Contempt

Fritz Lang, playing himself, is set to direct a more commercial adaptation of Homer's "Odyssey". Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), the producer, despises art films and hires screenwriter Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) to help Lang commercialize the movie. Javal 'offers' his young wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot, sexier than ever, in one of her few serious roles), to Prokosch, thinking he'll get a better payment. But he didn't know that would sparkle Camille's contempt and ruin their marriage.

"Le Mépris" aka "Contempt" is Godard's existentialist, provocative essay of the relationships between artistic and commercial cinema, man and woman/husband and wife (he was married to his then-muse Anna Karina, with whom he made some of his best films; after their divorce in 1967, he married Anne Wiazemsky, with whom he made "La Chinoise", "Week End" and others). Gorgeously photographed by Raoul Coutard and scored by the master Georges Delerue, and with some "influences" of Antonioni's trilogy (L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse), "Le Mépris" is not my favourite Godard, but it's certainly a vigorous film. 9/10.

Contempt is the type of film that can create that feeling between itself and the audience watching. It is a strange mix of cinematic magic and unrealistic psychobabble. Jean-Luc Godard is one of the greatest of all directors and perhaps the most successful of the French New Wave, one of the most important occurrences in film history. He had already hit success with his ground-breaking Breathless and his personal My Life to Live. Here, he is at his most experimental, even more so than in The Little Soldier. From the opening shot of a camera tracking an actor down towards where the narrative camera is, there is no doubt this is a unique picture.

We then get multiple scenes involving the strangest nude scenes ever recorded. This film stars Bridgette Bardot, one of the most beautiful and captivating women ever to be in a movie, and Godard intentionally films her almost completely without a sense of eroticism or sexiness. She, like everything else here, is objectified, pushed away and gives us a chance to consider other films we have seen.

This is a rare gift to film lovers, a story that cannot be judged on standard grounds because it is not a standard film. Godard, I believe, is showing the absolute boundaries of the cinema, daring to go farther than nearly anyone before or after him. For most, it will totally polarize them and perhaps turn them off to Godard or even foreign films completely. But, that should not be the case. True, this is a head-scratcher, but you cannot expect normalcy from a director like Godard. Here, along with most of his other work, he proved that the director, if given freedom, can change the look and feel of a film to an unlimited amount of options and opportunities. Roger Ebert said that Godard never made another movie like this because he realized he couldn't. I think he didn't because he realized cinema hasn't reached those limits yet; and perhaps never will.

Paul (Picoli) is hired by vulgarian US producer Jerry Prokosh (Palance) to rewrite a screenplay for his adaptation, which Fritz Lang (himself) insists on shooting in a hyper-stylized, mythological fashion. Paul's relationship with his trophy wife Camille disintegrates as she feels abandoned by him to Prokosh's advances, and sees him subdue himself to these great men.

It is about film-making - of course! - it is about the plight of the artist, but where it succeeds most is in the carefully examined slow destruction of Camille and Paul's marriage. Raoul Coutard's cinemascope photography, filled with lush colors, only serves to highlight how little Paul is and how out of his depth he is. He and his wife hide it in different manners: Paul by trying to assert intellectual superiority over his wiser-than-she-appears wife, therefor earning her contempt. She hides by relying on her sensuality.

Godard typically references his love for film in a way that many will find pedantic, and the lush score isn't always wisely used, overwhelming and sometimes even obtrusive. But thankfully, Godard's message and cast survive the director's pseudo-intellectual short-comings. Bardot is perfectly cast as the ignorant innocent who strives to appear and be smarter than she is (even sporting a brunette whig at some point, in what is really a sad moment of self-loathing), but fails. Camille never convinces when she speaks, but the pain in those eyes is intensely real. Picoli's Paul is easier to sympathize with, as the "reasonable" whose every move to please anyone dooms him further. It is a cruel lesson and warning about relationships.

The film also serves a more sarcastic and amusing (and far more conscious) duel between Palance's Prokosh, superbly vulgar and dramatic, and Lang, who becomes a wise and immensely charismatic figure that stands against compromise. It is sad that this was the German master's only performance in front of the camera.

Le Mépris is slow, and if you get caught too much in Goddard's referencing and hyper-stylization, it will bore you. But if you really follow these characters, you're in for a unique, edifying and sometimes unnervingly uncomfortable ride.

Must be seen several times under different angles to be fully appreciated.

1963's Le Mépris (Contempt) does little to hide what Director/Screenwriter Jean-Luc Godard thinks of Hollywood. On the surface Le Mépris presents an imploding marriage, but beneath the surface it is a contemptuous allegory of the commercialization and destruction of cinema as an art form.

Michel Piccoli plays Paul Javal, a novelist turned screenwriter who is offered the job of rewriting an adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey for lecherous Hollywood producer Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance). Once an autonomous, self respecting and fulfilled artist, Paul has given in to the pressures of both his ambition and the lifestyle associated with Hollywood productions. Having done so, Paul has stepped onto a slippery slope where selling his soul has not only eroded his morality, it has put irreparable strains on his marriage to Camille (Brigitte Bardot).

Godard is famous for making movies concerned with big ideas and Le Mépris is no exception. In many of his films main characters and their story are vessels Godard uses to get across ideological, philosophical and intellectual arguments. As a result, many of Godard's films fail to engage their audiences in the typical ways movies do. Since the characters represent something more grandiose than individual people, these characters often come across as being inhuman. The result is, audiences can't identify with, or find an emotional attachment to the characters or stories in many Godard's films. Instead, the audiences either develop an intellectual relationship to the films, or they simply tune out. While the latter may lead to some scoffing at Godard's work as being pretentious, the work should still be respected for defying convention and forcing its audience to ask important questions.

Life imitates art and while making Le Mépris, Godard was at odds with his producers (most notably, the legendary Carlo Ponti). Like Paul, Godard was conflicted by the restraints of working on a large scale, big budget production. Unlike Paul, Godard's vision remained untainted, if not emboldened, yet...not altogether unaffected. When pushed to exploit the star power of Bardot, Godard made the choice of opening the film with Bardot sprawled nude across a bed. Instead of making it a nude scene for the sake of wanton sexuality, Camille expresses insecurity about her body, commenting on the psychologically damaging effects sexual exploitation has on women. Again, Godard makes us question why we want what we want and, like it or not, he affects the way we see things and, most importantly, movies. Love him or hate him, I don't think we have a choice but to respect him.

http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com/

Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt is a beautiful film visually and an ugly film thematically, depicting the disintegration of a marriage. One wonders how Godard, who had just married the ravishing Anna Karina the same year Contempt was released, managed to write a film so pessimistic about the union of marriage and how it corrupts both parties mentally.

The eye-popping color scheme of Contempt, thanks to Raoul Coutard's predictably wonderful cinematography as well as CinemaScope, a specific kind of anamorphic lens for widescreen shooting, is one of the defining reasons for this film's greatness. The process of CinemaScope enhances the color extraordinarily, adding a new layer of vivid texture to the film and a spot-on visual scheme throughout the film. Ordinary things like walking along the beach, admiring the ocean, or just simple conversations staged inside unremarkable buildings become a feast for the eyes simply because Godard uses this delightful method of shooting.

But what a way to use the film's visual scheme to contrast it with its overall bleak tone. The film revolves around an American film producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) who decides to adapt Homer's renowned and iconic piece Odyssey for the big screen. He hires famed director Fritz Lang, who treats the film as if it were an artistic indie film and not the epic he had envisioned. Prokosch decides to hire Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), a writer and playwright, trusting him to handle Homer's work with the respect he knows it deserves.

Paul, however, begins to feel increased pressure with adapting this work, as well as opposition in line of his own personal artistic expression as well as studio interest. To add to his already filling plate, Paul's marriage to the incredibly beautiful Camille (Brigitte Bardot) is on the rockiest of waters with persistent fights occurring between the two as well as Camille's hot and cold attitude towards him and their marriage.

Godard's Contempt is a multilayered piece of work to say the least. The film can be taken as a surface examination of a marriage in total jeopardy, and perhaps a depiction of the death of a practical union between two impractical people, or simply seen as an on-screen showcase for the issues and opposition Godard faced when he began making films on his own in the 1960's. I've already established that Godard is a rebel filmmaker in every regard; he consciously set out to fight against typical French filmmaking conventions and, in turn, pushed French cinema through an unthinkable New Wave movement, redefining cinematic aesthetics, tampering with narrative convention, and even adding deeper morals and themes provided with new visionary techniques and darker tones to films.

He puts his talents and his desire to destroy and construct to use with Contempt and, in turn, makes a fascinating film. Rotten Tomatoes' consensus on the film states that it is "essential cinema" and blends the ideas of "meta" and "physique," a statement I couldn't agree more with. Godard has always been big on abstraction with film to, at times, treading the line of being inaccessible in what he's trying to say. The best way that I've heard his work put, by a colleague, is that his films "are like having an intellectual conversation." So many ideas are getting tossed around, most of his films lack central ideas (one thing I've been known to critique with his films), and some I find to be next to impossible in trying to extract even some meaning out.

Contempt is definitely abstract and lives up the description of "meta;" various scenes leave a viewer confused and questioning what they were supposed to take away from a certain part. However, the overarching theme of the decline of marriage and artistic creativity remains accessible and digestible through the abstraction. Just by the inclusion of Fritz Lang, one of Godard's biggest cinematic influences, we can evidently see that Godard is commenting about how warped studios become in money, profits, and the meticulous "Hollywood/film accounting" process that they forget about the visionaries, the film stylists, and those who have original ideas that desperately need to find ways out in the public. Cinema had to inherently be discovered by rebels, illusionists, and subversive artists, and these are the same people that are finding the film industry a harder and harder place to break out, let alone work. Through Paul Javal, Godard details this struggle beautifully.

As stated, the film's style - or "physique" - is dashing in every regard. When one sees stills from the film taken out of context, one can easily infer Contempt to be a film masquerading in a more positive light than it actually is. However, make no mistake, as Contempt deals with the disintegration of a marriage in its darkest form. If capturing how difficult it was to make a film when you're barricaded by philistines wasn't subversive enough, Godard dares enter the realm of showing how marriage itself is a practical union between two people but people themselves aren't always practical. Look at the character of Camille, who seems to play psychological mind-games with her husband, never really solving anything and just getting him to dance around a whirlwind of mixed singles and unidentified irritations she seems to form overnight.

After watching what I deem Godard's "happiest" film so far, his sophomore effort A Woman is a Woman, entering into Contempt's world was a rough wakeup call. Godard is one of the moodiest filmmakers I have yet to discover. I'd love to catch him on a good day, but he's so much more thought-provoking, alive, and blustering when he's angry.

Starring: Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, and Fritz Lang. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.