Contempt
a.k.a. Le Mépris
Director:
Jean-Luc Godard
Cast:
Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang
DVD - Wide Screen Learn more
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- DVD Release Date: 12/10/2002
- Original Release: 1963
- Rating:
- Sales Rank: 5,775
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| Blu-ray - Special Edition / Subtitled / Special Packaging | $25.59 |
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Features
Audio commentary by film scholar Robert Stam; Two short documentaries featuring Godard on the set of "Contempt"; "The Dinosaur and the Baby": a 1967 conversation between Jean-Luc Godard and Fritz Lang; New video interview with cinematographer Raoul Coutard; Excerpt from an interview between Francois Chalais and Jean-Luc Godard about "Contempt"; Theatrical trailer
Full Product DetailsScene Index
Side #1 -- Disc One
1. Overture [2:49]
2. The Bedroom [3:15]
3. Paul Meets Prokosch [5:11]
4. The Projection Room [13:57]
5. Prokosch's Villa [12:37]
6. The Apartment [14:28]
7. An Audition [16:30]
8. To Capri [7:12]
9. Discussing The Odyssey [3:28]
10. Paul Reacts [5:29]
11. The Accident [12:41]
12. "Silencio" [2:33]
1. A Film About Filmmaking [2:49]
2. Defused Titillation [3:15]
3. A Crisis in Cinema [5:11]
4. Artistic Prostitution [13:57]
5. Paul & Camille [12:37]
6. The Death of a Couple [14:28]
7. The Influence of Brecht [16:30]
8. Rewriting the Epic [7:12]
9. Different Views on Homer [3:28]
10. Killing the Suitors [5:29]
11. Emphasizing the Improbable [12:41]
12. Silence [2:33]
Side #2 -- Disc Two
1. What Is a Director? [7:34]
2. On Being a Romantic [4:26]
3. Youth [8:15]
4. Censorship [9:48]
5. Would You Direct Again? [3:13]
6. Differences in Method [3:01]
7. Mise-en-Scène [10:34]
8. Why Make a Film Today? [10:53]
9. Epilogue [2:23]
1. Beginnings [2:59]
2. Challenges [14:19]
3. Actors [5:56]
4. Coda [3:13]
Editorial Reviews
Few French New Wave filmmakers had the opportunity Jean-Luc Godard enjoyed with Contempt -- to make a color, Cinemascope film starring Brigitte Bardot. But when the first cut was delivered, American producer Joseph E. Levine demanded that nudity be added. Godard, ever the iconoclast, inserted a shot scanning the French starlet's bare body, plus some bizarre, color-changing cuts. It wasn't a move to arouse audiences as much as to get commercial obligations out of the way -- which is right in line with the story of the film. Michel Piccoli stars as Paul Pavel, a writer who resentfully sells out with his screen adaptation of Homer's Odyssey. Jack Palance plays Jerry Prokosch, the ugly-American producer in charge, who also horns in on Pavel's bored wife Camille (Bardot) as part of this bargain for fame. (It's no coincidence that Godard was not on good terms with Levine.) Palance plays his part so sleazily well that you might believe the actor wasn't in on the joke, and Bardot does more to prove herself as an actress than tarnish her sex-kitten image. Through all this, Contempt carries a mournful tone, the gradual dissolution of Pavel and Camille's marriage paralleling the troubled production. For Godard, the film is also a bereavement for his real-life parting with actress Anna Karina (Bardot at one point dons a Karina-like black wig), as well as a sad nostalgia for a bygone era of cinema, embodied in the aged, subservient director of Pavel's Odyssey, Fritz Lang (who appears as himself). As movies-about-making-movies go, this is Godard through and through, from its impulsive structuralism to its bitter, contemptuous humor. Tony Nigro, Barnes & Noble
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