1963 was a good year for movies about the movies. While Federico Fellini was hard at work on his phantasmagoric and surreal masterpiece, 8 ½, Jean-Luc Godard was crafting a postmodern film fantasy of his own; Contempt was, in fact, made in Fellini’s old playground, Cinecitta. Although both of these films are arguably equally eloquent statements about varying aspects of the cinema, I tend to side with Godard’s, not only because it’s more interesting as pure cinema (for all Fellini’s audacious choices, his films are never all that visually startling) but also because I think he has more to say about film as an art form, whereas Fellini is just reworking his childhood fantasies within a new context, to fascinating results, mind you, but Godard’s films are ever pulsating; they are, in every sense of the term, works in progress.
If I spent the last paragraph debating the differences between two highly-regarded art directors, I shall now spend as much time making the case that Contempt, arguably Godard’s finest film to date, is also quite a departure from the director’s work up to that point. Prior to this film, Godard had made several exciting features, all of which commented on the cinema in one way or another. If there’s a common thread among these early films—1960’s Breathless, 1961’s A Woman is A Woman, and 1962’s My Life to Live, in particular—it’s that they all display a very deep love for the cinema, whether it be through the idolization of Humphrey Bogart, the imitation of a Hollywood musical, or even the exhibition of cinema’s power on the individual (referring, of course, to the unforgettable scene in My Life to Live wherein Anna Karina’s character watches Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc [1928], utterly stunned). So, then, what sets Contempt apart from the aforementioned exercises in pop mythology? It’s that, unlike in the previous films, Godard now set out to tackle the logistics of making a film through the eyes of a disillusioned screenwriter (Michel Piccoli). Being that this was new territory for Godard, he adopted a new modus operandi; instead of reveling in the opportunities of the cinema, he showed a great deal of restraint, borrowing from the deliberate pace and desolate compositions of Michelangelo Antonioni, an Italian director whose influence is much more pronounced than that of Fellini’s.
Contempt, in complete contrast to Godard’s own usual structural decisions, has a three-act form. The first part introduces a distressed couple, portrayed here by Piccoli and the stunning Brigitte Bardot (itself a change from Godard’s routine, being that the femme fatale here is not Anna Karina). An American producer played by Jack Palance offers him a job adapting Homer’s Odyssey for a film set to be directed by Fritz Lang, who plays himself here with plenty wit and charm. After this expository section comes what is my favorite part of the film and possibly the greatest sequence in all of Godard. It takes place in the couple’s flat and lasts roughly a third of the film’s 103-minute running time. As the two of them talk, walk around, fight, and eventually exit, Godard observes from a distance, rarely giving us any close-ups or any psychological insight into the minds of these characters. We can tell from the get-go that they’re unhappy, but figuring out why is one of the film’s great mysteries; one that, even after repeated viewings over the span of many years still troubles me. Though, if nothing else, I can say that I am almost certain that Godard is every bit as interested in the primary colors of his compositions—to say nothing of Bardot’s luscious black wig, fetching green dress, and poofy gray skirt—as in the narrative weight of his story, but the film is no worse off for any of that. As far as it can be deduced, Godard is using Contempt and the very experience of making the film as a way to deal with a lot of themes that pertain to him personally, including the cineaste’s responsibility to do work that he himself is proud of. But Godard takes it a step further, delving into issues questioning what all of these things—the cameras, the actors, the sets—are good for in the end. Godard has a lot to say on the subject, but his film, whatever its motives, is never less than ravishing.
As much as Godard owes to Antonioni in Contempt, it can be said without a doubt that the end is pure Godard, if there ever was such a thing. And, like everything else in the film, it’s sensational.
If I spent the last paragraph debating the differences between two highly-regarded art directors, I shall now spend as much time making the case that Contempt, arguably Godard’s finest film to date, is also quite a departure from the director’s work up to that point. Prior to this film, Godard had made several exciting features, all of which commented on the cinema in one way or another. If there’s a common thread among these early films—1960’s Breathless, 1961’s A Woman is A Woman, and 1962’s My Life to Live, in particular—it’s that they all display a very deep love for the cinema, whether it be through the idolization of Humphrey Bogart, the imitation of a Hollywood musical, or even the exhibition of cinema’s power on the individual (referring, of course, to the unforgettable scene in My Life to Live wherein Anna Karina’s character watches Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc [1928], utterly stunned). So, then, what sets Contempt apart from the aforementioned exercises in pop mythology? It’s that, unlike in the previous films, Godard now set out to tackle the logistics of making a film through the eyes of a disillusioned screenwriter (Michel Piccoli). Being that this was new territory for Godard, he adopted a new modus operandi; instead of reveling in the opportunities of the cinema, he showed a great deal of restraint, borrowing from the deliberate pace and desolate compositions of Michelangelo Antonioni, an Italian director whose influence is much more pronounced than that of Fellini’s.
Contempt, in complete contrast to Godard’s own usual structural decisions, has a three-act form. The first part introduces a distressed couple, portrayed here by Piccoli and the stunning Brigitte Bardot (itself a change from Godard’s routine, being that the femme fatale here is not Anna Karina). An American producer played by Jack Palance offers him a job adapting Homer’s Odyssey for a film set to be directed by Fritz Lang, who plays himself here with plenty wit and charm. After this expository section comes what is my favorite part of the film and possibly the greatest sequence in all of Godard. It takes place in the couple’s flat and lasts roughly a third of the film’s 103-minute running time. As the two of them talk, walk around, fight, and eventually exit, Godard observes from a distance, rarely giving us any close-ups or any psychological insight into the minds of these characters. We can tell from the get-go that they’re unhappy, but figuring out why is one of the film’s great mysteries; one that, even after repeated viewings over the span of many years still troubles me. Though, if nothing else, I can say that I am almost certain that Godard is every bit as interested in the primary colors of his compositions—to say nothing of Bardot’s luscious black wig, fetching green dress, and poofy gray skirt—as in the narrative weight of his story, but the film is no worse off for any of that. As far as it can be deduced, Godard is using Contempt and the very experience of making the film as a way to deal with a lot of themes that pertain to him personally, including the cineaste’s responsibility to do work that he himself is proud of. But Godard takes it a step further, delving into issues questioning what all of these things—the cameras, the actors, the sets—are good for in the end. Godard has a lot to say on the subject, but his film, whatever its motives, is never less than ravishing.
As much as Godard owes to Antonioni in Contempt, it can be said without a doubt that the end is pure Godard, if there ever was such a thing. And, like everything else in the film, it’s sensational.
