that may ultimately inform the divergences between heterogeneity or homogeneity as decentering modes: cinema's ability to assimilate other art forms and matters of content as well as forms of spectator address are two main factors in establishing a nuanced antinaturalist cinema. In fact, the antinaturalist cinema that is most closely associated with the vanguard of cinematic modernism, is a cinema of irony and commentary, a cinema marked by an aesthetics of heterogeneity. [25] This cinema has as its main intertext the repertory of reflexive strategies exposed for didactic intent by Brecht: quotation instead of enactment, the juxtaposition of heterogeneous materials, the eclectic use of media and modes of performance. The Godardian aesthetic advances by juxtapositional and oppositional spurts, by a juggling of elements within filmic materiality. Within this modernist ethos, these [visual, aural] breaks connote another, more than merely formal sort of rupture: that of a politicized gesture—against capital, the establishment, etc. Although disjunction is a staple in anti naturalistic cinema (from Soviet cinema montage to Peter Kubelka's rhythmic montage to Bruce Conner's found-footage

«collages«), the agonistic modernist discourse inevitably refers to the classical or conventional text it is supposed to rupture. In this cinema, [26] epitomized by the work of Godard, «the critical allegiance, to the conventions of Hollywood commercial cinema has acted as context and precondition of formal radicalism.» [27] Akerman's work, on the other hand, makes no comment on other cinematic modes. Its energy is not centrifugal, like Godard's, opening up onto other discourses and realities; its concentrated focus is better understood in terms of the aesthetics of homogeneity proposed by Bresson, and also by Dreyer and Rohmer. [28]

Overflow and Overload

Akerman's work, is syntagmatic, operating through a linear accumulation of repetitions. She insists on simplified forms and singular characters and actors, as well as on minimal variations in sets and locations. The tools with which she constructs an alternative to the Brechtian/ Godardian model are duration, accumulation, sobriety, and sameness. Akerman's reading of cinematic naturalism is perverse: she