Contempt (1963) User Reviews

The Descent...

[Xstal · 6/10 · 31 January 2023]

It all starts, with so much elegance and grace, with such smooth outlines, that your eyes caress and trace, Paul Javal and bride Camille, she seeks assertion, he makes her feel, that he won't allow a soul to take his place. But the ties that bind are easy to let go, and Camille is feeling Paul isn't so true, like a plate than can be shared, causes contempt and despair, and attraction comes unstuck like perished glue.

An often tricky piece of cinema that hardly entertains but leaves a mark that you may or may not be able to reconcile. Brigitte Bardot is as elegant as ever, in a film about a film that leaves you pondering how on earth could Paul Jarval let her go and wondering how many times you need to re-watch it to gather the intent.

Perhaps it's great because of its ambiguity.

[bobsgrock · 8/10 · 19 July 2009]

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.

With "Le Mépris," Godard succeeded where Malle had failed

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 30 July 2005]

Strangely enough, director Jean-Luc Godard understood Bardot's capabilities best, and with "Le Mépris," he succeeded where Malle had failed… Because the movie reflected Bardot's new life, the viewer was shown the woman, the actress, the public image, and the private life… "B.B." was dead; Brigitte Bardot was alive and well…

Of all the movies about movies "Le Mépris" may be the most penetrating, the most alienated and least entertaining... Not many people have seen "Le Mépris," but of those who have many despise it greatly…

"Le Mépris" is one of the few films that actually encourages its audiences to walk out… Aside from the fact that it has something important to say and says it interestingly, "Le Mépris" is a nadir of entertainment, and for this reason, and because it is one of the most alienated and alienating films ever made, one can choose to call it great too…

In his film debut, Michel Piccoli (Paul Juval) is a failed playwright who wants to write for the stage, but his sexy wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), requests a middle-class style of life... Paul has used his savings to buy her an apartment in a stylish building in Rome and is now financially enslaved... The American film producer and tycoon, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), has offered him a job as screenwriter of 'The Odyssey,' to be directed by then veteran German-American filmmaker Fritz Lang (played by Fritz Lang!).

Paul sells out, signs the contract with Prokosch and earns the never ending contempt of his wife, who drifts into a liaison with Jerry—not so clear anyway...

Obviously, Prokosch is the Great Vulgarian Producer… He wants Lang to direct 'The Odyssey' because "a German, Schliemann, discovered Troy." Prokosch buys and sells mens' souls... He rushes around the film studio in a flashy red sports car, and reads stupid and pretentious maxims from a red book he carries in his breast pocket…

The story of the dissolution of the Javals' marriage and Camille's contempt for Paul is entwined with the legend of Ulysses, and also with a sort of documentary look at what it's like to make a movie: the compromises, the idiocy, the boredom, and the fatigue…

There are references to film and film-making throughout the motion picture: posters on walls for Howard Hawks' "Hatari" and Hitchcock's "Psycho," brief looks at the inside of a movie studio, and the goings-on in a screening room… But perhaps the most interesting and mystical element in this film are its first and final shots…

On Godard's instructions we are compelled to point inwards, to submit, to think, and to contemplate... Godard seems to suggest that the provocative statement of "Le Mépris" which is sombre, beautiful and rich, is in reality a short interesting anecdote about us all...

A difficult film.

[OttoVonB · 10/10 · 20 February 2007]

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.

Totally, tenderly, tragically.

[FilmSnobby · 10/10 · 31 July 2005]

*Contempt* is a case study in Making The Most Of It. In 1963, Jean-Luc Godard was permitted a big budget financed by an international production, the use of a CinemaScope camera, Technicolor, a pair of icons (Brigitte Bardot and Fritz Lang as himself) to star in the film, and almost total creative autonomy. No auteur -- with the possible exception of Coppola in the Seventies -- was granted this power again. Godard doubtless realized that this would be a one-shot affair, and thus he directs every inch of *Contempt*. He may permit the actors to improvise, but their improvisations are constrained within a tight circle of elaborate choreography. And he denies himself his usual for-the-fun-of-it non-sequiturs: any New Wave mannerisms (and there are few, especially when compared to something like *Band of Outsiders*) are made to serve the various lines of meta-fictive commentary, philosophical inquiry, and more traditional narrative and character development within the film. One wishes that Godard had been forced to do "commercial" work like *Contempt* throughout his career. Big money appears to have disciplined him; to have honed his vision. This New Wave epic clocks in at a mere 104 minutes, making that other 1963 film about film-making, *8 1/2*, seem almost sloppy and bloated by comparison.

What's it about, anyway? Fritz Lang, as "Fritz Lang", is directing an adaptation of "The Odyssey" at Cinecitta Studios. Hovering over him is the fascistic American producer Prokosch (played with manic bewilderment by Jack Palance). Prokosch is unhappy, because Lang has deviated from the script that has turned Odysseus into a modern neurotic-type who is no longer loved by his wife Penelope. The famous director insists on the traditional view of the epic, and then irritates the producer even more by filming it in an over-stylized manner. Prokosch, realizing that this sort of thing will not put butts in the seats, hires a modern neurotic-type (Michel Piccoli as "Paul") to rewrite the screenplay. Paul, meanwhile, is having problems with his own wife, Camille (Bardot).

It's hard to pin down exactly why Camille has taken a contemptuous attitude towards her husband, though the most likely reason is that he has harbored no small measure of contempt for her all along. "I can't believe I married a typist!" is one of his typical exclamations. Or perhaps she despises him because he sells out to Prokosch and then whines about it. This bourgeois screenwriter, who says he needs the *Odyssey* money to pay off their flat in Rome, is also a card-carrying member of the Italian Communist Party. (And he's contemptuous of her typist job?!) He's the sort of poseur that would drive any woman batty: the perfect modern anti-hero, in other words. Prokosch's ideal Odysseus.

The centerpiece of the movie is the 30-minute scene in the married couple's flat. It's the most sustained, minutely choreographed, rigorously blocked and written stretch in Godard's career. A similar, though much lighter, scene with Belmondo and Seberg in *Breathless* served as a mere warm-up for the display of petty acrimony in *Contempt*. A marriage dissolves before our eyes. Meanwhile, DP Raoul Coutard, doing some of the most brilliant work of his career, pokes unobtrusively around the couple, getting cozy with them in the bathroom while one of them sits on a toilet, shooting them from far across the room, catching Bardot and Piccoli at the extreme edges of the CinemaScope frame, slowly tracking the space between them as they murmur their little hatreds. But never getting too close: if Bardot slams the door on Piccoli, we're left stranded with Piccoli, and from a distance, too. It's intimacy without melodrama.

*Contempt* is chock-full of the multiplicity of ideas -- seamlessly reinforced by imagery and dialog -- that make cinephiles love Godard. I've barely scratched the surface and have already run out of space. But I do want to commend Godard on his courage for daring to acknowledge head-on his admiration of Michelangelo Antonioni's *L'Avventura*. Of course, it goes without saying that Godard can't help mocking Antonioni just a bit; but mocking and paying homage are inextricable within the Godard canon. In any case, today's audience may appreciate the economy with which the French director makes his points (*Contempt* is almost an hour shorter than *L'Avventura*), as well as the arguable pictorial superiority of this film to the other one. The scenes on Capri, at the famous Malaparte villa with its wedge-shaped stairs that lead to a barren deck, surrounded by crags that rise like jewels from the calm sea, are some of the most beautiful ever shot. If this was indeed Raoul Coutard's first work with the CinemaScope lens, one can only marvel at his precocious genius.

10 stars out of 10 -- one of the great art-works of the 20th century.

Film within a film within a film (infinity)

[ThreeSadTigers · 8 April 2008]

With Le Mepris (1963), French filmmaker Jean Luc Godard strings together at least three different narrative strands, each of which are in some way connected to the central story of a couple falling out of love, and all further set against an additional thematic backdrop of film-making and ancient Greek mythology. With this technique, Godard is clearly attempting to not only present us with a vicious satire on the business of movie-making, but also attempting to deconstruct the very notion of film-making by contrasting the soulless and mechanical approach to studio production, with the trials and tribulations of a torturous love affair.

As with the vast majority of Godard's work - particularly of this era - Le Mepris is very much a work in the meta-film tradition; in the sense that it is a film about film-making that is constantly reminding the audience of its own artificiality and manufactured design. This ideology is evident right from the start, as Godard begins the film with a lengthy tracking shot, which finds the camera following in front of a camera actually within the film and also in the middle of a similarly complicated tracking shot. To add further ideas of self-reflexivity to the proceedings, Godard appears himself as the film's assistant director, with his cinematographer Raoul Coutard manning the equipment. As the shot progresses, a cold and emotionless voice-over beings narrating the opening credits - though no text appears on screen - whilst the camera continues tracking towards us, edging closer to us until both camera and audience are starring directly into one other and the endless abyss that they represent.

It's pure Brechtian deconstruction, years before Godard would refine the influence of Brecht with the difficult masterpiece Week End (1967), which shares some elements familiar from Le Mepris, in particular the use of the couple as a metaphorical reference point for some kind of greater ideology and a natural continuation of many of the film-making techniques that Godard had been developing since A Woman Is A Woman (1961). This brings us to the story at hand, with Le Mepris focusing on a jaded scriptwriter (Michel Piccoli) setting out to polish the screenplay for Fritz Lang's big budget adaptation of Homer's epic, The Odyssey. From this set up we are introduced to the writer's beautiful and enchanting girlfriend (Brigitte Bardot), the arrogant U.S. film producer (Jack Palance), and the great man himself, Fritz Lang.

Each of these four characters will be involved in their own separate strand of the narrative that will run concurrently alongside the other characters, whilst in turn, laying reference points to the likes of Ulysses, The Odyssey, Fellini and The Rite of Spring, to create the overall foundation of the film itself. This is only the first quarter of the film and already Godard is churning out exciting idea after exciting idea to smash apart the worn clichés and generally accepted limitations of film in a way that is as startling, boring, joyous and confusing as anything else he has directed. The visual design is just splendid, with Godard and Coutard moving further away from the Nouvelle Vague/Cinéma-vérité influences of their earliest work and incorporating beautifully vivid primary colours, the use of cinema-scope, complex and seemingly random tracking shots and camera movements and sporadic bursts of music to disarm the viewer during moments of dialog.

The centrepiece here is the near-infamous twenty-minute long sequence that takes place between the writer and his girlfriend in their vast, open-plan apartment, in which jealousies, bitterness and petty arguments blow up and cool off amidst a series of seemingly mundane, everyday-like activities. What makes the scene work is Godard's far from invisible directorial intent, as he attempts to excite, bore and eventually move the audience into becoming interested in these complicated and far from conventional characters whilst simultaneously using the set up to offer a skillful deconstruction of his own film's narrative, the narrative of Homer's Odyssey, and the film that Lang is making. This ties into the further film-within-a-film-within-a-film (infinity) abstractions, with Godard continually making allusions to the idea that the film we are watching could easily be a film being made.

The film also works in a circular sense, opening with that aforementioned scene in which Godard points the barrel of the lens directly into the audience whilst narrating his own credits, whilst the final shots shows the camera drifting off towards the sunset as Godard yells "cut". With Le Mepris, Godard clearly struck the right balance of cinematic invention; beautiful photography, use of colour, costumes and music, a recreation of Cinecittà as a pastoral ghost town (a comment on film-making in itself), etc, whilst achieving a subtle symbiosis between his characters, his narrative and his philosophical subtext. For me, this is perhaps the strongest 'narrative' film the director ever made before abandoning generic storytelling and instead striving for greater artistic substance.

I suppose in this day and age it is easy to look back on Godard's once radical use of cinematic experimentation - and his genuine desire to challenge the medium of film far beyond the usual presentation of conventions like character and narrative - and see it as something that is hollow and dated; a pseudo-intellectual exercise in cinematic deconstruction that is there to be endured, as opposed to enjoyed. Though this may still be true for some viewers - particularly those at odds with Godard's personal style and the very 60's idea that art could be entertainment and that anything was possible - there will be other viewers who are far more in tune with the notion of cinema for cinema's sake, and can better appreciate the film for what it truly is.

Deeply Thematic

[Lechuguilla · 7/10 · 5 June 2009]

French New Wave Director Jean-Luc Godard's apparent intent here is to portray film-making as a grubby, degrading commercial enterprise that taints everything it touches. Given this contemptuous premise, film producers are pimps; film directors are prostitutes. Thus, film-making is essentially artistic prostitution.

That's the major theme among a maze of interlocking themes, most of which are so subtle that trying to figure them out requires multiple viewings and/or college coursework.

The plot is undeniably slow. There are many single-shot sequences, and the entire film contains only about 150 shots. The result is that scenes are very lengthy. Further, the story is amazing in its almost total absence of melodrama. The result of slow pace and lack of melodrama, for many viewers, is abject boredom.

But I think that effect was intentional. My impression is that Godard expects viewers to work, to be part of the film process. In one scene Fritz Lang, the director character, says "One must suffer", in the context of film-making, of which the viewer is included.

"Contempt" has only five main characters. Prokosch (Jack Palance) is the archetype Hollywood producer: crass, stupid, money hungry, uninterested in culture or poetry. He's domineering and dictatorial. In one scene, he mutters: "When I hear the word culture, I grab my checkbook". Fritz Lang, as the film's moral center, counters by saying that in Nazi Germany, the word "checkbook" equated to "revolver", a veiled reference to an edict of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda czar under Hitler. Equating a Hollywood film producer (Prokosch) to Goebbels is about as contemptuous as one can be toward Hollywood.

But the plot in "Contempt" also features a writer named Paul (Michel Piccoli) and his pouty, sultry, rarely smiling wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot). Prokosch wants Paul to write the script for "The Odyssey", the film within "Contempt". "The Odyssey" is supposed to be a story about ancient Greek gods. And the main characters in "Contempt" mirror to some extent the characters in "The Odyssey".

The plot of "Contempt" is segmented into three main parts. The first and third parts focus explicitly on film production, relative to "The Odyssey". The middle section focuses on the discordant relationship between Paul and Camille. Here, most of the plot takes place inside their apartment. The critique of film-making continues, but in a more subtle form, via "mis en scene" staging and framing. And it's presented almost in real time, the effect of which is to amplify boredom for viewers.

"Contempt" is shot in color and in French Cinema-Scope. I did not care for the widescreen projection. Godard uses lots of point-of-view shots. And the entire film is saturated with tracking shots. The use of camera filters symbolizes technical devices that "filter" reality, the implication being that films can never be like real life. Red, white, and blue are the film's main colors, a cinematographic reference to American film-making. Outdoor scenes, especially on the Mediterranean, are beautiful. Georges Delerue's haunting score sets the tone for the whole film, and can be described as tragic, mournful, and majestic, in keeping with epic Greek tragedy.

Acting is acceptable, if unremarkable. Jack Palance, however, is not terribly convincing as a corporate suit. The film's budget was roughly 5 million-franc. And interestingly, almost half of that went to pay the salary of actress Brigitte Bardot, whose presence in this film reeks of personal vanity.

Clearly lacking in entertainment value, the story in "Contempt" will be a pain for many viewers, as it was for me. However, the beautiful score and the gorgeous scenery at Capri help offset the film's script. Taken as a whole this film is important, historically. And what I most admire is that its thematic contempt for Hollywood film-making was courageous in 1963. Unfortunately, that theme is still valid, 46 years later.

The language of Godard

[Chris_Docker · 9/10 · 11 April 2009]

Most cinephiles, faced with a choice between an original language, subtitled film, and a dubbed version, will choose the former. But what if it is a multilingual film, released in different versions? Would you be tempted to choose the version of your own language? Such a choice with Le Mépris (Contempt) yields a radically different experience, well beyond the mere question of subtitles.

The story tells of the making of a movie in Italy with an American producer, an Austrian director, plus a script doctor and his beautiful wife. The French version is multilingual. Whereas the English-American and Italian versions are entirely dubbed. Crucially, in the English-American version, the producer seems to be followed about by a quirky assistant who paraphrases the somewhat vainglorious proclamations of her boss for the benefit of other mere mortals. Only in the French version, is it apparent she is an interpreter.

This is important, as one of the themes of Le Mépris is the breakdown of communication. Not only are the producer and director at odds with each other, but the marital breakdown of the script doctor and his wife (played by Michel Piccoli and the glamorous Brigitte Bardot) is placed under the microscope. Three further parallels are neatly woven into our story. One is the tale of Ulysses separated from his wife Penelope, in which he is protected by Minerva but threatened by Neptune (Homer's Odyssey is the subject of the film-within-a-film). Second is an examination of the gap between cinema-for-profit and cinema-as-art, partly mirrored in the Le Mépris' actual production as well as in its subject matter. And third are autobiographical references to Godard's personal life - both his love life and his life as a filmmaker. Whereas the French version of the movie raises serious questions about the film industry, about the relationship between man and the gods, and even explores some of the more challenging questions about love, life and Homer's work; in the English-American version these things become like added confectionery, arty flourishes for more passive audiences. Or for whom the challenge of discovering cinematic jokes within references to Rio Bravo and works by Fritz Lang (who plays himself as a director) become an intellectual conceit.

Brigitte Bardot here finds at once both a self-consciously iconic and a substantial acting role. On the one hand, her acting talents are utilised to greater effect than in many of her films. On the other, long (soft-core) nude scenes are both complicit in, and critical of, her sex-goddess status. The opening scene, where she teasingly asks her husband which part of her body he finds most attractive, was added at the insistence of the film's American co-producers. Yet its mocking style is almost a lampoon of the use of sex to sell big budget U. S. films. The film-within-a-film's American producer, Jeremy Prokosch (played by Jack Palance), is visibly more enthusiastic about scenes involving nakedness than any faithfulness to the spirit of Homer. Director Fritz Lang, in contrast, goes to great length to examine the essence of the Odyssey, using Dante's Inferno and a poem by Friedrich Holderlin. The gods are created by men, not vice versa, and create the challenges Odysseus is forced to face. It is an easy step to observe how the American producer, throwing his weight around in 'godlike' fashion, both misses this point and actually identifies with the lesser 'gods' of sex and wealth. These gods - in the form of a much-needed cheque for Piccoli's character and the dangling of Bardot's allures before Prokosch, threaten both the marriage and the integrity of the film-within-a-film. Contempt breeds among the characters and begets tragedy.

Piccoli also has a great line about exploitation: "Usually, when you see women, they're dressed. But put them in a movie, and you see their backsides." As if to underline the point, Prokosch casually has his assistant bend over so he can use her (clothed) backside as a table to sign a cheque. His imperious and lecherous attitude dovetails the 'Americanised' scenes that show naked women's backsides without explicitness. They contrast strongly against the clothed Bardot who is portrayed as an intelligent woman able to hold her own.

This film is one of the most rounded of any of Godard's work and can easily be viewed as 'mainstream' - the more philosophical riddles being purely optional. And if Godard is displaying contempt for the prostituting of cinematic art to big business - principally American big studios - the style is still reverential towards his American heroes: Le Mépris has been accurately described as, "Hawks and Hitchcock shot in the manner of Antonioni." Godard, like Ulysses and Piccoli's character, has both engaged with the enemy - American producer Joseph E Levine (Neptune, Prokosch) and prevailed. He has not 'sold-out' to big finance but, like Ulysses on coming home, merely disguised himself as a beggar to better elicit the truth. 'Minerval' wisdom shines through (especially from the mouth of his hero-in-exile, Fritz Lang, with lines that reflect Godard's philosophy). When Bardot's character Camille wears a black wig, she resembles Godard's wife Anna Karina. Her story, subjected to unwanted attentions while her husband is absent, parallels Penelope.

By many sleights of hand, Godard continues to 'explore the uninhabited world' and simultaneously produce a film for many different audiences. Le Mépris is very clever and enjoyable to watch, but does it have anything new to say? Or is it an exquisite exercise in admiring its own limitations? The films strengths are less obvious than the overtly cinematic and revolutionary Breathless, or the philosophically challenging 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her. It has as much depth as you wish to find in it, and is more convincing than his disjointed political diatribes. But, unlike all those films, it can also be overlooked as little more than a pleasant experience. Especially by anyone who thinks it would be simpler if we all spoke the same language. Subtitles or not.

Didn't like it 15 years ago, still don't care for it now

[zetes · 6/10 · 5 May 2013]

When I first got to college, I was already into cinema and elected an intro to film course. I was only watching modern movies at that point, mostly American, and I was unsatisfied with most of the films we were watching for the class (most of them I've come around to liking since, though they all have a bit of a stigma of being attached to that class). The one big exception was Godard's Breathless, which kind of blew me away. It just felt fresh, where so many of those other films felt dated to me. Outside of the class, when exploring a video store's foreign section, a friend and I picked up Contempt - I wanted to see more Godard and he wanted to see more Brigitte Bardot (I have no idea how he already knew about her). He got the better deal, with Bardot's beautiful bum gracing the screen for a few glorious minutes. I was unsatisfied with this follow-up to Breathless. I think I avoided Godard for a year or two afterward, but I started liking him again when I saw Band of Outsiders. I pretty much ate up all of his other films afterward, loving most of them. I had always meant to get back to Contempt, but never did. Unfortunately, several years ago, particularly after Notre Musique, I fell out of love with Godard. This second viewing of Contempt is the first Godard film I've watched or rewatched since Notre Musique (though I've bought several, including Contempt). I wonder, if I had watched it when I was in my Godard period, would I have loved it as I did so many others? Strangely enough, I felt almost exactly the same way about Contempt that I felt about it the first time: it's gorgeous, but, lord, is it a bore. I can almost live on the images alone - especially all the images of Bardot. But, much like Bardot herself, Contempt comes across as gorgeous but utterly empty. None of the other performances are any good, either. Palance, whom in general I like, is particularly awful. Piccoli is a total bore, too, and I can't help feeling a man who looks so much like an ape shouldn't be with Bardot. It's interesting to see Fritz Lange as an actor, but he doesn't have much to do. Really, the only character I had any real attraction to was Giorgia Moll, who may be even prettier than Bardot. The film'd almost be better without any people in it - the scenery is plenty good. But they'd also have to remove that terrible, repetitive score to make it worth sitting through - it's easily the worst part of the whole film. "But it's Brechtian!" my film professor would say. "*beep* off!" I would reply.

A finely crafted masterpiece

[gknysh · 10/10 · 31 May 2004]

Bardot's magnificent performance as Camille Javal [she was so good that her character's name was later believed to be her real name!], wife of the aspiring screenwriter Paul (nicely played by a young Michel Piccoli) merely confirmed what Clouzot's "La Verite" (1960) had already established, viz., that B.B. was a highly talented actress and not merely a lovely sex kitten pimped by ex-husband Vadim to titillate the fantasies of horny international audiences. "le Mepris" ("Contempt") is a jewel cut by France's leading "Nouvelle Vague" director Jean-Luc Godard, and intended (says his outstanding cinematographer Raoul Coutard) as an apologetic testimonial to Godard's estranged wife Anna Karina. This is a film about film-making in the 1960's, and about the stresses on personal relationships provoked by the pursuit of cinema's world of illusion.[the presence of the great Fritz Lang playing himself authenticates the theme]. Paul Javal (his constant wearing of a hat is the clue to his partial representation of Godard) is a man whose artistic sensibility and individuality have yet to be shaped, and who uses Camille as an instrument to achieve self-identity. But Camille is a goddess, a force of nature, and her total love for Paul slowly disintegrates in the course of the creative "mind games" he selfishly makes her endure. (One such is the marvelously erotic opening scene with the softly voices enumerations of her physical assets by a nude Camille: that this is a "game" is shown by her query to "director" Paul whether she should rise on her knees to continue...There are many such indicators throughout the film. See for instance Camille's fleeting smile ar Paul in Prokosch's garden at minute 26:28.)As the story unfolds, pretended reality is remorselessly transformed into "real" reality, and Camille's staged contempt into an actual rejection of a husband who is revealed to be a spineless wimp ("You are not a man" at minute 1:35:19). The accompanying change of Camille's initial dislike of the energetic and crassly domineering producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance)into a recognition that this equally potent "god" and force of nature is perhaps worthier of her attention than her hapless husband is also delicately presented by Godard (There is a fascinating scene near the very end where Prokosch shows how his personality is being positively changed by his attraction to Camille, and how he yearns to acquire a gentler image to please her.) But the film is a tragedy on more than one level, and a fatal accident in which both Prokosch and Camille lose their lives prevents any resolution or even development. This is a profound film which needs to be viewed many times, with increasing understanding and appreciation of its complexities. The photography is stunning (esp. the Capri shots), and the wonderfully haunting score by Georges Delerue only increases our viewing pleasure.

Truly One of the Most Contemptuous Films I've Ever Seen

[jzappa · 6/10 · 11 July 2008]

So Hollywood movie producer Jack Palance hires the extremely talented director Fritz Lang to direct a film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. A cartoon stereotype of the overwhelmingly arrogant American, Palance is repulsed by and opposed to Lang's treatment of the material as an art film (having seen many films by Lang, I personally don't think he would've ever made the film Godard depicts him to have made) and hires a writer played by Michel Piccoli to revise the script. The conflict between creative expression and advantageous commercial prospect corresponds with Piccoli's estrangement from his wife Brigitte Bardot, who becomes detached from Piccoli, in another one of Godard's pretentious scenes of internal indecision and external inertia between two lovers, after he leaves her alone with Palance, who is of course a hot shot convertible-driving playboy.

Piccoli and Bardot's estrangement is obvious to us long before Godard is finished demonstrating it to us, continuing throughout his career to insult the intelligence of his audience by indulging in his own conscious effort to be different.

Piccoli, Bardot, and Palance correspond to Odysseus, Penelope, and Poseidon, respectively. Oooooh!

I just watched a French interview from 1964 of idolized New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard on YouTube. I've liked Breathless and Tout Va Bien, but I'm embittered towards him because his very snobbish and uninformed bite at Steven Spielberg, saying that Schindler's List was nothing more than an attempt to cash in on the Holocaust, which couldn't possibly be true because Spielberg famously was not paid for directing the movie. I watched the interview on YouTube because I was interested to see if my picture of Godard as an intellectual snob was founded, and it was, because anyone who watches this interview with the knowledge of his high-horsey criticism of very influential people like Spielberg and Jane Fonda can plainly see that he himself is guilty of selling out. The interview was for Contempt, which was made very popular at the time of its release because of the showcase of Brigitte Bardot's nude body. Godard answers the very admittedly prudish French interviewer's question about the scene by saying that he originally did not film those scenes with Bardot but that the American distributors said that in order to make the movie commercial, he would have to include a sex scene with her at the beginning, middle and end. Although he told the Americans that according to the story, it was impossible for her to have sex scenes with her at the middle and end, he submitted to annexing a sex scene at the beginning and nude scenes as substitutes for sex at the middle and end.

Aside from my image of him as an intellectual snob being correct, as he seemingly needlessly references Cellini's Venus sculpture, for example, so that he can elusively flaunt his knowledge and intellect, we see that one of Godard's most famous, most talked-about, and most iconic sequences on film proves him a grandiose hypocrite.

Godard also throws in a discussion of Dante's Inferno and Friedrich Hölderlin's poem, "The Poet's Vocation." Normally, if there are elements of a film that I don't quite catch on to at first, I am patient for them to dawn on me. With films like Contempt, I feel contempt. There is a standard that the audience must reach. It looks down upon you. Whether it is fully comprehensible beyond its surface or not is irrelevant, because one no longer cares after the film tunes out from its audience and panders coldly to its own flight of fancy. Have many great films done that? Yes, but they are at least connected to the audience's reaction, whether bewildered, aghast, enlightened, intrigued, whatever. Contempt couldn't care less about your reaction. Its title is perfect. It's like a brand name. You pick it up at the video store and that's what you get. Contempt.

Ulysses, Guernica, The Rite Of Spring, LE MEPRIS...

[alice liddell · 10/10 · 27 October 1999]

One of the great masterpieces of the 20th century, a supreme synthesis of form, content and performance. Arguably the most beautiful too, with its found locations, sets, colour, lighting, music, decor and costume. The straightforward elegance of Godard's shooting masks a story of great complexity and formal rupture, but underneath the philosophy, semiotics and allusion is a portrait of marriage and its decline. The tension between icy irony and resigned emotion results in Godard's most perversely moving film. It is also very funny, which is too little remembered.

The Tragic End of a Relationship

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 17 July 2008]

In Italy, the writer Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is hired for US$ 10,000.00 by the arrogant American producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) to rewrite the screenplay of a commercial version of Ulysses and his Odyssey to be directed by Fritz Lang. Paul intends to use the money to quit the payments of the modern apartment where he lives with his wife and former typist Camille Javal (Brigitte Bardot). When Jeremy invites Camille and Paul to have a drink with him in his cottage, Paul asks Camille to go alone with Jeremy in his red Alfa Romeo, while he would go by taxi. He arrives later and finds Camille upset; his ambitious act destroys their marriage.

"Le Mépris" is the story of the end of a relationship through the amoral act of a husband leaving his gorgeous and sexy wife with his boss probably to take advantages in the contract. There is an indication in the previous night that their marriage had troubles since Camille questions her husband in bed whether she is still beautiful and attractive. There are nice moments in the story like the nudity of Brigitte Bardot; the cameo participation of Fritz Lang playing himself; and the posters of many classics or Roberto Rossellini's "Viaggio in Italia" in the movie theater. There is an analogy between Ulysses and Penelope and Paul and Camille along the plot. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Desprezo" ("The Scorn")

Contempt for the studio and the audience.

[Auntie_Inflammatory · 4/10 · 29 June 2019]

I love foreign films. Some of my favorite films are French. I have no problem with sub-titles. I like lots of '60s films and art-house films. I'm a Brigitte Bardot fan from way back. I've studied film/video production and I work in the entertainment industry. With all that said...

I do not like this film nor do I understand why anyone would consider it a "masterpiece" or rate it a 10!

The characters are mostly unlikable and uninteresting.

Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is an indecisive dolt. He's also a hypocrite, a card-carrying Communist who doesn't mind sacrificing his principles if it gets him $10,000 to pay off his lovely apartment. Oh, and he slaps his wife too. Not nice.

Camille Javal (Brigitte Bardot) is flighty and annoying. Her endless pouting gets old really quick. I love Bri-Bri but, as a straight woman, umpteen shots of her butt don't do anything for me.

The producer, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), is a shallow stereotype.

It's interesting to see Fritz Lang, playing himself, but he doesn't really add much to the proceedings. He's just there as a counterpoint to Prokosch. Any old, European director would've sufficed.

The 34-minute scene (comprising one third of the entire film!) of Bardot and Piccoli arguing in their apartment is interminable. I don't mind talky films...as long as the talk is interesting or entertaining! This isn't. "I love you. No, I detest you. Just kidding, I still love you. No, I really do hate you," every 3 minutes is just tiresome. The viewer doesn't know enough about either character to be able to form an opinion on who's being reasonable or unreasonable so they both come across as jerks.

It was hard for me to concentrate on the dialogue during the time when Piccoli was walking around half-dressed or in the bathtub because I kept fantasizing about him being dunked into a vat of Nair! Ick.

For all of the writing about how this is "a film about film-making", there's precious little actual film-making or real talk about film-making going on. It's mostly just vacillation on will the doofus write the script or won't he?

There is some nice cinematography and scenery (how can you go wrong with Capri?) here. That one piece of overly-dramatic music repeated, again and again, over the mundane dialogue quickly becomes irritating.

When two main characters in a film die and you couldn't care less, well, that says something about the film.

If "Contempt" had been directed by some unknown, instead of Godard, would it be as highly regarded as it is?

No way!

I think it's all a joke on Godard's part. He got offered lots of money from a big studio so he decided to thumb his nose at them by making a commercially unappealing film.

It's an expression of HIS contempt.

The Director, The Producer, Their Writer & His Wife

[Benedict_Cumberbatch · 6 July 2008]

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.

Godard, once again, when he's angry and criticizing

[StevePulaski · 9/10 · 26 March 2014]

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.

Godard's Contempt

[Justified-L · 10/10 · 20 December 2004]

The whole movie can be captured in one moment. That one fleeting second when the absurd irony and futility of 'everything' will dawn upon you. Either that or you will merely take it for what it is. A masterpiece.

So obviously chained by the wrath of Gods, the movie on the whole has too much to offer. Whether it is the parallels between the existing world and the world of homer, the constant struggle with commercialism or the perusal of a writer's integrity... you will keep on jumping between realism and.... romanticism? Throughout the movie, a haunting melancholic theme continues to play magic on nerves. Amongst countless striking scenes lies a splendidly performed sequence made on a shoestring budget in the apartment that captures the unsettling confessions of the pair. Definitely worth seeing/experiencing!

As much as you will fall under the spell of Godard and feel for the likes of Lang, you can't help being amused by the almost comical character of Palance. Very comical, Very contemptuous.

But at the end its Lang that captures attention on the whole. A lone figure standing amidst harmonious chaos, staring silently at everyone and no one, while life effortlessly moves around him. He makes perfect sense.

Contempt. The whole thing takes place within a system that seems to be contemptuous of itself. So much so that it even ends up holding a mocking mirror, capturing an ultimate contempt for the audience.

Beautiful but banal

[gbill-74877 · 6/10 · 13 November 2019]

Beautiful scenery, beautiful Bardot, and legendary director Fritz Lang appearing as himself at age 73 ... these are all fantastic things. I also liked the concept of the dual theme of contempt in the relationship at the center of the movie and Godard's feelings about Hollywood sullying the artistic process. The ludicrous ideas to "improve" the 2800 year old classic tale of the Odyssey by imagining Penelope as unfaithful, or Ulysses as not wanting to come home reflect both the projection of the screenwriter's own relationship issues, as well as everything that's wrong about the business side of making movies. Jack Palance playing the producer reading cliché pearls of "wisdom" from a teeny book he keeps in his suit pocket is a perfect metaphor, and he turns in a great performance.

Unfortunately, there was another type of contempt at play here, and that was for Bardot's character. For a film that wants to be artistically pure and honest, it relied far too much on objectifying her. This starts in the film's second scene, where we see her bare butt for over four minutes as the camera practically ogles her, all while she's asking her husband to reassure her about the looks of her various body parts. "What do you like more, my breasts or my nipples?" she asks. Good lord, really? After reassuring her about each and every part of her body, she concludes he must really love her. Ugh, is this an honest scene? And we see this same pattern several more times over the course of the movie.

Don't get me wrong, Bardot is gorgeous and if you want to see her naked that's fine, but I just don't think it should be wrapped up in a pretentious film about the need for purity in art. Her sex farce La Parisienne is damn silly but far more honest about this. Doesn't the poster and marketing for this film (MORE BOLD! MORE BRAZEN! AND MUCH, MUCH MORE BARDOT!) say it all? She's also hit during an argument (which she apologizes for, not him), and suffers an unkind fate, so I just don't think it's a kind film to women.

Now all of that might have been in there to try to cover up for what is a pretty weak script. The premise is intriguing but the execution is weak, mainly because the explorations of the relationship and of the business of art are shallow and uninsightful. The link to the Odyssey, philosophy, and the Gods doesn't go anywhere interesting, and worse yet, the extended argument scene in the apartment is banal, repetitive, tedious, and goes on for far too long (at 34 minutes, roughly one third of the film). It seems even Godard knew he needed to liven things up, as he has the screenwriter thumb through a book on erotic frescoes from Pompeii, Bardot utter a string of obscenities, and cues up the dramatic music at times which made little sense.

A little tidbit from Godard's script that I think unfortunately reflects as much of him as it does the fictional screenwriter who has these lines in the film: Are they going to undress? Of course. Movies are great. You see women in dresses, and in making movies, you see their asses.

One of Godard's Finest

[frankenbenz · 8/10 · 17 July 2008]

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/

some interesting, some boring

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 9 December 2015]

Director Fritz Lang (himself) is filming the Odyssey. Sleazy American producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) is angry at Lang's overly artistic vision and hires writer Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) to rework the script. The playboy Prokosch takes Paul's wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot) on a ride. Paul and Camille struggle with their troubled relationship.

Jack Palance plays the most interesting character. I like the first act as he gets in between the couple and even the constant translation. I'm less interested in the fighting couple. It's a stylized breakdown of a marriage and not really my taste. It might be all kinds of hidden artistic fun being had but all I got is Bardot's bare bottom. The style keeps the couple at a distance. I never really got involved in their troubles.

Arguably Godard's Best Film, Undoubtedly One of the Best Works in Cinema

[jazzest · 10/10 · 31 January 2005]

Here are what Contempt, by French director Jean-Luc Godard, made in 1963, is about--an examination on a relationship in jeopardy, which has been one of the most universal themes in cinema, and which is probably inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni's trilogy; a struggle in film-making as a side-theme, which may be Godard's self-reflective expression; the international star cast including Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, and Jack Palance, along with the cameo appearance of legendary German filmmaker Fritz Lang; well-choreographed long takes, which are sometimes several minutes in length, and which could be also influenced by Antonioni; inclusion of three montage sequences that comprise sliced flashback and flashforward clips, which create a remarkable contrast to the long takes; beautifully photographed sceneries, especially of the sea; and the memorable orchestral score with sentimental arpeggio by Georges Delerue.

Being both unique and universal, and being perfectly executed, Contempt is arguably Godard's best film, and undoubtedly one of the best works in cinema.

Contempt

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 14 August 2010]

Before watching this film, its notable fame has overcame me already (considered as one of Godard's best work), plus it is Bardot's peak of perfection (unfortunately this has been my first time to see Bardot's film, so no comparison available). With a prostrate attitude, I thought it would be difficult not to love this film.

Now, time passes and I have just finished the film, my feeling is beyond expression, but I will try to make my effort. Firstly I haven't read Odyssey (though I know the story), nevertheless it won't hurt too much to understand the story as there never request a pass check before watching a film (for example, you don't have to read the novel before watching REVOLUTIONARY ROAD [2008]). A great film should impress audience with different backgrounds, it should be considered as an inner attribute. However from this level, the film suffers from being a little bit over-bourgeois, because the Chinese subtitles I watched are not so accurate to match its original meaning, and one cannot blame them as we all know it's French (the same reason I cannot fully enjoy RIDICULE [1996]), which allures me to consider it as my next foreign language after Italian. Interestingly the misinterpretation is also a picturesque part in the film itself.

It is more like a theatrical work, for a play maybe as only 5 characters in total including the honorable FRITZ LANG himself. There seems no doubt that the story is a modern-style Odyssey, the tension between a candied couple is so vulnerable, one single behavior could bring out the extinguishment all in a sudden. Maybe man is stupid while woman is moody (plus stupid maybe), after watching the film I intrepidly assume that maybe contempt actually is the catalyst between to keep these two incompatible creatures altogether. Again I assume that subconsciously most couples in the world accept his or her contempt towards his or her other half, which does help to make oneself feel better, functions like a placebo, as sometimes it is difficult to survive in this mundane world. In the film on the contrary the contempt separates the couple forever with a ridiculous ending as they fail to accommodate the intermingled contempt, the ambiguity implies that the perhaps unpredictability is the most interesting part of being a human.

The cinematography is as wonderful as Bardot's body, not to mention the stupendously beautiful view of Capri Island, as I am in Italy now, it would be a great idea to visit there with my significant other.

http://xingshizuomeng.blogspot.com/

Godard, Bardot and Lang... what a combo!

[kirksworks · 10/10 · 4 October 2008]

I hadn't seen "Contempt" since film school in the early 1970s, and at that time it didn't make much of an impression. Now maybe age had something to do with it, but this time I was entranced.

"Contempt" is really about movie making, while simultaneously showing the collapse of a marriage. The plot concerns a writer who brings his wife with him to Cinecitta in Rome to meet with the producer and director of a new version of Homer's The Odyssey to determine how the script should be rewritten. The writer isn't big on the idea of doing a screenplay, fighting with himself that maybe he is selling out. He and his wife end up on the island of Capri with the film crew for the rest of the film.

The casting is interesting. The writer is played by Michel Piccoli, his wife by Brigitte Bardot, the producer by Jack Palance and the director by real life director Fritz Lang. This was the last thing Lang ever did that appeared on film, and it was a performance that he should be proud of. The angst he displays in his dealings with tyrannical producer Palance is palpable. Lang, having lived the same experience he portrays here with tyrannical producers in his own career was more than a blueprint for truth in body language and vocal expression. Other members of the cast include Godard himself as an assistant to the director (are we trying to say something here?), and the beautiful Giorgia Moll as assistant to the producer. Moll I was familiar with from one of my childhood favorites, the Steve Reeves 1961 version of "Thief of Bagdad" (only two years before "Contempt"). She apparently is still living, but hasn't been on screen since 1985.

I haven' seen many Bardot films, but she was exciting in "...And God Created Woman." I also liked her okay in the Louis Malle short, "William Wilson," part of the the Edgar Allen Poe compilation "Spirits of the Dead." Bardot in "Contempt" is a different story. She is fiery and fascinating. Piccoli as her husband has the right balance of intellect and vibe of "loser." Jack Palance as the producer is about as hateful a character as I've seen him play. Only he could have done it so well. Godard apparently hated dealing with the actual producers of the film, Carlo Ponti and Joseph E. Levine, and combined both elements of their personality as he saw them into the character Palance plays.

According to the commentary on the Criterion edition, Ponti and Levine demanded that Godard have major a nude scene with Bardot. The director obliged, but he did so in his own way, sticking it right at the start of the film to get it over with, and lit strangely so the focus is on the color and less on Bardot's behind. He also sucked all the romance out of the scene by having the dialog be read without passion and having it suggest the seeds of a marriage about to fail.

The film is moderately paced with many languid camera moves, but it was so stunning to look at and the character interrelationships so compelling that I found myself completely drawn in. This may be Godard's best direction of actors, and it's due in no small part by the effective casting. Piccoli and Bardot work so well together to show the disintegration of their relationship, it was unnerving. The scene in their flat where they walk from room to room as their relationship disintegrates is a stunning piece of acting, and as conceptually brilliant as it gets visually. Bardot's character is also a real mystery. We never really know why she wants to end the marriage, but she wants to with such intense passion, and with little or no explanation to her husband, that it only makes her character all the more compelling.

The other "star" of the film is the amazing isle of Capri, shot under absolutely ideal weather conditions. This is one of the most beautiful films from the 60s. Even the interiors take your breath away. Godard found this rich villa in Capri with a giant window in the living room that looks out onto the aqua blue water and jagged rocks that bite into the sea. What a place to live! The bold color sense really struck me though out. The use of primary colors, primarily red, blue and white (the couches, as an example) add a stark vibrancy. French New Wave cinema eye candy.

I know Godard is not a filmmaker for everyone, and I've found some of his films completely worthless ("Sympathy for the Devil"), but he was always willing to take chances, experimenting in different genres and doing things no one else was even conceiving of. "Contempt" is a very successful realization of Godard at the peak of his skills.

There's a beautiful score by Georges Delerue. Strangely, the Italian release of the film removed Delerue's music and replaced it with a vastly different one by Piero Piccioni, one of my favorite composers, but not someone I would think would be a fit for this. "Contempt" might be a good Godard film to check out as an introduction to this director. Like "Citizen Kane," "Vertigo," "Children of Paradise," "Grand Illusion," Fellini's "8 1/2" and Ford's "The Searchers," Godard's "Contempt" frequently makes the list of international film critic's Top Ten Films of All Time.

Watch this in French, not the complete English version

[JumpingCineFile · 6/10 · 9 July 2022]

Another Goddard film that has not aged well. Best viewed in it's original French version, not the fully dubbed English version.

More a curiosity now than a great film. Interesting to see Fritz Lang, the famous German director of "Metropolis", "M", "The Big Heat", acting as a himself. Then there is a young Jack Palance, an actor who has proven he can deliver a great performance with the correct director, which Goddard doesn't appear to be, stilted and in one dimensional character mode plus Brigitte Bardot at the height of her fame doing a tasteful full nude scene (just to satisfy the American Producer).

I saw this on Blu-Ray, nice print/transfer. The special features on the disc were more interesting than the actual picture, which I found slow and meandering.

The 15th (or 22nd) greatest movie ever made

[keith-moyes-656-481491 · 2/10 · 29 January 2013]

Occasionally, I like to tick off the movies I haven't yet seen from the Sight and Sound and Cahier Du Cinema lists of greatest films of all time (yes, I am that sad – what's it to you?).

Le Mepris is in 22nd and 15th place respectively. It is really deep.

Firstly it tells you that you are watching a movie, not real life.

Then we meet Michel Picolli, who is pretending to be a writer named Paul Javal and Brigitte Bardot, who is pretending to be his wife, Camille. Please note: these are characters in a movie, not real people.

Camille gets Paul to identify all the parts of her he likes. She asks:

"Do you prefer my breasts or my nipples?"

Faced with a question like that, most men would just get their coats and quietly leave. Here, it is the audience that should have taken the hint.

We learn that Paul has been hired to re-write Fritz Lang's picture of the Odyssey. Camille then gets into a pet because she thinks he has deliberately thrown her at the crass producer Prokosch (Jack Palance). She may be right, but since Paul has already got the job it is not clear what his motive might have been.

The middle stretch of the movie consists of a single thirty-minute scene (in long takes and frequently in long shot) in which the couple engage in one of those endless, circular, bickering arguments that are calculated to drive everybody mad.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing"

"Yes, there is"

"You know what's wrong"

"How could I, if you won't say?"

"Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you"

Finally it emerges that she no longer loves him and feels nothing but contempt (probably because of the Prokosch incident). They can't leave it at that:

"Why do you despise me?"

"You know why"

"No I don't"

Give me strength!

Eventually they go to Capri to make the Odyssey movie, where they continue to bicker until Camille decides to leave Paul and is killed in a car crash.

I nearly forgot, everybody talks about Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks movies and they all swop quotations from Dante and Bertolt Brecht. Paul and Camille tell each other revealing fables about Ramakrishna and asses buying flying carpets.

Also, the music sometimes swells up so much that it almost drowns out the dialogue. Where was that swelling music during the argument scene when we needed it?

Finally, this masterpiece stops. At this point you realise you are 103 minutes nearer your own death which, curiously, seems to have lost some of its sting.

PS: Fritz Lang is both real and not real. I told you it was deep.