MUBI

Again the issue is – a couple. The faces are different (Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot), but the couple that is disappearing before our eyes are Jean-Luc Godard and Ana Karina. Long scenes preview household symbolizes a certain vision of couple. Echoes and recalls the famous scene from ‘’À bout de souffle/Breathless’’ However, in that film, the characters are looking preferably … They kiss, fondle, hug… In ‘’Le Mépris/Contempt’’ rooms are larger, but the characters do not touch and watch from afar. The woman was reduced to a body that is sold, such as on billboards.

Inspirational thought of the famous French poet and philosopher Paul Valery: We know that all civilizations have their own end. This leads to the thought that even the movie, which is a product of our time, has its end. For this reason, this issue will become almost an opsession for Godard.
If every civilization ends, it means that we also have an end. We’ll recorde a world on the exhale. A world in ruins. In this movie all things are brought to decay. Neglected gardens, the walls of Cinecitta, the walls of the villa on Capri.
Homer’s Odyssey was forgotten and almost lost all meaning. Emptiness… Empty corridors, empty houses, empty movie theater. No more movies. Civilization and the film came to an end.

I’m not equipped to write a full review but I must express my contempt for this film. I’ve attempted to watch it on three or more occasions and cannot get past the hour mark. The film’s pacing is so slow, so glacial and so painfully meandering that I cannot even force myself to endure it’s torturous running-length. Maybe someday I’ll finish it, but in my opinion, if a film can’t grab you within the first fifteen minutes, LET ALONE an hour, then it is a failure.

In short, a contemplative, contemporary and curious look at…contempt.

Jean-luc Godard is fascinating. I am drawn to his audacity. To deliberately go against whatever…in the medium of film.

One could say he makes essays, products of a critic who may or may not enjoy film. To be honest, I think that Godard is SO in love with film. His affair with film is so flamboyant and thorough that it’s wonderful.

He thrives on its persistence of vision. This is why he does not need to explain himself that great in detail. Everything is there on screen.

So is the case of Contempt, a very frank exploration of what appears to be a total breakdown of marriage because of a misunderstanding.

But it is about cinema. And it is about the Odyssey, though this is probably a red herring. Above all, it is about Brigitte Bardot, who is very sophisticated and an absolute ice queen, though I can’t particularly blame her.

So what is Contempt about?

It seems like an odd choice; Godard to direct a ‘bid budget’ domestic drama about a man and woman, one a screenwriter, one a very attractive female, filmed in Italy, not France, in technicolor and in Cinemascope….

Though things should be clear immediately when you see that Fritz Lang and Jack Palance are in the film, and the credits are read to you, as we watch the actual production going on right before us. Of course, the cinematographer, Raoul Coutard is there to look at us and ‘shoot’ the audience.

Contempt is about Contempt. Exactly what it says on the tin.

A man, a screenwriter (Michel Piccoli), is invited to Italy where an American Producer (Jack Palance) is mounting a rather troubled film production of Fritz Lang’s (yes, THAT Fritz Lang) adaptation of THE ODYSSEY. There seem to be creative differences. Lang’s rushes of the current footage is indicative of a major ART film with a capital film. The producer is NOT pleased, and things are in the dumps when the only shot that pleases him is a naked girl swimming in the water.

The screenwriter is thus given an offer: re-write the script according to the demands of the producer.

The screen-writer and Lang discuss what makes Ulysses tick. The producer is a general asshole and blow-hard (though can you blame him? He’s got a ridiculous looking villa by the sea) And then Bardot appears. She actually appears right at the start, in an openly announced nudie shot, done at the whim of the real-life producers. We see her butt in all its color-tinted glory as Piccoli remarks that EVERY single physical feature on her body is wonderful.

This is sort of a mixed blessing, as it gives the illusion that these two are happy to be with each other. Maybe….

Because before the day is out, the producer openly hits on the writer’s wife. He asks for her to take a ride with him to his villa. Rather naively, the writer urges his wife to take his offer. For whatever reason, she complies, mostly out of CONTEMPT.

Once at the villa, her CONTEMPT is clear on her face. She ignores her husband, thought it’s clear she’s been hating him for a while.

Following this, is the center-piece of the movie: an epic two-way conversation between Bardot and Piccoli, where they engage in a rather piercing argument of wills.

Both toy with each others emotions because of CONTEMPT, and because of this CONTEMPT, nothing gets through.

The whole sequence is quite sedate in tone, though little bits of rage and hate come through, and there are moments that are highly reminiscent of certain domestive arguments between emotionally selfish individuals.

Bardot dons a black wig like Godard’s ex-wife, Anna Karina.

They decide, after much arguing, to attend a day of shooting with the producer at Capri.

They attend a strange musical performance where the music decides to cut out whenver someone speaks.

At Capri, things are the pits. The producer openly despises the director. Bardot’s CONTEMPT is at its height, acting passive aggresively. Everyone is miserable, except for the director, who is happy to make film, because he’s an artist.

In then end, despite the parallels with the Odyssey, there will be no deliberation on the God’s part, nor any happy ending for our Penelope or Ulysses.

In fact, the whole thing has a tone of solemnity, because everyone’s inherent emotional stubborness is so palpable as to be irritating.

CONTEMPT is an apt title. Everyone has it for each other.

Analyze this as much as you want; Godard is still telling a simple story of people who hate each other for silly reasons.

Bardot doesn’t like her un-confident husband. He is stubborn and un-fair, the producer is an arrogant lout;

Actually, the only one who gets out of this unscathed is Fritz Lang, though to be honest, it may be biased, as Godard had great admiration for the German film-maker. He is, after all, one of the film-masters.

Of course, when the only solution is DEATH, then the film becomes tragic.

And it is.

But to say any more would spoil a rather devastating effect of oblivion.

One must experience CONTEMPT in all its cinemascope and techincolor glory.

Unlike most film-makers, and this is what makes Godard interesting, is that he uses Cinemascope as a means to EMPTY the frame of all texutres.

It creates a feeling of BIGNESS and such that is impressive. It overwhelms you and you feel exhilarated just to be loooking at such a huge canvas of bright colors and space.

Godard does this with most of his Cinemascope epics. And by epics, I mean they are big and dense and scatological in terms of themes and styles. It doesn’t matter, for whatever happens, happens.

Godard is, to me, both a niche and ever-lasting filmmaker. The style is unique, but at the same time, probing.

Raoul Coutard’s cinematography is vibrant and crystal clear. I love it. Like someone took pure colored paints and carefully applied it to all the buildings.

The score by Georges Deleure is beautiful, and heartbreakingly melancholy.
It’s as if Godard loved it so much and trusted it, that he decided to let it appear in the film whenever he pleases, with impunity, regardless of timing.

And to be honest, timing doesn’t matter with this score. It is perfect for any moment in the film.

The camera drifts along; it’s all on tracks and dollys. The film crews work dilligently and never before did it looks so practical and at the same time fascinating. Then again, Godard is in love with Cinema. The posters of American films from the 30s, 40s, and 50s are all over the walls for no particular reason.

Hell, Jack Palance is a great actor in his own right, but it’s no mistake or chance that he’s in this movie. He was known for being in several important B-films from Hollywood that are now seen as actually well-made movies of high sophistication. In a sense, he is supposed to BE American filmmaking. And this is the ambivalence of Godard; he loves the films, but he admits to not being able to work in that system.

He needs spontanaeity and improvisation. He needs breeziness and chance. He needs to work at whatever pace he needs. And most of all, he needs cinema from everywhere. And it’s everywhere. Just like the sea by the Italian coast.

This movie is about CONTEMPT. But Godard has none for the cinema.

This is “PURE CINEMA”.

Just get comfy. It’s certainly slow moving for the general viewer.

Honestly, in a movie this drawn-out, I don’t care how important the message is. It was okay for the first ~45 minutes, and yes, the casa malaparte is amazing, brigitte is beautiful, the music is catchy, but I just could NOT keep watching. I felt very strongly at a certain point that there are just too many important things to be doing, watching, reading, living(!), than to continue viewing any more of this film. I had to stop it.

I guess this is for die-hard Godard fans, which I am not.

This marks the 4th film I’ve seen by Jean Luc Godard. Many of my friends swear by him, but frankly I’d never understood why. I’d appreciated “Le Petit Soldat.” It was filmed in a hand-held documentary style, and the piano score was appropriately minimalist. “Breathless,” on the other hand, certainly didn’t leave me breathless, and I could barely sit through “La Chinoise.”

I picked up “Contempt” several months ago on a friend’s suggestion, but it was almost immediately buried by the incessantly growing pile of acquisitions from the New York Public Library. I’d nearly forgotten about it when it unexpectedly floated to the top one evening this week. It was already too late to practice my drums, and my mind was tired from studying. It was in this dubious state that I began “Contempt.”

From the opening credits, I knew that I had entered an entirely different world from that which I’d come to expect from Godard. The film begins with a long static shot of a crew filming a tracking shot of a woman slowly walking through what appears to be an abandoned film lot. Our perspective situates us at the end of the track, and while we watch the crew and actress inch towards us, a narrator speaks the opening credits (the credits never appear on the screen in print). It’s a deliberate, thoughtful, and layered scene that lets us savor its novelty while contemplating its meta-film ironies.

At the end of the credits, the narrator tells us that Andre Bezin once said that “The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires.” The scene then shifts to a slow tracking shot of a naked Briggit Bardot laying face down on her bed, bathed in a New Orleans red haze, sequentially asking her lover if he likes her various body parts (from the toes up). At this point, anyone attracted to the female form will hastily attempt to extrapolate the content of the film after juxtaposing the sumptuous view with Bezin’s quote.

It wasn’t long before I realized that this was not some magical world where all of my dreams came true. The world of “Contempt” is a hopeless and tragic world. This pessimistic philosophy, that contends that deep down we desire suffering and misery, has cropped up in a number of films since this, from Bergman’s intimately epic “Scenes from a Marriage” and “Saraband” to the Wachowski brother’s pop-culture phenomenon “The Matrix:”

“Contempt’s” score consists of one single piece of music, replayed intermittently (and often unexpectedly) throughout the film. It’s an unabashedly tragic piece, something you would expect during a sappy scene of a Hollywood romance. Its incessant repetition, however, transforms the unoriginal theme into a meditative mantra. It really drives home the film’s philosophical bent.

The considered, deliberate pacing, Tarkovian cinematography, and layered narrative convinced me that behind the camera lay one of film’s rare geniuses. I’ll say nothing more about the plot; it’s simply something you’ll have to experience on your own. As for the many more beautifully composed shots in the film, I’ll save them for my coming video essay.

(Originally written May 28, 2005)

Contempt is a film in which form and content are always on at equally inspiring levels, further evidence that director Jean-Luc Godard once understood the medium of film more than almost any other filmmaker. The film is intriguing because of its ability to show the parallel between faulty relationships and cinema as a weakening art form. The colors in the film are absolutely astounding, constantly drawing in the viewer and evoking different emotions. Godard even uses music in a unique way to tell his story, reminding viewers of the opening sequence of My Life to Live with the staggered use of movie with the stops and starts. There is the sense that there are constant attempts at beauty in life and cinema, yet these attempts often end in failure. The use of Homer’s Odyssey as the film within the film shows that these problems have always existed, and that they shall persist.

one of the oddest movies that I can say that I have watched it at least ten times. It’s so bloody gorgeous, what with the technicolor, the beautiful Brigitte Bardot, the fucking legendary Fritz Lang. Many, many references in this film, many layers, yet intriguingly simple, the commentary on the Criterion release (I’m unsure if there’s any other release) is very informative. yes, one can look deep and be fascinated by everything, or simply watch and be blown away by the images.
plus, marvelous feats of acting. The apartment scene.
This film is almost like an anti-Breathless. Both are marvelous, Godard continuously burning up whats been, and starting all over again.

Another exercise in pretentiousness from director Jean-Luc Godard, though this one is slightly more watchable than most of his work. The presence of Jack Palance and Fritz Lang provides some entertainment value, and it is a great looking film – but it’s irritatingly slow-paced, and rings false in terms of story and characters, especially during the long stretches when Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot discuss their marital difficulties. The lush score by Georges Delerue is sometimes effective, sometimes cloying.

Sometimes regarded as Godard’s most accessible film, because of its gorgeous photography and mainstream backing, it is in fact one of his most difficult works, a bleakly comic satire of multi-national film-making that savagely ridicules producers, and their aspirations for a dumbed down profitable cinema, for undermining the artistic vision of directors. The story, of a screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) persuaded by an American producer (Jack Palance) to rewrite “The Odyssey” for Fritz Lang (playing himself), while his gorgeous wife (Brigitte Bardot) is used as a pawn to please the producer, is really the story of Godard’s production itself, which had ego maniacal producers insisting on compromising the director’s intent with necessary nude shots of Bardot, and featured, amongst other blatantly self-referential moments, cinematographer Raoul Coutard opening the film by pointing his Technicolor camera directly at the audience, voyeur on voyeur, complicit in everything that’s going to happen in the following 100 minutes. Those who remember seeing this film on video will recall an unpleasant experience of watching Godard’s brilliant and ironic use of Cinemascope compromised to an annoying pan-and-scan format, but Criterion’s DVD is a beautiful wide-screen print which fully brings out the stunning use of primary colors (red, white, blue, and yellow), especially in a 30-minute fight scene between quarreling spouses Piccoli and Bardot, and for anyone not entirely fused on Godard’s film-making satiric wavelength, there’s a great commentary track and nearly two hours of bonus interviews and archival documentaries that should clue you in on one of the smartest films of his career.