Le Mépris, 15Selected Cinemas
Has there ever been a satire more bewitching, a disintegrating relationship more captivating, and a film as beautiful as it is intelligent? Jean-Luc Godard's masterpiece,
Le Mépris (Contempt) is as relevant today as it was in 1963 and
the BFI re-release, which is in selected cinemas now and heralds a Godard season on the South Bank, brings much-needed colour and sensuality to this drabbest of months.
It reminds us, too, of Godard's unique ability to use imagery, even more than words, to fashion a story that reveals as much about his own sensibilities as it does the prejudices of his audience.
Le Mépris centres on an aloof Parisian scriptwriter (Michel Piccoli) who is summoned to a crumbling Rome by a tyrannical American film producer (a terrific Jack Palance) who wants more bang for his bucks.
The film he's invested in heavily, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey, is being directed by a confrontational Fritz Lang (playing himself) who refuses to bow to Palance's baser whims (he wants more mermaids, less gods) and abandon his classical ideals for a more populist tone. Thus, the young idealist is torn between two veterans he admires - one for his principles, the other for his pocket.
The screenwriter's moral struggle is mirrored by the floundering relationship he has with his new wife, Brigitte Bardot.
She spends a remarkable amount of time in this film naked, apparently at the behest of Godard's producers - the art-imitating-life-imitating-art struggle at the heart of this picture.
Bardot regards Piccoli with contempt for flirting between the two while apparently allowing Palance to make moves on her.
In fact, all four are contemptuous of each other and Godard revels in manipulating the audience to see each with sympathy, contempt and then back again. All of it viewed through the unreal prism of a myth-making movie set in which nothing is real and everyone is as shallow as the next person.
Perhaps the most intriguing of Godard's allegories lies in the film's beauty. It is ravishing to look at, the colours so vivid, yet the key sets are faded around the edges, as if at the mercy of the elements. The Gods, even.
Everything man-made - and that includes Bardot - looks alluring only on the surface, its impermanence echoing Godard's central conceit that vanity dooms our efforts to connect meaningfully and truthfully with each other. You don't get that in a galaxy far, far away…