Jean Luc Godards best film starts as some of the best things in this world started out - with a naked Brigitte Bardot lying on a bed.Actually, the film starts even more daring than that - while a voice reads the credits for the film, a woman slowly walks down a road, accompanied by a camera on tracks. With this small collage, Godard re-invents his approach to cinema considerably: while he's used breaking of the fourth wall before, this time around he approaches a biographical story as a film-within-a-film experiment, fully embracing a post-modern approach that, in 1962, still seemed fresh and daring.
As the audience takes in the scene, it is unclear whether Godard is showing us the process of filmmaking, or just documents his making of Le Mépris: if we gaze into a mirror or if Godard has us gaze into a mirror that in return shows another mirror.
And as Godard moves on, we are witness to Bardot's naked body on sheets, next to her husband - her body entirely in red. The dialogue (partially drowned out by the rising soundtrack) concerns the woman's insecurities: her inability to love her own features, and the rising hate directed towards her husband (who, in consequence, must also hate her, if she is incapable of loving herself). As the dialogue goes on, Godard switches the color lenses - suddenly, the red color is gone, and Bardot's body can be seen in natura... only to have it obscured by a dark shade of blue moments later.
Why exactly Godard has chosen the "french flag" as superimposed color filters for this scene remains a mystery, but one can conclude that Bardot - the french nations symbol of their sexual freedom - is sort of "inverted" here: she no longer is as sexy as she is an everyday girl, ripe with insecurities and self-loathing. If this approach is taken, the overall theme of self-loathing can be applied to anything: the man who lies next to his wife is a cynic, who seems disinterested in the very fundament his life is built upon.
In consequence, the story of the film concerns the director and writer Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) and his wife (Bardot) - a barely concealed re-imagination of Godard and Anna Karina (guess what sort of a wig Bardot puts on halfway through the film).
Javal is hired by an american producer Prokosch (Jack Palance) to perfect the script for a troubled production on Odysseus, directed by Fritz Lang (who plays himself, essentially).
While Javal is hardly interested in the material, and obviously prefers Lang's arthouse version of the script to what Prokosch envisions, he sticks around for the production and follows the troubled german and arrogant american (who, whenever Javal starts a discussion on the liberties of true art, picks up a small book, out of which he recites quotes by others - of course completely out of context and void of any understanding). Cold and rational, Javal doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that the producer obviously tries to vow his wife - an affront to the same, who takes the ignorance on the side of her husband as a sign of their deteriorating emotions towards each other, and causes a rift that, as the film progresses, cracks further open, finally reaching a climax when the two are brought by Prokosch to his seaside villa, where Odysseus is to be shot.
The production seems to have been a troubling one - the (american) producers were apparently unhappy with the film, to the point where the producer insisted on having nude scenes of Bardot in the film because he apparently did not know how to sell a film he "hated". Godard was forced to use Cinemascope, but reportedly hated the entire ordeal of shooting the film. Lang was, by this point, almost blind. Bardot was chased by Paparazzi, who had to be fended off in-between takes (which concluded in a short documentary by Godard shot on-set), and Godard was apparently unhappy with her "unnatural" (read emotional) portrayal of her character, causing rifts, which seemingly caused Bardot herself to become depressed (it is very important to note that Godard worked with her again though, casting her in a small role for Masculin, Feminin, indicating the two did get along better than the press led viewers to believe).
So all in all, the shoot was a complete mess!! But of all these problems don't interfere in the slightest - the structure and narrative are exceptional and experimental, Bardot certainly performs one of her finest characters and the resulting film sucks the audience in like no other work of the french director (or any other film that has been made). Maybe the reason why Godard hated making it so much was not just due to the trouble with the producers, but also because the film does portray something alien to his work both before and after - a personal, individual point of view that is highly autobiographical, instead of a social or political thesis.
What makes Le Mépris such an utter joy to watch is not just Godard's approach to post modernism, Bardot's lovely face or Lang's enlightening comments on filmmaking ("Cinemascope is only good for snakes and coffins.") - it's the utter joy with which Godard takes apart each and everything that is dear to him and beautiful for the viewer. We see small glimpses of Lang's film, a visionary, poetic and experimental feature, only for it to be torn to shreds by its unsympathetic producer. We see Bardot walk around with, mostly, nothing on her skin, but she radiates an aura of hate and loathing. Nothing is safe from Godard - not filmmaking, not his idols, not the audience and definitely not his own marriage.
There are hundreds of nuances to be discussed, from the more than 30-minute long fight of the couple to the mirroring remarks of Lang and the producer, the philosophy of filmmaking and the de-mystification of relationships - but all the analyzing and theorizing is nothing against the sheer power of the film. A masterpiece!
FINAL VERDICT: 10/10 - a masterpiece, must be seen!
No comments:
Post a Comment