Contempt (film)

Contempt (film)
Contempt

original film poster
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Produced by Carlo Ponti
Georges de Beauregard
Joseph E. Levine
Written by Alberto Moravia (novel)
Jean-Luc Godard
Starring Brigitte Bardot
Michel Piccoli
Jack Palance
Giorgia Moll
Fritz Lang
Music by Georges Delerue
(French and US release)
Piero Piccioni
(Italian release)
Cinematography Raoul Coutard
Editing by Agnès Guillemot
Lila Lakshmanan
Distributed by Embassy Pictures (US)
Release date(s) October 29, 1963 (Italy)
20 December 1963 (France)
October 1964 (US ltd))
18 December (US wide)
Running time 103 minutes
Language French, English, German, Italian
Budget $900,000 (est.)

Contempt (French: Le Mépris) is a 1963 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, based on the Italian novel Il disprezzo (1954) by Alberto Moravia. It stars Brigitte Bardot.

Contents

Plot

American film producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) hires respected Austrian director Fritz Lang (playing himself) to direct a film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. Dissatisfied with Lang's treatment of the material as an art film, Prokosch hires Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), a novelist and playwright, to rework the script. The conflict between artistic expression and commercial opportunity parallels Paul's sudden estrangement from his wife Camille Javal (Brigitte Bardot), who becomes aloof with Paul after being left alone with Prokosch, a millionaire playboy.

While founded on Alberto Moravia's story of the progressive estrangement between a husband and wife, Godard's version also contains deliberate parallels with aspects of his own life: while Paul, Camille, and Prokosch correspond to Ulysses, Penelope, and Poseidon, respectively, they also correspond in some ways with Godard, his wife Anna Karina (his choice of female lead), and Joseph E. Levine, the film's distributor. At one point, Bardot dons a black wig which gives her a resemblance to Karina. Michel Piccoli also bears some resemblance to Brigitte Bardot's ex-husband and Svengali, the filmmaker Roger Vadim.

Also notable in the film is a discussion of Dante – particularly Canto XXVI of Inferno, about Ulysses' last fatal voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules to the other side of the world – and Friedrich Hölderlin's poem, "Dichterberuf" ("The Poet's Vocation").

Production

Italian film producer Carlo Ponti approached Jean Luc Godard to discuss a possible collaboration; Godard suggested an adaptation of Moravia's novel Il disprezzo (originally translated into English with the title A Ghost at Noon) in which he saw Kim Novak and Frank Sinatra as the leads; they refused. Ponti suggested Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, whom Godard refused. Finally, Bardot was chosen, because of the producer's insistence that the profits might be increased by displaying her famously sensual body. This provided the film's opening scene, filmed by Godard as a typical mockery of the cinema business with tame nudity. The scene was shot after Godard considered the film finished, at the insistence of the American co-producers. In the film, Godard cast himself as Lang's assistant director, and characteristically has Lang expound many of Godard's New Wave theories and opinions. Godard also employed the two "forgotten" New Wave filmmakers, Luc Moullet and Jacques Rozier, on the film. Bardot visibly reads a book about Fritz Lang that was written by Moullet, and Rozier made the documentary short about the making of the film, Le Parti Des Choses.

Contempt was filmed in and occurs entirely in Italy, with location shooting at the Cinecittà studios in Rome and the Casa Malaparte on Capri island. In a notable sequence, the characters played by Piccoli and Bardot wander through their apartment alternately arguing and reconciling. Godard filmed the scene as an extended series of tracking shots, in natural light and in near real-time. The cinematographer, Raoul Coutard, shot some of the seminal films of the Nouvelle Vague, including Godard's Breathless.

Releases

The French, Italian and American theatrical releases differed significantly. The French release was multilingual (French, English, Italian and German), while the American and Italian releases were entirely dubbed into English and Italian, respectively. The French and American releases differ only slightly in editing, but the Italian version is significantly shorter (only 82 minutes) and, instead of George Delerue's original, haunting musical score, features a very different light jazz score written by Piero Piccioni.

Most DVD releases of the film now use the multilingual French release.

Reception

One of the most notable blurbs about the film: Sight & Sound critic Colin MacCabe called Contempt "the greatest work of art produced in postwar Europe."[1]

Antoine de Gaudemar made a 1-hour documentary in 2009 about Contempt, Il était une fois... Le Mépris (A Film and its Era: Contempt)[2] which incorporated footage from Jacques Rozier's earlier documentaries Paparazzi (1963), Le Parti Des Choses (1964), and André S. Labarthe's Le dinosaure et le bébé (1967).[3]

Notes

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Contempt (disambiguation) — Contempt is an intense feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless. Contempt or contemptible may also refer to: Contempt (album), a 1999 EBM album by Assemblage 23 Contempt (film), a 1963 drama film… …   Wikipedia

  • Election (1999 film) — Infobox Film name = Election caption = Theatrical poster director = Alexander Payne producer = David Gale writer = Tom Perrotta (novel) Alexander Payne Jim Taylor (screenplay) starring = Reese Witherspoon Matthew Broderick Chris Klein Jessica… …   Wikipedia

  • Ashes to Ashes (film) — Infobox Film name = Ashes to Ashes caption = Ashes to Ashes DVD cover director = Wayne Gerard Trotman runtime = 90 minutes imdb id = 0484325| Ashes to Ashes is a 1999 action film by British independent filmmaker Wayne Gerard Trotman. The… …   Wikipedia

  • Times of Contempt —   Author(s) Andrzej Sapkowski Original title Czas pogardy …   Wikipedia

  • Casino (film) — Infobox Film name =Casino caption = Theatrical movie poster amg id = 1:135453 imdb id =112641 writer =Nicholas Pileggi Martin Scorsese narrator =Robert De Niro Joe Pesci Frank Vincent starring =Robert De Niro Joe Pesci Sharon Stone Frank Vincent… …   Wikipedia

  • Nothing but the Truth (2008 film) — Nothing but the Truth Original poster Directed by Rod Lurie Produced by …   Wikipedia

  • List of years in film — This list of years in film indexes the individual year in film pages. Each year is annotated with the significant events as a reference point. NOTOC *19th century in film *20th century in film: **1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s… …   Wikipedia

  • Changeling (film) — This article is about the 2008 film directed by Clint Eastwood. For the 1980 film, see The Changeling (film). Changeling …   Wikipedia

  • Documentary film — Documentary redirects here. For other uses, see Documentary (disambiguation). This 16 mm spring wound Bolex H16 Reflex camera is a popular entry level camera used in film schools. Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional… …   Wikipedia

  • Patterson-Gimlin film — Frame 352 from the film, alleged to depict a female[citation needed] Bigfoot mid stride. The Patterson Gimlin film (also referred to as simply the Patterson film) is a famous short motion picture of an unidentified subject the film makers… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”