Contempt : Jean-Luc Godard

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                                             Cinema shows us a world that fits our desires

                                                                                        -Andre Bazin





I have read about Godard but I have not watched Godard's works before. I have been thinking of starting to watch Godard with his Breathless [1960]. But I have not had any plan that I will start with Contempt [1963] at the end. It is my wonderful inclination to start watching the list from Cannes Classics 2023 in exchange for the movies in In Competition and Un Certain Regard as they are not released for a global audience and maybe most of them will not be available for me until Cannes Festival 2024.

After starting to watch Godard’s Contempt, I have got some mixed feelings in regards to its cinematic artistry and of its commercial features. At a first glance, I have been charmed by Godard’s use of natural lighting and color gradation and varied ways of camera movements, especially its reverse shots and tracking shots. The characters are not theatrically staged in the frames like other experimental and art films I have used to watch, they rather are always in movements with the rhythm of their emotions and tones. I have sensed the camera movement as an invisible character scene.

On the other hand, there are three concrete parallel subplots running and crossing over with each other simultaneously in the narrative structure. The producer [Jack Palance as Prokosch], the script writer [Michel Piccoli as Paul], the director [Fritz Lang as Lang] and the interpreter [Giorgia Moll as Francesca] have made a versatile narrative arc that can stand on its own right. Surprisingly, the marital rifts between Paul and Camille [Brigitte Bardot] are showcased in parallel with the epic narrative of Odyssey and Penelope. There are hundreds of aspects an audience can reflect and interpret to these duo narrative circles.  Though it was loosely based on the novel of Alberto Moravia’s ll disprezzo [1954].


 I have got quite analogous staging and blocking of the cinematic framings between Godard’s Contempt [1963] and  Tarkovsjy’s The Sacrifice (1986). How the characters walk, sit, stand and move make some pleasant compositions in the movies. This staging technique I have liked most since I have been noticing cinematographic elements. There are some great cinematic frames and compositions that have been shot in the Casa Malaparte on Capri island in the Movie. I have taken some screenshots of them to study later.

Scenes from Godard's Contempt [Top & Bottom] & Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice [Middle]

 I was surprised when I found that one still shot on the staircase of Casa Malaparte where Paul was ascending to the rooftop was selected as the official poster in Cannes 2016. A still photo of Catherine Deneuve from Alain Cavalier’s La Chamade [1968] has been selected as Cannes Official Poster in 2023; coincidentally, Paul [Michel Piccoli] was also the lead actor in La Chamade.

                                      Cannes Posters from Contempt in 2016 [Left] & Le Chamade in 2023 [Right]

What has made this movie a bit exclusive and imitable are its usage of multiple languages like French and English as its both an original and interpreting language, German as Lang’s communication language, Italian as its language of setting in Italy and reference of Dante.

The movie uses quite a few allusions of film history and criticism and casting the creators [ Godard & Lang] themselves as actors seems fabulous to me.  The opening shot starts with the quotation of Andre Bazin, Cinema shows us a world that fits our desires.  There was a fine sentence quoted by Luise Lumiere, El cinema è un invenzione senza avvenire, imprinted under the screen in the projection room in the Cinecittà studios in Rome. Paul regret

I have been a bit irritated watching over repetitive superficial use of female nudity in the movie only to gain commercial success and increase the profit margin in theatre. Maybe it was a symbolic use of male gaze and masculine voyeurism. I don’t find any reason and sense why the entertainment industry has been denying the female gaze or other’s gaze in the film from the beginning. Paul’s repentance for losing the grace of classical cinemas and the aspiration for working like Griffith and Chaplin who established United Artists to avail creative freedom from the budgets and bosses like Prokosch. I have been engrossed with the exact impression from when I have been watching Chaplin’s works. Maybe Paul’s aspiration for creative freedom was an echo of his account for the compromised eroticism and irrelevant nudity in the movie. 

                                                      Scenes of compromised nudity 

I have expected that Godard’s movies will be more experimental with a monotonous tone as they are in the movie trend. However, I have got them likeable and would like to follow the list up.

 

Contempt [1963]

Le Mepris [French]

Jean-Luc Godard

French, France

 


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