who actually opened the lid? As far as film is concerned, I would locate the moment of disaster—inasmuch as this can be done at all, and it can be done only approximately—in a seemingly innocent scene of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless…. In this particular scene I'm talking...