Jean Luc-Godard may be unique amongst similarly iconic post-War European filmmakers in that it seems like we rarely go six months without one of his lost or little-known works getting revived or rediscovered, but its rare even for him for two such works to re-enter the spotlight in the same week. BAM’s presentation on Monday night of the little-seen One P.M., a film started by and, finally, starring Godard, was not billed as an event meant to capitalize on today’s street release of the little talked-about Une Femme Mariee, but it does inspire one to look for ways to talk about both in the same breath. There is not much overlap here, but at the very least, both films play on Godard’s interest in and persistent exploration of the tension between reality and its creation. Some notes:

1. One P.M.: Actual vs. Synthesized Anarchy

That One P.M puts Jean Luc-Godard on screen as a central focus should maybe not be the revelation that it is; after all, as we’ve discussed before, his best-known work is so deeply reflective of his personal life, and sometimes vice versa, that traditional distinctions between on-screen and off lose much of their ordinary meaning. But DA Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock’s film — began as a Godard-instigated collaboration called One A.M (or One American Movie), taken over and edited by the direct cinema legends when the French filmmaker abandoned the project and renamed it One P.M. (or One Pennebaker Movie, or One Parallel Movie) — presents a different Godard. Glimpsed here, in what amounts to documentary footage, trying to wring a hybrid of truth and fiction out of subjects both unsuspecting (a twenty-something female Wall Street lawyer) and very suspicious (Eldridge Cleaver), Godard embodies a caricature of the European art filmmaker come to America to con us into giving up our truth.

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