Contempt - Criterion Collection (1964)

Beneath Contempt

I'm always interested in seeing films with a strong reputation. I had seen a previous movie by Godard ("Breathless") which left me underwhelmed but I decided to try again. I had a rough idea of the plot of "Contempt" and I was interested that Jack Palance was in a starring role. I was confused by the artistic painting that is shown with the film's title. It looked to me like the face of Christ on the Cross. Seeing it on a large screen, I realized that it was just the opposite.

What is the purpose of "Contempt"? From reviews I have glanced through, this movie is Godard's expression of his opinion of Hollywood films (and the one-word title of the film is a more succinct expression of the same). I guess the abusive, mindless, domination of the character of the producer (played by Palance) was the key to this expression of distaste. However, while I can appreciate the sentiment, I felt Godard showed his own shortcomings by portraying the producer so stereotypically. With a man of Palance's talent, a more in-depth portrayal would, in my opinion, enhance the point rather than trivialize it. The footage we get from the film-within-a-film is certainly one I wouldn't care to see. That may have been the point but why? I was looking forward to seeing Fritz Lang but that was anticlimatical as well. The one aspect of "Contempt" that I found compelling was the breakdown of the marriage of the characters played by Bridgette Bardot and Michel Piccoli. That part drew me in and, while I could only guess at the reasoning behind the breakup, I certainly was able to sense the inbalance of their relationship. I suppose that this was a statement that Hollywood films convey a lot of shallow emotion. Granted. However, I prefer to get more in return for giving such a film my own emotional involvement. I have seen references to films that reviewers cite as movies that need to be seen at least several times before they can truly be appreciated. The irony of "Contempt" is that it left me with no interest in watching it again unlike the Hollywood productions that I do watch repeatedly. Some would say that statement was a comment on me. I say it is a comment on Godard. May 25, 2008

Coldness and Film

Over the past two years as I've been studying Japanese New Wave films intently, I've also delved into films that are prominent in the French New Wave of filmmaking because of its supposed influence on the Japanese New Wave. While I have not explored as many French New Wave as I need to in order the give more educated views of its films and the time period in which they were filmed, I have been fortunate enough to watch some stellar films by Francois Truffaut, Agnes Varda, and, of course, Jean-Luc Godard. Unfortunately, most of the films that I have watched by Godard have left me underwhelmed. I enjoyed Breathless, Band of Outsiders, and Masculin, feminin, found Alphaville and Pierrot le Fou tolerable, and detested Weekend. I let a year almost go by without watching a Godard film, but knowing his importance in French filmmaking and filmmaking in general, I decided to watch his only international large budget film Contempt (1963).

Contempt opens with Camille's, Brigitte Bardot, lovely and very bare backside in full view for the audience to see, Bardot's nude figure being something that Godard's producers told him to add to the film, as she and her husband Paul lounge around in bed as he tells her how beautiful her various body parts are. Soon after this loving moment, Paul and Camille go to see Jeremy Prokosch, Jack Palance, a rich, arrogant producer who wants Paul rewrite a script based on Homer's The Odyssey for the German director Fritz Lang, who plays himself in the film, to direct. Paul is a bit at odds with himself because of the deal. He does not want to work for Prokosch, but he will be offered a large sum of money if he does so. While struggling with these thoughts, Prokosch meets Paul's lovely wife and offers to give her a ride to meet Lang. She doesn't want to go with the man, but Paul lightly insists that she should go, and this is when the trouble begins for Paul. Only moments earlier completely in love with him, Camille's love for Paul has been completely destroyed because, in her mind, he gave her to Prokosch. Paul is ignorant of his being a jerk, and so opens the long hard road to contempt and hated.

Contempt is often viewed by critics as Godard's memorial to filmmakers, like Lang, of the past who were able to truly create masterpieces without being hindered by producers. While I agree that Contempt is definitely an important film and that its aesthetics of space and light are extraordinarily well done, I found the film to be quite boring. However, the boredom I felt was not the type of boredom that I feel watching a bad film, it was instead a heavy boredom brought on me by the weight that Paul was feeling struggling with the decision to write the screenplay or not while trying to figure out why his wife had become so cold for him. While I cannot recommend Contempt to casual fans of Godard and French Cinema, I can recommend it to those who want to watch a film that is important to the history of the French New Wave and who are fans of Bardot.
May 22, 2008

A disappointing inside joke

I have to disagree with all the reviews. I am a film buff and love older movies. However, I think all the reviewers (and many national critics) have been blinded by Godard's reputation retroactively. The movie has interesting pieces and beautiful cinematography in the final third. However it is shot through with meandering asides, swipes at Godard's producer, and long "intellectual" quotes from people Godard agrees with. This is hardly good filmmaking!! He was striking back at the studio system which he disagreed with, but to drag the audience through his personal antipathies doesn't advance the story and is frankly, a bore. I purposefully didn't read anything about this movie before I rented it and it is a LONG slog. Again, interesting for a film student, but if you want to see a fine older French film, try Truffaut's "400 Blows" instead. November 21, 2007

My non-intellectual note on "Contempt"

The movie is of course very complex and a work of art. Now mi little comment written on a day I was on a rage: Some say that this film is about the gradual destruction of a marriage by the husband's insecurities and the contempt this awakens in a simple woman. I see it as the rationalization a beautiful woman does to justify her going after a hunky distasteful rich man. If she is angry with her husband, it seems to be because he put him in a situation where she must choose between power and faithfulness. Of course, she chooses the former. I was very happy to see that her choice ends tragically. (According to the article included in the Criterion edition, others say that Godard was in favor of Camille, but I don't know how this is possible given what we see on screen). September 17, 2007

Contempt

In the hands of New Wave master Godard, this brilliant, piercing film about alienation and the end of a marriage is also quite overtly about the cinema itself--especially the role of art in relation to commercial interests. Casting sex kitten Bardot as Camille is particularly inspired, as anyone will understand how a sudden loss of her affections would drive a man insane. As a slick, boorish Hollywood type, Palance is wonderfully reptilian, but Lang has all the best lines, effectively ventriloquizing Godard's own views. Lovingly shot in Rome and Capri in dazzling CinemaScope, "Contempt" is subversive food for thought. June 27, 2007

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