Jean-Luc Godard's influence is indisputable. The '90s alone have seen high-profile directors Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-Wai paying homage to him in one way or another, and Godard has continued to remain prolific long after most of his peers have slowed down or died. So why has it been so long since one of his films saw release in America? One reason may be his unapproachable reputation. Though Godard's '60s films—such as Breathless, Weekend, and Contempt—are among the most ambitious of the French New Wave, they're also as entertaining and sharply witty as they are difficult. The late '60s, however, found Godard moving in a drastically more strident leftist direction, a move his work would reflect for years to come. A bold and perhaps questionable decision, it also cost him much of his American audience, causing his films to appear here much more sporadically in the ensuing decades, until their release pretty much dwindled off to nonexistence. Video has been a little bit kinder to Godard, but the emphasis is again on his early work. It's strange to think that there's a sequel to Alphaville that has yet to see the light of day here. But the reappearance of 1982's Passion (along with Detective from 1985) is a step in the right direction. Among Passion's characters is a movie director (Jerzy Radziwilowicz) plagued by people concerned about the lack of a story in the film he is attempting to make, which seems to consist only of re-creations of paintings in the style of Goya, Rembrandt, Delacroix and others. It's probably Godard's idea of a joke, and an appropriate one for a film that, although it does seem to have a story, obscures it at nearly every turn. Godard contrasts the sensual quality of Radziwilowicz's film with the cacophonous environment needed to produce it. The production is also somehow related to a nearby factory, which also supplies extras and is home to a stuttering worker (Isabelle Huppert) who tries to resolve her desire to work with her alienated position. If it sounds like a self-consciously political look at work, class, and art, it is. But the film is also aware enough of what it's doing to keep things from getting heavy-handed, as evidenced by a scene in which Radziwilowicz begins wrestling with an actor dressed as an angel. Even if it seems less urgent than Godard's best work, it's worth watching, and its overdue arrival on video is a good precedent for a time in which the acceptance and popularity of foreign films is lower than it was in the days before Godard began working.