davikubrick
It is quite strange to see Jean-Luc Godard making a movie about the deconstruction of a couple, but "Le Mépris" is with no doubt his best film and one of the best ever made. A screenwriter called Paul Javal receives a proposal to make new scenes for the cinematic adaptation of the book The Odyssey, however, his wife Camille begins to despise the little things he does, then the couple start to breakup. In addition to being visually beautiful and having one of the best movie soundtracks, the performances do not fall short, especially Brigitte Bardot, the film has a cameo from legendary director Fritz Lang (Metropolis and M), was also the first big budget film by Jean-Luc Godard, but that is little noticed in the film. The film creates an analogy between the story of the protagonist of the book The Odyssey with Camille and Paul are going through, the beauty of the images, well, almost everything works on this masterpiece. Cinema should be like life, and "Le Mépris" or Contempt is a tragic but visually beautiful depiction of it.
tieman64
Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" opens with a low-angle shot from a stationary camera. From this vantage point we watch as another camera tilts downward and gazes back at us. "Cinema substitutes for the real world one that accords more closely with our desires," Godard states. The relationship of the moving camera to the stationary camera is significant; it occupies a position of power and authority. We kneel before it."Contempt's" second sequence finds Camille (Brigitte Bardot) and Paul (Michel Piccoli) in bed. They're lovers. He's a playwright. She informs him that she will "visit her mother tomorrow," a detail which will later become significant. Throughout the scene, Camille is nude, but her anatomical listing of parts, which she asks Paul to "look at in the mirror", neutralises all eroticism. Godard uses red, blue and white filters throughout the scene – the colours of the French national flag – and has Cameille ask Paul if he would like her to keel before him. He says no. He loves her totally, not her reflection, not just as individual fetishized parts, but totally. She frowns, wanting Paul to love something that cannot be located in any part of the body, something which resists and exists beyond his image of her.Next scene: the Italian film industry is in ruins and finds itself prey to wealthy Hollywood producers, one of whom is Prokosch (Jack Palance), a man busy producing movies and turning Italian studios into shopping malls. Prokosch hires Fritz Lang (playing himself) to direct a film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey and wants Paul to write a "commercial" screenplay. Paul agrees.Throughout the film, Godard presents language and economics as forces which prevent the articulation and actualisation of human desire. Everyone seems to be speaking a different language, and everyone struggles with translation and interpretation. Epitoimizing these differences are Lang, Prokosch and Paul. One speaks German, one French, one English. Each interprets Homer's Odyssey differently and each wishes to turn their subjective interpretations of artifacts/objects into private fantasy. Prokosch, a misogynist who believes Penelope (who epitomises fidelity) was unfaithful to Odysseus, wins. Alligned with Gods, and possibly named after the Prokosch family of linguists, he's able to force his will, his language, upon others. Lang, meanwhile, represents the old guard: an artist with integrity and values on the cusp of being replaced. Paul's the modern artist, a whore bent by market demands; his fate is still being written.If Paul is a future prostitute, Camille already is. We find her standing between film posters ("Vivre sa Vie", "Psycho", "Hatari", "Betrayer") which feature hunters, psychos and sex workers, the latter her symbolic role. Prokosch wants her, may have already had her when she "visited her mother", but Paul seems oblivious. He repeatedly "offers her" to Prokosch, whilst also selling his soul for money. Paul is aligned to Vincente Minnelli's "Some Came Running", a melodrama about a writer who struggles to hold on to his integrity. Lang's character is in a similar trap. He quotes a Bertolt Brecht line ("Every morning to earn my bread...") which likens scriptwriting to prostitution, but symbolically attributes the line to BB, the nickname of Brigitte Bardot. Prokosch, meanwhile, quotes Joseph Goebbels ("When I hear the word culture..."), Godard likening producers to Nazis.Like mice lost in a maze, Paul and Camille navigate their apartment. He thinks she's been abused by Prokosch, she thinks he slept with Prokosch's assistant. Both are unsure of the other's fidelity. More importantly, neither has a sense of what the other really wants, and both are unable to bring desire into tangible existence through language. This is the crux of the film: one can never fully articulate desire with language as there is always what Lacan called "surplus desire", that which exists beyond both articulation and satiation. And as "Contempt" shows, it is the attempt to fill the emptiness of one's desire with an actual object that destroys romance, though this is precisely what cinema typically offers its spectators. What Godard proposes in a number of his films is to resist resolving desire, embrace the troubled position of the desiring subject – and in so doing sustain some semblance of freedom - and recognise the inability of the filmic image to deliver this object.Early in the film, Camille tells a story about control. The moral? Gods used to control man's fate, now money reigns supreme; Smith's Invisible Hand has replaced God's ("I know how God's feel!" Prokosch remarks). Money itself results in Paul being trapped in an interesting double-bind. Paul succumbs to Prokosch's offers - compromising his artistic integrity and also his beliefs in communism - so that he has enough cash to pay for an apartment for he and Camille. But it is precisely Paul's betraying of his values to be with Camille which fills her with further contempt for him. In other words, he wanting to be with her pushes her away from him; he shatters his ideals and so her idealisations of him. Conversely, Camille tears herself away from Paul and embarks on a romance with Prokosch, not solely out of contempt, but also out of love for Paul. In leaving him, she saves him from debasement, allowing him to escape Prokosch."Contempt" ends with a reversal of its first shot. Here a camera tracks Ulysses as he looks for Ithaca, an island which Godard symbolically leaves invisible. The film is powerfully scored by Georges Delerue (lifted by Scorsese for "Casino"), and resembles late Antonioni, Resnais and early Rossellini.Incidentally, Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" is a big homage to "Contempt". Lynch has Godard make a cameo as a director in "Mulholland", ends with "Contempt's" final panning shot and command ("Silenzio!"), has a character called Camilla (whose portfolio is "Contempt's" poster), and his film features the same wigs (now blonde), red towels, sleazy producers, car crashes and fights against gods. Elsewhere Lynch's Club Silencio resembles a casting-call in "Contempt", both with lip-syncing.8.9/10 - Masterpiece.
stephparsons
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Contempt is a 'new wave' French film full of 'French emotions' and rather a lot of unhappy and/or weird people. It stars Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli as Camille and Paul Javal, a young couple ravaged by marital and emotional difficulties and in the case of Camille either low self esteem or mental illness and an anger management problem. Paul (a screen writer) has his demons too and it's hard to figure out if he's a nice guy with a crazy wife or a sly and manipulative guy who has driven his wife crazy - and that's the crux of this movie. Contempt. The contempt that Camille feels for her spouse, the contempt her spouse feels for the crass American film Producer, Jeremy Prochosh (played by Jack Palance) who wants to commercialize Fritz Lang's Ulysses. The difficulty with this movie is that it's unclear whether the problems Camille and Paul had in their relationship existed prior to Paul's involvement with Prochosh and co. However, Camille's insecurities are showcased in the opening scene. What 'Contempt' does best is realism, and one of the most striking scenes involves Camille and Paul arguing (for what seems like hours) as they go about their business in their apartment; walking past each other, getting dressed, preparing dinner etc. The ending is unexpected but then again perhaps not if one takes Paul's interpretation of the Odyssey to heart? 'Contempt' certainly lives up to its title and is well acted, entertaining (in a voyeuristic way), and makes you uncomfortable because the acting is so 'real'.
Boba_Fett1138
No, I'm really not a person that likes everything that is French and 'old'. As a matter of fact, I'm not too big on Jean-Luc Godard and really don't like all of his movies. This movie however was one I nearly fell in love with.In all truth and honesty, I was absolutely taken by its movie its style and approach. It's visuals were splendid and its subject manner was truly an unique and great one as well. It's a sort of a shame that the movie somewhat lost me in its middle part and its end also definitely wasn't as great as the beginning but overall this remains a movie I really admire and can be positive about.Of course it's being an artistic movie but what I like about it is that its being quiet and subtle art. It doesn't ever goes over-the-top with any kind of weirdness and instead really takes its time to subtly show and tell you what this movie is all about.The movie does truly feel like a moving painting. It's also because of the compositions and camera-work that the movie uses. It's filled with long shots, in which the camera is also occasionally slowly moving but never toward its subjects. It's being a very subjective, observing movie that views everything from a distance and doesn't use close-ups or any other movie tricks to bring out or emphasize certain emotions. I absolutely loved the cinematography and not just because of its use of vibrant colors.It makes the movie almost an hypnotic one and completely sucks you in. Because of the movie its approach and overall style of storytelling, you are forced to constantly keep paying attention, which will suck you all the more into the movie itself. Even when there is very little happening or being said, it still feels like there is plenty going on in this movie and I also most certainly won't call this a boring one.The movie is already a very special one for the fact that is stars the legendary director Fritz Lang in it, who is playing himself. He probably did it as a favor and out of respect for director Jean-Luc Godard, since Lang never starred in anything. It's basically good and fun to watch all actors in this, who each speak their own language. French, English, German and Italian gets constantly spoken throughout the entire movie, no doubt to also emphasize the differences and contrasts in the characters, who all have their own ideas about finishing a particular Fritz Lang directed movie. Besided the name of Lang, also the names of Brigitte Bardot and Jack Palance should arouse certain people's curiosity.But the movie does not only tickle the brain and is a feast for the eyes, it's easily great to the ears, due to the wonderful classical musical score by Georges Delerue.A true mesmerizing viewing experience!8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/
