CONTEMPTuous!

Last night as I was lying in bed thinking about if I would be … incepted (?) in my sleep (and wondering what raw subconscious is like), I decided I should update the old (and abandoned) blog. Shortly thereafter, I decided I would write about Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 classic drama. Today I awoke to find A.O. Scott’s most recent installment of his Critics’ Picks video series on NYtimes.com to be about what else? Nothing other than Contempt! But before watching his take, I would write a blurb on the film and compare A.O.’s and my notes – only to find that I’ll never be half as fabulous as that genius of a man, of course.

Contempt is, in many ways, an expression of deep admiration for cinema and its history. Le Mepris, in French, is as much of an homage to film as Godard’s own Breathless (1960). But instead of inserting dear ol’ Bogey as the main character’s hero, Godard implants Fritz Lang, accompanied by an obnoxious American producer, Jeremiah Prokosch, into the beautiful Italian sea-scape. Here, on the shores of Capri, they attempt to create a film adaptation of The Odyssey. Dissatisfaction with the script leads them to hire a suave French screenwriter by the name of Paul Javal (played by Michel Piccoli).

From the get-go trouble is brewing. The film’s noisy, lewd and rude American producer (played by Jack Palance) provides annoyance as much as he provides comic-relief. He noticeably ogles the half-naked “mermaids” in Lang’s artful Odyssey footage and even more obviously makes passes at Paul’s wife, Camille. But it’s hard to blame him as the breathtakingly beautiful Brigitte Bardot plays Paul’s wife. American pig or not, it’s impossible to keep your jaw from hitting the ground as Camille lounges naked with her screenwriter husband in the very first scene, playfully asking him what parts of her he loves. (Um, ALL parts?!) This sensual moment is one of the most beautiful scenes in the film. (Which, taken with a little back story is ironic as Godard did not want Bardot to appear naked at all, but was pressured to have at least one nude scene with the famous vixen.) Although Paul and Camille lay with one another intimately, their relationship will soon be challenged and changed. When Paul is hired by Lang and Prokosch, he finds himself in the middle of a failing film project that echoes the disintegration of his own marriage.

As Lang, Paul and American Pig but heads in their attempts at creative expression (or, in the Prokosch’s case, money-making), Paul and Camille face similar troubles. Just as art can be a difficult compromise, especially film – where creation is often limited by concerns for big screens and bottom lines – similarly, love and marriage are complex balancing acts.  In love, the eyes (and hands) of piggish Americans cause more stress than the questions of production fees and ticket sales. But the pressure is similar. In both cases, compromises must be made and promises are sometimes broken. Just as Paul must placate Jeremiah at the expense of his art, Camille shrouds her feelings and lashes out at the expense of her marriage.

This element of compromise, of the push and pull that drives all human relationships, is most evident in Paul and Camille’s ongoing, circular argument that takes place in their chic Italian pad and comprises a large portion of the film. At times the conversation lags, or even fails to make complete sense, but it exhibits the realities of compromise, cooperation and concession. All three of which are sometimes achieved through mundane, drawn out discussions.  These elements of making art and making love not only drive the plot, but also serve as reoccurring motifs throughout the film.

Contempt is not as fast-paced as Breathless, it lacks the silly and endearing humor of A Woman is a Woman and it doesn’t make any social commentary on the “Marx and Coca-Cola” generation as in Masculine Feminine. What it does do, and remarkably well, is examine the changing landscape of film and art during the early 1960’s within the framework of two people struggling to maintain a functioning marriage. Some may complain that the narrative is empty or even predictable. But outside the confines of what some may call a simple formula (girl loves boy, boy loves girl, boy and girl drift apart, girl is beautiful and Fritz Lang is arty), a wealth of questions about love, art and spirituality are raised. What is man’s (and money’s) relationship with art? With love? With the God’s? (With women?) And, are all these relationships fated to be defined not only by compromise but also by contempt? Contempt that, perhaps, is generated when compromises and concessions are made begrudgingly?

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