The contempt

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Movie
German title The contempt
Original title Le Mépris
Country of production France , Italy
original language French , English , German , Italian
Publishing year 1963
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Jean-Luc Godard
script Jean-Luc Godard
production Georges de Beauregard
Carlo Ponti
music Georges Delerue
Piero Piccioni (Italian and Spanish versions)
camera Raoul Coutard
cut Agnès Guillemot
Lila Lakshmanan
occupation

Contempt is a film by Jean-Luc Godard from 1963. The main characters are Brigitte Bardot and, in his first leading role, Michel Piccoli . Supporting roles play u. a. Fritz Lang as himself in the role of the director and Godard himself in a brief appearance as his assistant. The film is, among other things, an expression of Godard's contempt for the Hollywood film industry (symbolized in the film by a US producer, played by Jack Palance ) and the commercialization of the film. But the contempt also shows his love for the art of making and watching films.

The film is based on the novel of the same name by the Italian writer Alberto Moravia and was translated by Piero Rismondo .

action

A screenwriter's marriage falls apart while he is working on a film about Odysseus' wanderings . His wife thinks he wants to hand her over to the producer in order to secure his own position.

It all begins with a meeting between the writer Paul Javal, who was previously only a crime writer, with the producer of a stalled film project in Cinecittà . The producer is dissatisfied with the implementation of the Odysseus material by Fritz Lang (playing himself) and asks Paul Javal to rework some scenes. He finally agrees and is to receive the stately sum of ten thousand dollars for the development of a new script.

Then his wife Camille also appears in the film city. The producer invites them to his house for a drink and asks Camille to come with him. The first irritations arise between the spouses. Only one person should be able to ride in the convertible, so that the situation, which is uncomfortable for Camille, is that she drives alone with the producer, while Paul stays behind with the assistant and then follows with a taxi.

His late arrival at the producer's house fuel the tension between the couple. Paul also flirts with the assistant in the presence of Camille. The meeting ends with an invitation to both of them to Capri , where they are supposed to witness the filming of the Ulysses film.

This is followed by a long-lasting sequence in the Javals' half-finished condominium, in which the two discuss their relationship, swear their love to each other, only to give it up shortly afterwards, get dressed and undressed, bathe, hit each other and reconcile again. There are scenes of an ambivalent marriage that also have something tragicomic about them. In particular, the recurring question of whether the trip to Capri should be started and if so, alone or in pairs provides a fuel for ignition.

The question is not fully discussed and yet answered, because the sequence is followed by a stay on Capri. Both are present at the shooting. Again the situation is similar to that in Cinecittà: the producer asks Camille to leave the film set with him and go ahead. Again Camille is shy and again Paul urges her to follow her own wish - whatever it may be.

After an uproar between the producer and Paul, who believes he is in the clutches of the commercial film industry and suddenly refuses to write the script, Camille leaves Paul and informs him in a suicide note that she has left for Rome with the producer. Both of them die in a car accident when the producer drives his Alfa Romeo right between a tank truck and its trailer after a great start from a petrol station - spurred on by Camille's words, "Get into your Alfa, Romeo, and we'll see" ( Translated from the French original). The last shot shows Fritz Lang filming Odysseus on the roof terrace of Villa Malaparte on Capri after Paul said goodbye.

criticism

"On the plot level, it is a simple, almost unimportant film, which reveals its staging richness in a multitude of quotations and allusions, duplications and refractions and thus becomes a fascinating document of tireless (self-) reflection."

- Lexicon of international film

“A film about the film. The external events are counterpointed by reflections during the filming of the Odyssey. An intellectually very demanding work, whose cool beauty will only appeal to a small group. It is also recommended to this [...] to visit. "

- Protestant film observer

background

Casa Malaparte on Capri

At the behest of the producer, who was worried about the box office results, Godard had to re-shoot some nude photos of Brigitte Bardot. Strangely, these post-shot scenes, which have their very own aesthetic, function as flashbacks and revolve around an - apparently - banal, teasing dialogue, which is charged with meaning through the slowness, the subdued light and the tragic music and thus becomes the most famous scene of the entire film was. “Tu les trouves jolies, mes fesses? ... Et mes seins, tu les aimes? ... Qu'est-ce que tu préfères: mes his ou la pointe de mes his? ... “, Camille (Bardot) asks her husband, while she lies on her stomach, completely naked, on the bed (German: Do you think my buttocks are pretty? ... And what about my breasts, do you like them? ... What do you have you prefer: the whole breast or the tips of my breasts? ...) This series of questions, which gradually touches almost all parts of her body, seems to be addressed not only to the husband, but also to the film producers who Exploiting the nakedness of the female body for their own ends. During the filming, the real producers acted more and more like the character that Jack Palance embodies in the film - after all, their main interest was in the nude scenes. Even so, the film later had only moderate box office success.

Parts of the film were shot on and in the famous villa of the German-Italian writer Curzio Malaparte in Capri . The film is also considered a homage to Fritz Lang and the avant-garde architecture of the Casa Malaparte . Still images from the film were used for the official movie poster of the 69th Cannes International Film Festival in 2016 .

literature

Web links

Wikiquote: The Contempt  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The contempt. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 54/1965.