Theory of achievement

'Young, middle-class, white, college-educated, unskilled, broke.' These are the words which the people paying the lead in this short film use to characterise themselves. They cannot live in expensive Manhattan but have to make do with Brooklyn. Addicted to the theory but unfamiliar with the practice, well-meaning city tramps and frauds roam the world. They wonder why the sentences they recite do not cover what they experience. For instance, one of them says: 'To know we can die is to be dead already... I read that in a book somewhere.' Can there really be a 'theory of achievement'?Hartley wrote and filmed this 17-minute film in one week, while he was looking for an apartment. Many of his friends whoappear in the film really do live in Brooklyn. Theory of Achievement, the film-makers own favourite among his films, is largely a parody of (or homage to) the work of Jean-Luc Godard, imitating or ridiculing his Prénom Carmen in particular. There is even someone in the film playing Godard, complete with muttering and cigar.