Analysis of The Film Contempt by Jean Luc Godard

The film deals with two problems. First is film making in particular and cinema in general. Second the problems of a couple and the dissolution of the marriage. Godard is considered one of the most important directors of the French new wave or (La nouvelle Vague) and that is true for a number of reasons:

1. He is the most productive of all new wave directors
2. He is the most experimental of all new wave directors trying new genres new techniques new formats even mixing different genres
3. He is the most theoretical or verbal constantly giving interviews writing and making provocations about his view of the cinema.

The sequence to be analyzed in this presentation is from the opening of the film.

Analysis of a Sequence

Although contempt is an adaptation of Alberto Moravia’s Il dessprezzo the opening sequence shows us all the things that film can do and literature cannot do.

We notice that the credits are spoken not written which is a very uncommon practice in feature film drawing attention to the activities involved in film making George Delerue wrote the music William civil recorded the sound DOP Raoul Coutard and so on.

This innovation typifies Godard’s approach which emphasizes questioning of all the conventions of Cinema even the most trivial such as the credit should always be written not spoken. The first shot shows us part of the most famous studio in the world Cinecitta in Rome that was founded by fascist in the late 1930s under Mousseline, directors like Rossellini and Fellini nade their Debuts there.

Staging and Camera Techniques

A small number of human figures and a camera progress towards us from the depth of space. Camera arriving on tracks calling attention to a technique known by (tracking shot) that is frequently used by the film. While the actual camera in action is in a static mode while the subject is dolling in and we notice a slight right panning as well tilting up. And the same time while Raoul Coutard the famous cinematographer responsible for films such as Breathless and Jules and Jim is checking the light theatre and rolling the camera towards us while we hear simultaneously the famous quotation of Andre Bazin (le cinema substitut a notre regard un monde qui s’accord a nos desire) the cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires. Here the Bazin quotation is so important and interesting as it makes to claims:

1. The cinema is about desire
2. And also, that contempt is a film about that world the world of cinema and its link to the world of desire.

Jean luc Godard calls attention to our desire as the spectators which prepares the sequence we are about to see which involves a bedroom and nudity. As for the technical transition, we notice the framing of the bedroom scene and the camera angle that we see on screen as being the camera in the next scene. Here we are introduced to the two main characters in the film Paul played by Michel Picolli and Camille played by Brigitte Bardot. The dialogue begins in the middle of thinks Camille responding to a question that we have not heard the is Godard’s provocative habits by making the viewer work as in engaging the spectators by making them think whether by forcing us to fill in with our imagination the missing part of the dialogue and or in other situations by making the characters whisper.

Content of the Dialogue

The two motionless lovers mingle shopping less trivialities with oddly dispassionate declarations of love. This Ezekiel’s bones approach to female nakedness sends a mocking message to both producers and spectators as if Godard is saying: if it is nudity you want here it is words. It is worth mentioning here that this scene was added after pressure from the producers who wanted to see more nudity from B.B So, this shot come to satisfy the desire mentioned in the Bazin quotation at the beginning, and Godard gives in to the pressure from the producers and it was the first time in his career but he did it in a way that undercuts the producers’ intensions/expectations. In other words, here and elsewhere in the film Godard desexualizes Bardot’s body making her more a lifeless statue than the sex kitten we tend to know her as.

Colors

Godard uses filter to render the image alternatively red white and blue as well as the symbolic reference of the colors that we will talk about Godard underlying statement to reminds of the mediations of the cinema that is all the technical elements and devices that filters reality and separate cinema from real life.

As for the symbolic part of the colors they both reference the colors of the French and American flags drawing attention to the joined production or the two countries involved in the production that are represented by the French producer Carlo Pointi and the American Joseph Levin. And the tensions deriving from such joint coproduction. More on the colors serving the story the red is known as passion and desire as the film show all this elements the passion in both cinema and life as well as the white which forms reality and truth whether it is about cinema as Godard see it or the truth in a relationship and of course the blue of coldness that leads to contempt and sadness in such situation and the director's comments on cinema and special the dying part of it at that time as he intentionally films Cinecitta studios deserted and lifeless as it was the dead era in the Italian cinema and the cinema in general according to Godard.

Positioning the Scene

The erotic love scene is positioned way at the start where usually in classically erotic films love scenes comes as a combination of a crescendo of shrewdly stimulated desire an explosion after a long-repressed chase here it occurs in advance of any involvements on our part Michel Picolli has not yet become Paul and Brigitte Bardot has not yet become Camille we don’t yet care about them as characters as if narrative orgasm were made to proceed foreplay.

As for the camera movement, we notice the very slight or slow pace in tracking as if we cut to a close-up without noticing the time a long shot that takes us on a journey from wide to medium to close up and even extreme.

In the next sequence, we will be introduced to an important new character the producer Prokosh played by Jack Palance as well as his secretary and translator Francisca played by Georgia Moll. Before meeting Prokosh we have an indication in the crisis of the industry as the studios are deserted and we learn from Francesca that Prokosh fired everyone. And throughout of the film we don’t see much of effervescent cinematic activity. A long lateral right-left Tracking shot leads us to Prokosh the producer who is presented to us under the sign of theatre literally since we read Theatro N.6 above his head With his theatrical voice he declaims ONLY YESTERDAY THEY WERE KINGS HERE.