Compared to its relatively simple and easy to summarize plot, there's so much more going on in Contempt as a cultural artifact of its times that rather than offer up a conventional style movie review, I'm going to break up this post into a series of short commentaries on the various key players involved in its production. This collection of cinematic pick-up sticks fell together in quite a fascinating jumble, so I'm intrigued by the challenge of plucking each of them up for individual contemplation.
But first, the story, then the trailer, then my comments, following the trailer's lead in spirit, if not according to the letter of the significant elements that it highlights.
Contempt concerns the terminal phase of an apparently wonderful but nevertheless mortally wounded romantic relationship. The couple under scrutiny consists of Paul, a screenwriter who's brought in for a substantial fee to salvage a floundering movie project, and his beautiful wife Camille, whose gorgeously compelling sensuality practically belies the script's premise that she's just an ordinary typist/secretary of common origins who married above her station in life. An obvious (not at all obscure) object of desire, Camille suddenly falls out of love with her husband, perhaps provoked by the sense that Paul is willing to let a rich arrogant jackass of a movie producer have his way with her in order to advance his career. The story takes place in three locations, two of them culturally impressive and the other more quotidian but filmed in a fascinating manner, and manages to weave in a hefty serving of Godard's thoughts on cinema, art, Greek mythology and just a few hints of the emerging political radicalism that would consume and transform his output over the next five years. Though the "contempt" referred to in the title refers primarily to the disdain a woman feels for a man she once loved, there's plenty enough le mepris to go around - the contempt of producers toward the independent and unreliable creative types they hire to make their movies, contempt nurtured by the artists for the tyrannical egomaniac bullies whose money threatens to stifle their expressive freedoms, and ultimately a contempt of the gods who bemusedly despise the conceited human beings who think that their education, intelligence and successful track records offer some sort of promise of control and predictability over the powers of nature and the deeper aspects of our relationships.
A controversial film when it was released, Contempt continues to hold an elevated status in Godard's ouevre to this day, based on its star power, the budget he was given to work with, the pivotal position it occupies as a precursor to all that followed and an preliminary summation of sorts to one of the greatest auteurist careers of all time, that history now shows us was still just getting started.
Even though Contempt is far from a flawless film (in my opinion, its execution is more tentative and mannered than Breathless and falls short of the emotional engagement generated by A Woman Is A Woman and Vivre sa vie), I wouldn't be surprised at some point down the line, after I've seen more of Godard, to esteem it as his greatest moment of triumph. As a still-young director on the rise, with a killer reputation and loaded with untapped potential, JLG was exactly at that point of opportunity to cash in that nearly all of his admirers (then and now) would enviously strive for if they had enough confidence to think that such an advantage was within their grasp. Indeed, Godard would never be afforded such an expansive budget with such a bankable superstar in the leading role as he was on this shoot. Few, especially from today's more materialistic perspective, would have seriously faulted him for producing some kind of lighter-weight fare, exploiting Bardot's commercial appeal and significant strengths in the role of a winsome, comedic sex kitten. He could have easily allowed a burst of boisterous, playful eroticism to erupt at a certain point, even extending the scene for a few gratuitous laughs, before returning us to the kind of polemical commentary that anyone who'd seen one of his earlier pictures knew was inevitable. But he maintains a rigorous discipline, perhaps to his own detriment as far as future employment was concerned. In the process, he maintains his self-respect, and therefore his credibility. Especially in hindsight knowing of the strenuous ideological controversies to come, Godard's refusal to sell out at this juncture served him very well.
Whatever his own precognitions about the course of his future career may have been in late 1963, he had a clear enough vision to know that compromising to the extent of becoming a reliable manufacturer of box office hits was not in his artistic best interests. Godard had loftier goals in mind, it seems, both for this picture, and for those that would soon follow. He did, of course, want to draw a mass audience (he still does, but only on his terms), to confront them with his images and his ideas, so he readily signed on when offered the chance to film in Italy, to recruit BB, to enlist one of his idols Fritz Lang in a crucial support role, to shoot in CinemaScope with a first rate crew on high-rent and exclusive locations. But if it meant that he had to piss off his money men and leave a significant portion of his viewers befuddled as his off-the-cuff literary and cinematic citations sailed inches and feet over their heads, that was a small price to pay in order to maintain fidelity to the ideals that he'd been sketching out as a critic and, more recently, as an agent of provocation in the international art house scene.
Brigitte Bardot
Focusing as I do only on Criterion films here on this blog, a Bardot sighting is a rare thing. Despite her massive popularity and abundant photogenic qualities, she didn't make too many films that would go on to establish themselves as Criterion-worthy. (A brief appearance as herself in Godard's Masculin/Feminin is the only other CC entry in her filmography.) Still, it's worth pondering for a few moments the leap that she executed between her cinematic debut in Roger Vadim's ...And God Created Woman in 1956 and her appearance in 1963's Contempt. In those ensuing seven years, she'd become the most photographed woman in the world, constantly stalked by paparazzi and proving herself to be more than capable of standing up for herself underneath all that pressure. Despite the sheer abundance of spectacularly beautiful women who have followed in the role of modern international erotic goddess that she established, Bardot's powerful charisma still holds strong. Her look, her poise, the stoic, enigmatic demeanor she maintains in Contempt has not significantly faded or diminished at all - a testament to both the skillful restraint exercised by Godard as director and her own profound understanding of what made her such a compelling screen presence and cultural icon to begin with. As the slighted wife who sees herself offered up as a token of negotiation between her husband and his wealthy benefactors, Bardot could have easily over-emoted in even a single scene and lost her grip just enough to burst the bubble. But she keeps her feelings in containment, preserving that essential mystery that keeps so many of us men locked in and able to relate her performance to the equally inscrutable puzzles presented to us by the women in our own lives, who have their reasons, to be sure, but like Camille see no point in plainly disclosing them to us despite our most earnest and plaintive inquiries.
Michel Piccoli
I'll go with the assumption that Piccoli was the intended point of contact between Contempt and the vast majority of men drawn in to watch it. He's young, virile, handsome, intelligent, a bit hard-pressed by circumstances in the process of establishing himself in the world, aspiring to bigger and better things but, temporarily at least, still hung up on his subservient role and figuring out how to keep it all together. He's got himself a sensational woman, the money is just starting to come in, he knows he's got talent that others seek to employ, but he wants to avoid getting ripped off or exploited by those who would do so without a twinge of conscience along the way. Paul's task is to take charge of his assignment, at the risk of contradicting or confronting the powerful older men who still see themselves as calling the shots. In this, he is of course an obvious stand-in for Godard, who also had a "very beautiful wife," and was being brought in to do bold and dramatic things in an old and jaded film industry badly in need of rejuvenation. Godard had the ideas, he had the confidence, but he (quite reasonably) did not have the trust that his talents would be properly honored. Meanwhile, just as Paul/Piccoli was trying to navigate those difficult currents between Scylla and Charydis, he (like Godard) was dealing with excruciatingly difficult domestic difficulties in his love life. Piccoli's task was to convey all that ambiguity and tension without losing his cool. I think he succeeds quite admirably.
Fritz Lang
He's the old poet of this mythos, not quite as blind as Homer but getting there, monacle firmly ensconced with immaculate old world dignity. A relic of cinema's formative golden age, the director of Metropolis, M, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and a host of less-renowned Hollywood films (following his exile from the Nazis in the 1940s) is gifted with an intuitive wisdom and sagacity that's perhaps acknowledged on the surface but goes largely unrecognized by those around him, especially those in positions of authority on the Odyssey adaptation that he's in charge of filming. I'm sure that his presence on the set was a great source of support and encouragement to Godard, who's calm bravado almost certainly masks the heightened anxiety he must have felt in the crucible of directing this high stakes film. It's a pleasure to watch Lang play a version of himself but perhaps the greatest outcome associated with his role in this film is found in the suppemental feature The Dinosaur and the Baby, recorded as an outgrowth of the relationship that developed on-set during the making of Contempt, in which Lang and Godard pontificate with economical poignancy their respective views on cinema, comparing and contrasting their opinions so fluently for everyone's benefit.
Jack Palance
Renowned at the time for his portrayal of gangsters, gunmen, prize fighters and other assorted tough guys, Palance returned Godard's confidence in casting him as an arrogant, overbearing and well-moneyed egoist with a memorably vivid supporting role as Jerry Prokosch, the American producer whose persistent vulgarity injects most of the dramatic tension into Contempt's subplot involving a tumultuous film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. Befitting the mythological allusions, Prokosch first enters the scene from behind the doors of a legendary film studio, broad-shouldered, arms wide, gesticulating, orating, stalking and strutting shamelessly, with animalistic abandon as befits an Olympian god. Sad to say that, at least in Godard's pantheon, the obtuse and meddlesome American is for all intents and purposes an immortal fixture in the cosmos, driven by his greed, his lusts and his preening vanity to bludgeon and humiliate any and all who stand in his way - grinning lasciviously at the sight of nudity and gratuitous violence when he's watching the rushes from the most recent shoots, but immediately shifting into tantrum mode when he swiftly calculates that the sum total of what he's seeing won't add up to the parade of vulgar thrills and gratifications that he knows is required to put butts in the seats of the theaters he hopes to fill with his latest sword and sandals epic. Never mind that in the process, he's degrading and bastardizing one of civilization's most revered and timeless epics - he wants tits! he wants ACTION! and he doesn't want to have to explain to the viewers what it is they're getting from the fossilizing artiste that he's hired to sit behind the camera calling the shots.
As offensive as all that is, his hubris has no bounds. He jerks on his freshly hired screenwriter's tie, tilts Paul's hat, speaks in brazenly condescending terms with all the entitlement and conceit that his money can buy. Moving on from that brash territorial power play, he deigns to swoop in on Camille, Paul's astonishingly attractive wife, for nothing more than just a little casual play, a kiss, a caress and who knows exactly where it will lead from there? Jerry Prokosch hardly has to calculate or anticipate - he's accustomed to having things drop into his lap, through sheer force of will in the moment, if that's what it takes.
Georgia Moll
She's the Mary Ann to Bardot's Ginger, if that reference makes sense, probably not getting her due recognition until we've made our way through Contempt a time or two. Efficient, urbane, witty and sharply attractive from every angle, she's still not quite able to hold a candle to Bardot's ability when it comes to locking in the gaze. Her long-term fame isn't helped by the fact that she never appeared in a film anywhere close to substantial as this one, but her easy command of several languages and unflappable poise in making her own way through this forest of titanic egos earns my genuine respect.
The Producers (Ponti/de Beauregard/Levine)
As easy as it is to view them as obtuse, blundering villains in this saga, especially the American Joe Levine who was reportedly the guy who griped about insufficient nudity to guarantee a return on his investment, I suppose some measure of credit needs to be given for their willingness to get behind this project in the first place. Still, the tri-national composition of this group of financiers (Italian, French, American respectively), each with their own pedigree and history that led them to this particular venture. Ponti went through an incredibly convoluted process of separation and divorce from his first wife in order to legally marry Sophia Loren, providing along the way an oblique nod in support of the relational difficulties experienced by Paul and Camille in this film. Georges de Beauregard was a seminal producer of the nouvelle vague (including all of Godard's early films as well as Cleo From 5 to 7, Leon Morin, Priest, Le doulos and others.) Levine was still on the upswing after making his fortune hyping his series Hercules films of the early 1960s. His role as a producer here goes distinctly unmentioned in Contempt's spoken opening credits, but he still found ways to wield clout. It's not too difficult to extrapolate that some of the more boorish personality traits that Godard projected into the Jerry Prokosch character probably stemmed from JLG's impressions of Levine and his base motivations.
Raoul Cotard
Credited as "R. Kutard" in the fake clapboard in the Odyssey's raw footage shots, Coutard makes rare on-screen appearances at the beginning and end of Contempt, making this a prime early example of meta-filmmaking in which the behind the scenes self-consciousness of the artist intrudes on the spectator's experience of watching the film. Like Lang, he also provides some illuminating insights in his supplemental interviews. The creative symbiosis he achieved with Godard in this and so many other films is completely deserving of whatever attention it has already received, and probably even more than is likely to follow.
Georges Delerue
The theme he constructed and provides here is so expressively precise in capturing that mood of dismay and confusion that give birth to feelings of Contempt that, once it's assimilated into one's consciousness, one is likely to hear echoes of the string quartet sawing out that melancholy refrain whenever the actions of others cause us to regard them with extreme cynicism.
Cinecitta Studios
This landmark of Italian cinema, home to Fellini and a key site in the then-recent filming of Ben Hur, gets a rude thrust into the spotlight when it's portrayed in such a raw state of overgrowth and decrepitude. Godard mildly jabs at its Fascist origins by having Jack Palance perform a pompous peacock ritual on the platform outside the entryway to Studio 6. A dazzling peep behind the scenes of movie making that exposes the industry as the tawdry production line that we keep denying that it is and wishing that such wasn't the case.
The Flat
The central hub around which Contempt's domestic drama revolves, equidistant at least in psychological space from the commercial dream factory of Cinecitta Studios that hosts the first act and the dream-like palatial villa erected on a rocky outcropping on the Isle of Capri where the third act takes place. The flat is that ordinary space that more of us can relate to, even if it's located at a tony address in Rome that's probably completely out of our price range, either then or now. The apartment is rough, unfinished, strewn with tossed-in furniture and only the most random decorative touches. All the better to suit Godard's aesthetic, Paul and Camille's unsettled domicile perfectly reflects the still-turbulent and fragile condition of their relationship - a project still under construction and just as likely to be abandoned midway as it is to be seen through to completion. Close, compact, contained, the financial cost of securing its purchase makes the flat a pivotal accomplice in Paul's scheme of winning Prokosch's favor and, by so doing, presumably securing Camille's loyalty once she comprehends how her husband's sacrifice enabled her to settle into the comfortable accommodations. Except that's not what she wants. So she says. Something more important has been lost. A crucial component has dropped out on her interpretation of their relationship. Camille's dejected attitude is summed up in the demure downcast gaze of the sculpture that serves as a sentinel of their fateful quarrel.
The Alfa Romeo
Prokosch's brazen red chariot of the gods interjects itself shamelessly at crucial points in the story, barreling in between Paul and Camille early on just as they are about to rush into an embrace, then carrying Camille away both benignly and, later, more malevolently to increasingly tragic depths of doom. Sure, it's nothing more or less than a cocky millionaire's sports car on the surface, but the very name of it - Alfa Romeo - conjures thoughts of primacy, origination, suicidal monomania and foolishly misguided erotic obsession. The car is an object worth keeping your eyes on, even after you know the fatal role it plays, quite jarring and arbitrary when it gets to that point, in Contempt's denouement.
The Mediterranean Sea
Placid, tranquil, all-consuming and imperturbable, the Great Sea serves as a backdrop to this film more ostentatiously than it does in any other Godard film that I'm aware of up until the cruise ship setting of his most recent effort, Film Socialisme. The coast exerts an important magnetism in Breathless and Pierrot le fou as well, but in both Contempt's possessive narrative of Paul, Prokosch and Camille and the film-within-a-film outtakes from Lang's fictitious adaptation of the Odyssey, the wide horizons, dazzling blues and luxuriant warmth of the waters themselves prove to be all but overpowering. We see women skinny-dipping, powerful warriors now exhausted from battle washed ashore, expensive boats plotting their courses and all the while, the eternal azure depths silently proclaiming with serene patience that everything we find so beguiling in this tale has happened so many times already along its craggy shoreline.
The Ancient Gods
Neptune, Minerva, Hercules, Athena and perhaps a few others of the old pagan deities either make a (statuesque) appearance or are referred to by name throughout Contempt, and I don't think there's anything random or accidental about their inclusion in this otherwise rather modernistic slice of early 1960s life. The wanton impulsivity and primal expressions of will and desire that characterize the mythic figures of humanity's collective past are shown to still exist and thrive in our own times, with hardly any diminishing of the irrational, unpredictable motives that push them (us) into action.
Bardot's Ass
After the opening credit sequence, it's unmistakably the first (and for some, practically the only) thing we see in the first narrative scene, famously tacked on when Joe Levine complained of not seeing "enough" of his well-compensated starlet. Perfectly rounded, presumably firm, supple and lovingly burnished by the warmth of the Mediterranean sun, Bardot's derriere is a marvel of creation, so comfortably relaxed and at ease in its native magnificence as to stagger the imagination as those of us born into more mundane bodies ponder how such a thing ever came into existence. Though the rest of Brigitte's delectable nakedness is tantalizingly laid out before us, with the promise of more more MORE keeping viewers glued to the screen, we never see that promise fulfilled. Instead, we get a bit of murmured pillow talk, almost banal at first impression but freighted with enough foreshadowing ("totally, tenderly, tragically") to reward closer attention once we relax with the penetrative gaze and actually listen more closely to what's said after Bardot completes her coy litany of adorable body parts. And the frustration mounts ever higher after Camille queries her husband Paul as to whether or not she should get up on her knees rather than lay flat on her stomach. Presumably it's to give him a better view of the attributes that she seeks his admiration of, but while we're inwardly groaning "yes! yes! GET UP ON YOUR KNEES!!!" just to get that extra angle of perspective and its promise of a new revelation, he blithely dismisses her invitation with a casual wave: "there's no need for that." Godard, of course, is the prankster behind that tease, denying his audience (including the film's producers) what a good many of them presumably paid good money for, thinking that the enfant terrible of the nouvelle vague would surely be eager for a chance to press the limits of censorship even a bit further than his Swedish counterpart Ingmar Bergman did in The Silence. But no... not even a glimpse of Bardot's divine boob, when I'm sure that she would have displayed on screen just about whatever could realistically be asked of her in 1963. Who would have ever suspected that Godard would turn out to be so chaste, indeed modest, in his cinematographic inventory of the human flesh?
Piccoli's Hat
I'll leave off here, more because I'm out of time than I am out of words (still feeling like I've just scratched the surface of this endlessly absorbing document), with a tip of my imaginary cap to the very real and substantial lid that Paul keeps in place throughout Contempt. Sitting incongruously in his own bathtub, he confesses in a moment of vulnerability that he wears it for effect, specifically to look like Dean Martin in "Soom Keem Rooneeng" (as he pronounces it in his thick French accent.) The reference may not register with a lot of viewers (I've still never seen Vincent Minelli's 1958 film Some Came Running, also starring Frank Sinatra and Shirley Maclaine; it appears to be in need of a quality DVD release), so I'm including this trailer clip which allows sufficient opportunity to see what ol' Dino looked like in that hat and to size up just what made the film and character so appealing to Godard/Paul/Piccoli in the first place. It's a nod to male conceit and vanity, the kind of indulgent gesture of wearing a silly hat in even sillier places and circumstances, just to gratify a pointlessly self-serving whim, even when it risks provoking a fresh wave of le mepris from those who for some ludicrous reason had higher expectations of us.
Next: The Insect Woman