Alphaville

The line by Alpha60 that begins "Time is the substance of which I am made" is paraphrased from the 1946 essay "A New Refutation of Time" by famous Argentinean writer and fantasist Jorge Luis Borges, which reads: "Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges."

Towards the beginning, the term "light years" is used as if it were a measure of time, when actually it is a measure of distance.

Before the credits, Godard adds one letter at a time to compose the word "fin"--"i"..."in"..."fin"--as though to suggest "I, in the end."

In the original French version, the voice of the computer Alpha 60 sounds harsh and throaty as if produced by belching. One English-dubbed version gives the computer a more typical computer-like voice.

Edited into Histoire(s) du cinéma: Une vague nouvelle (1999)