Note: The fourth review of the Allan Fish Bonanza Encore series -Le Mepris- was chosen by renowned cineaste Duane Porter
by Allan Fish
(France 1963 100m) DVD1/2
Aka. Contempt
Snakes, Funerals and la Bébé
p Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard d/w Jean-Luc Godard novel “Il Disprezzo/A Ghost at Noon” by Alberto Moravia ph Raoul Coutard ed Agnès Guillemot, Lila Lakshmanan m Georges Delerue art/cos Tanine Autre
Brigitte Bardot (Camille Javal), Michel Piccoli (Paul Javal), Jack Palance (Jeremy Prokosch), Georgia Moll (Francesca Vanini), Fritz Lang (himself), Jean-Luc Godard,
Welcome, my friends, to the true cinema of wonder. There have been many films made about the movie-making process, but none of them remotely reach the depths of feeling, both for the subject and for the characters, as does Jean-Luc Godard’s wonderful masterpiece Le Mépris. To put it simply, it’s his greatest film.
The storyline is simple; a down on his luck writer with aspirations to great things is forced due to a lack of money to undertake a script-writing job on a sword and sandal adaptation of Homer’s masterpiece The Odyssey, to be made by great director Fritz Lang for an egotistical producer. Slowly but surely, over the course of the pre-shoot, his wife slowly comes to not only lose love for him, but grows contemptuous of him, so much so that she begins an affair with the egotistical producer, a man whom she despises.
As a study of a disintegration of a marriage, it’s spellbinding. Indeed, Godard was in the throes of such a split from actress Anna Karina, so there’s undoubtedly some empathy for the Javals on screen here. Yet it’s rather the comparisons to the characters in Homer, for whom the massive stone statues are a constant reminder, that the film really draws empathy. As Odysseus goes off to the siege of Troy, does Penelope remain faithful, that is the question. Certainly Odysseus was anything but, lying with, to quote the parlance of the time, both Calypso and Circe. Yet this doesn’t interest Godard; he knows that his writer is faithful, he adores his wife, even worships her, but it is not enough. Does her contempt for him arise from the fact that he doesn’t do enough to help himself, or that he’s so diplomatic? In the iconic opening scene Camille asks Paul which parts of her body he likes, before coming to the crunch question, “which do you prefer, my breasts or my nipples?” She wants an answer, one or the other, but he again tries to be diplomatic and says “both equally.” She wants him to eulogise over the shape of her breasts or the perkiness of her nipples, anything, but she gets nothing.
So the contempt in the title is Camille’s for Paul, then? Well, yes and no. For the real contempt here is Godard’s for American commercial producers and moneymen. This contempt is wonderfully personified by Jack Palance’s wonderful Prokosch leering over the topless mermaids in the rushes and whose adage is “when I hear the word culture, I reach for my chequebook.” It’s crass commercialism, it’s contemptuous of art and Godard really does loathe them and, if they’re anything like Prokosch, who can blame him.
Godard’s use of Bardot is likewise exquisite. She may not have been the greatest actress in the world, but she was probably the most delicious expression of cinematic sexuality ever seen on screen; naughty, but very, very nice and even more so when unblemished by clothing. Bardot was ogled as flesh for sale on screen in the films of hubby Roger Vadim, her perfect, pert arse the most ogled in screen history, and Godard both acknowledges and satirises this in the iconic opening scene. Bardot is an object of lustful devotion, her body crying out “take me” but her face crying out for affection. To her credit, Bardot is superb as Camille, and Piccoli and Palance are equally so, but pièce de resistance is Lang’s appearance as himself, decrying his current employment and Cinemascope, yet always remaining polite to the end. And let us not forget the contributions of Coutard’s gorgeous cinematography and Delerue’s haunting theme (later reused by Scorsese in Casino). It’s a delicious mix of many things, a sad, desolate fable of lost love and talent compromised. As for Paul not giving Bardot enough attention, he must be off his chump. Beauty is only skin deep, but when it’s such skin…
