I'll admit to being someone who has struggled with the work of Jean Luc Godard over the decades, having a preference for Godard (and Nouvelle Vague) contemporaries Louis Malle (particularly), Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer. I came to 'serious' film-watching in the late 70s-early 80s and so was confronted with (contemporary Godard film-wise) the likes of Sauve qui peut (being a big Isabelle Huppert fan) and Prénom Carmen, plus the odd visit to the NFT in London to see films like Alphaville and Two or Three Things I Know About Her, leaving me none-the-wiser. Latterly, I did get more into À bout de souffle and Vivre sa vie, but recent viewings of his (admittedly rather more 'commercial/conventional') 1963 film Le Mepris (based on the Alberto Moravia novel Il Disprezzo) have impressed me the most. Not only does noted cinematographer Raoul Coutard's camera make Le Mepris beautiful to look at - particularly the later Capri-set scenes - but the film's tale of couple, Brigette Bardot's (predictably) stunningly beautiful Camilla and Michel Piccoli's temperamental playwright, Paul, re-evaluating their relationship in the midst of a Cinecittà-Rome-set satire on film-making, convinces in human terms as effectively as anything I have seen by Godard.
Godard seems to have gone very much against the grain (or, at least, his own personal 'grain'), presumably in an attempt to get under the skin of a 'film (and Hollywood) satire', by casting 'stars' (or, at least, cinematic 'big names') with Bardot, Jack Palance, as the crass and domineering film producer, Jeremiah Prokosch, and Fritz Lang (a 'hero' of the director, purportedly) as himself, the Prokosch-Lang pairing (in the film) working, with Paul delivering the script, on a screen version of Homer's Odyssey. (The mind boggles as to how the film might have turned out had some of the originally suggested casting for the Piccoli-Bardot pairing come to fruition - Frank Sinatra, Marcello Mastroianni, Kin Novak, Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti). The satire on cinema (Hollywood) effectively works on the basis of the Prokosch character's lack of sophistication, with the 'mogul' (expectantly) preying on Camille and disagreeing over interpretation with Lang - Godard seemingly hinting at potential 'Hollywood interpretation problems' by having Prokosch's assistant, Giorgia Moll's Francesca, repeatedly having to translate between English and French. The heart of the film for me, though, is found in the disintegrating Camille-Paul relationship, particularly during their impressive, extended (25 minute) apartment scene, during which Coutard excels in depicting (using physical space) the pair's increasingly distanced outlooks and during which Bardot convinces with her building resentment at being used (effectively) as a pawn in Proksch and Paul's game of wills.
The principal 'surprise', therefore, for me is the quality and conviction of Bardot's turn here. Less surprising, of course, is the actress' sheer physical beauty, highlighted perhaps most famously in the nude scene with Paul (added post-production at the request of the film's producers) in which she invites and he responds in praising the various parts of her body (even if it is difficult, admittedly, to get the Fast Show spoof of this scene out of one's mind!). In the end, I would not (as did Sight & Sound critic Colin MacCabe (to be fair, even as a regular S&S reader I'd never heard of MacCabe!)) rate the film as, 'the greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe', but it remains (at least) the best thing I've seen from its creator.
Godard seems to have gone very much against the grain (or, at least, his own personal 'grain'), presumably in an attempt to get under the skin of a 'film (and Hollywood) satire', by casting 'stars' (or, at least, cinematic 'big names') with Bardot, Jack Palance, as the crass and domineering film producer, Jeremiah Prokosch, and Fritz Lang (a 'hero' of the director, purportedly) as himself, the Prokosch-Lang pairing (in the film) working, with Paul delivering the script, on a screen version of Homer's Odyssey. (The mind boggles as to how the film might have turned out had some of the originally suggested casting for the Piccoli-Bardot pairing come to fruition - Frank Sinatra, Marcello Mastroianni, Kin Novak, Sophia Loren, Monica Vitti). The satire on cinema (Hollywood) effectively works on the basis of the Prokosch character's lack of sophistication, with the 'mogul' (expectantly) preying on Camille and disagreeing over interpretation with Lang - Godard seemingly hinting at potential 'Hollywood interpretation problems' by having Prokosch's assistant, Giorgia Moll's Francesca, repeatedly having to translate between English and French. The heart of the film for me, though, is found in the disintegrating Camille-Paul relationship, particularly during their impressive, extended (25 minute) apartment scene, during which Coutard excels in depicting (using physical space) the pair's increasingly distanced outlooks and during which Bardot convinces with her building resentment at being used (effectively) as a pawn in Proksch and Paul's game of wills.
The principal 'surprise', therefore, for me is the quality and conviction of Bardot's turn here. Less surprising, of course, is the actress' sheer physical beauty, highlighted perhaps most famously in the nude scene with Paul (added post-production at the request of the film's producers) in which she invites and he responds in praising the various parts of her body (even if it is difficult, admittedly, to get the Fast Show spoof of this scene out of one's mind!). In the end, I would not (as did Sight & Sound critic Colin MacCabe (to be fair, even as a regular S&S reader I'd never heard of MacCabe!)) rate the film as, 'the greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe', but it remains (at least) the best thing I've seen from its creator.
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