Summary
Paul Javal is a former detective novel writer who is engaged by the film producer Jeremy
Prokosch to re-write a film about Homer’s Odyssey. Prokosch is at odds with
his director, Fritz Lang, who wants to capture the glory and realism of Greek antiquity,
whilst Prokosch is after a film that will simply make big bucks. Javal agrees to
take on the work but soon discovers that his wife, Camille, has begun to despise him for
his lack of conviction. Javal saw himself as a great play writer and now he has
succumbed to the attraction of Prokosch’s chequebook. Should he choose between
his failing marriage or his new job - or is it too late to decide?
Review
On the surface, this is probably Jean-Luc Godard’s most conventional film, with expensive
location work, a large cast with some star names. Conspicuous by their absence are
the cynical intellectual humour, the harsh editing, the over-use of jump cutting, and
much of Godard's other stylish devices. Yet the film is as subversive and as reactionary
as any which Godard directed – except here he achieves that aim within the parameters
of what is an ostensibly conventional film.
Based on a novel by Alberto Moravia (A Ghost at Noon), Le Mépris explores
the conflicting interests of a film producer, director and writer. This is set against
the disintegrating marriage of the film’s writer. Cleverly, the film being made
(The Odyssey) parallels the lives of the main protagonists in the story – Javal
is Odysseus, his wife is Penelope and the producer Prokosch is Odysseus’ rival, Poseidon.
These different overlaying strands give the film great depth and heighten the sense of
tragedy which is unfolding in the lives of Javal and Camille.
Of the lead actors, Brigitte Bardot is the one that is best used by Godard.
Even in scenes where the dialogue is split equally between her and her co-star, Michel
Piccoli, it is on her that the camera lingers, longingly. However, here, unlike
in so many lesser films, the intention is not purely exploitative. Far from being
cheap pornography, Raould Coutard’s photography of Bardot is sublimely artistic and genuinely
beautiful. With Georges Delerue’s haunting and evocative musical score the overall
effect is deeply moving, prefacing the Greek tragedy that is to come. Towards the
end, the sense of beauty is captured and conveyed so vividly that it almost hurts to watch
it. Bardot, Coutard and Godard make a marvellously inspired trio. The stark
realism of Bardot's performance in this film led one journalist (possibly encouraged
by Godard) to promulgate one of cinema's greatest myths - that the actress's real name
was in fact Camille Javal.
Beneath the surface, Godard’s dissatisfaction with the conventions of film-making are
all to apparent. Aside from the far from subtle in-jokes about chequebooks and mermaids,
Godard attacks the shallowness and opportunism that besets so much of modern film making.
The virtues of honest expressionism and artistic integrity are all too willingly sacrificed
in the pursuit of box office receipts and short term fame. That Godard manages to
pull this off so successfully in a film that appears, on the surface, to contradict his
thesis, is a sign of great courage and unfaltering genius.
© James Travers 1999
For further information see:
Dennis
Grunes essay
For more on Jean-Luc Godard see:
The life of Jean-Luc Godard
Best of the French New Wave
A bout de souffle
Vivre sa vie
Alphaville
Masculin, féminin
Le Mépris
Pierrot le fou
Eloge de l'amour
Buy films by Jean-Luc Godard
Buy films starring Jean-Paul Belmondo
More about the French New Wave
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