THE IMAGE BOOK (2019) Stream on Mubi. Rent on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube. This Jean-Luc Godard’ feature has sometimes been referred to as a cinematic essay rather than a film because it largely lacks the hallmarks of a traditional movie. But for this French New Wave contrarian, the true identity of cinema has yet to be discovered, much less fulfilled. The film, which won a Special Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, focuses on the ways in which he thinks the Middle East has been insufficiently depicted in film and the media. If the form in which Godard conducts his investigation (a multidimensional assemblage of film clips, video, quotations and complex soundscapes) is baffling, this only reinforces his central point: We have much more to learn about what it means to see.

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THE NOTEBOOK (2004) 8 p.m. on Freeform. By now this melodrama starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams is as much a cultural symbol as anything else. For better or worse, it has spawned a bevy of memes, informed millennial romantic sensibilities and its main characters have attained archetypical familiarity. These characters, Noah (Gosling) and Allie (McAdams), are not quite star-crossed lovers. They face obstacles, including a meddling mother and World War II, but it’s always clear that they’ll end up together in the end. Their ultimate fate, relayed by the portions of the movie set in the present day, adds a layer of more nuanced pathos.