Screenwriter Paul Javal’s marriage to his wife Camille disintegrates during movie production as she spends time with the producer. Layered conflicts between art and business ensue.
Sixty years on, “Contempt,” by the politically and artistically radical auteur Jean-Luc Godar, is an alluring exercise in cinematic expression. Pulled from the embodiment of Greek Literature, ‘The Odyssey,’ his tragic couple navigates the dissolution of their marriage amidst Godard’s critique of Western culture and its ceaseless arrogance. The screenplay unfolds in a meta-dramatic way, which is nothing short of sublime once you tune into its languid frequency. While the two lovers do not reenact ‘The Odyssey’s story of Odysseus and Penelope, they are nonetheless destined for tragedy. While calling attention to his own life, in “Contempt,” Godard shows us an artist’s vision perverted by a sleazy Hollywood producer who wants to change the former’s interpretation, turning it into a cheap commercial picture.
This would be his only foray into a big-budget production, and although “Contempt” was critically and financially successful, Godard never returned to this scale of filmmaking. In the 1960s to here, the French Filmmaker set his on sights on the once Golden Age of Hollywood. He also wished to channel his frustration with the two producers attached to Contempt in a cinematically cathartic manner.
His story centers on Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), a playwright tasked with rewriting the Greek classic to suit producer Jeremy’s (Jack Palance) endless demands. When Paul’s art is not being undermined, he fights, cuddles, and cucks his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot). He resembles a hairy Minotaur when naked, quite the opposite of the statuesque Camille. Over time, Jeremy captures Paul in his labyrinth of deception and distractions.
To make matters even more meta, the Wunderbar Fritz Lang plays himself as the film’s director within the film. Resembling “Contempt’s” oracle, Lang regularly offers witty quips full of artistic and philosophical wisdom. Furthermore, the prolific German director was nearly blind while filming.
Jack Palance, who will always be one of Hollywood and Spaghetti Westerns’ top-notch villains, is a tad over the top here. Godard lets him be unleashed dramatically to a fault, and his performance chews up a bit more than he can handle at times. As Jeremy, he prefers zipping around in his red convertible instead of walking around the primarily short distances on the film’s set. Occasionally, Jeremy fervently reads aloud from his Little Red Book. Marking a prolonged period when Gondry loved espousing Maoism, most notably in “Le Chinoise.”
About midway through, an argument between Paul and Camille stretches on for over 30 minutes. It is undeniably impressive but a tad grating while seated in a theater. But after being trapped in the pitfalls of an epic argument, the finale showcases a remarkable villa in Capri akin to ascending Mount Olympus. Godard shot in CinemaScope, and the resulting cinematography wonderfully stretches and rounds out edges on screen. Although in “Contempt,” Lang admonishes the anamorphic lens used to increase audience engagement, Cinemoscope does add a sense of boundless depth to the frame.
The usually more kinetic filmmaker slowly, almost clinically observes the breakdown of an ambitious artist, an abusive producer, and a downslope of marriage in ” Contempt. ” This is the man who invented the jump cut for his “Breathless” in 1960. But “Contempt’s” fateful finale still hits hard. As is common with these Faustian-Greek tragic elements, it all ends in tears.
Surprisingly, there is awareness and commentary on misogyny, where powerful men use women, whether casually or violently. Reflecting on 60 years of countless producers and filmmakers bastardizing the classics and torturing underlings, not many captured the exploitation of art like Godard. His question for film lovers is ponderous: What happens when villains co-opt our heroic tales?
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