• Le Mépris (Contempt)

9/18/21 (Sat)

I wasn’t sure I was ready for more Godard after Breathless, but this 1963 film about filmmaking is considered one of the director’s more accessible works. Plus it had Brigitte Bardot, who seemed an unlikely choice for the lead.

A successful French playwright (Michel Piccoli) has been asked by a crass (of course) American producer (Jack Palance) to rewrite a screenplay for a film adaptation of The Odyssey being directed in Italy by no less than German legend Fritz Lang (playing himself in a neat mix of fact and fiction – they even discuss some of his films at one point). The playwright takes the offer for the money and flies down to Rome with his super-sexy wife (an unexpectedly effective Bardot). The playwright, aware that the producer has an eye for Bardot, plays up to him by allowing her to ride with him in a two-seater to his villa while he follows behind in a taxi. Bardot, sensing that she is being used as bait, is incensed, particularly when her husband leaves them alone in the villa by arriving 30 minutes due, he says, to a traffic accident.

The situation worsens when she suspects he’s playing around with the good-looking interpreter (Italian actress Giorgia Moll, superb). He tries to smooth things over by taking her along to the filming in Capri. Palance is displeased with the artsy turn of the film – he wants more sex, naturally – and is constantly demanding changes of the writer and director. He believes Odysseus left home because his wife was unfaithful, which Lang rejects as a modern misinterpretation. When the playwright comes out against the famed director in support of the producer, Bardot is disgusted, thinking he is giving in to commerce. She allows her husband to catch her in the producer’s embrace as a reflection of how she, in her mind, is being used by the husband. She ultimately leaves with the producer, but they are killed in a traffic accident. In the end, the husband leaves the production to return to France, while Lang remains with the film.

The work is at least more substantial story-wise than Breathless, though it involves a lot of philosophical discussions that make it a chore at times. There’s an odd opening where a naked Bardot lies on top of a bed alongside her clothed husband in a bedroom version of Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass”, asking his opinion of her various body parts turn by turn (needless to say, he was happy with them all). I found out later that Godard cheekily stuck that on to his finished film when the producers complained that Bardot wasn’t naked enough elsewhere – an actual recreation of the art-vs.-money issue parodied in the work. That well-worn theme forms part of the background behind the portrait of the couple’s failing marriage, shown most tellingly in an overly long (though beautifully filmed) scene in the Capri home that is reminiscent of the endless scene between the couple in Breathless. My interest faded before their marriage did. Another holdover from the earlier film were the various references to older movies, which rather dated the film, such as Piccoli’s mimicking of Dean Martin (shades of Belmondo’s infatuation with Bogart), the book that Bardo is reading about Lang, the movie posters and such.

Piccoli and Bardot couldn’t have been better. I didn’t take Bardot seriously at first, especially since her first shot was her nude body stretched expansively across the wide-vision CinemaScope screen. The role benefited from her persona as a sex goddess, but she gave an impressively subtle performance. Palance overplayed the arrogant American and didn’t seem fully invested in the role, but got the job done. Lang, who was also helped by his status as a real-life director, was as confident in front of the camera as behind it; his seen-it-all-before approach was perfect. Georgia Moll was also indispensable as the unflappable interpreter, and others were excellent all around. Acting-wise, the film was on sure ground.

Great cinematography, especially in the Capri scenes – hard to misfire with that scenery, I suppose. The film-within-a-film sequences were bizarre with all the statues, and I’m just glad I didn’t have to sit through that movie; I’m with Palance on that one, though I have to admire Lang, who’s clearly dealt with Palance’s ilk before, for following through with his vision.

The film is much more straightforward than Breathless and offered more sympathetic characters. I wouldn’t say that the portrait of the disintegrating marriage was especially devastating since the husband was so irritatingly clueless that he deserved it. But in terms of the story, whatever pressure was put on Godard in this case worked in terms of a more approachable work.