Epistemology in Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville

In Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville, a secret agent, Lemmy Caution, infiltrates a city controlled by a super-computer called Alpha60. He is sent to Alphaville posing as a journalist to investigate its residents and encounters a conflict of human emotion versus logical machines. 

The weapon of choice for both man and machine is knowledge that the other does not possess. This knowledge is marked throughout the film by Caution's observations as he deciphers how Alpha 60 reinforces logical thinking by eliminating emotional ideas. These observations are Godard's epistemological representation of what can only be known to humans and never grasped by computers.

Caution has knowledge of poetic language important in his defense against Alpha60's interrogation. He is arrested for trying to take photographs of Professor Van Braun, the computer's creator and taken to Alpha60's central control. Seated in an interrogation room he is questioned about his purpose for being in Alphaville. He manages to avoid revealing his true motives, which are to undermine Professor Van Braun and destroy Alpha60. He does this by answering in circumlocutory poetic language that the computer cannot register.

The computer's questions are similar to a lie detector test and the exchange of dialogue marks an important distinction in the knowledge they both possess. The computer's thinking and speech process is maintained by a knowledge based in logic. Whereas the poetic language Caution uses is knowledge rooted in an intuitive emotional thinking.