Le mépris (1963)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writer:

Alberto Moravia (novel)

Release Date:

18 December 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Bardot at her bold, bare and brazen best! Reveling in Rome, cavorting in Capri...jolting even the jaded international jet-set in her pursuit of love! [UK Theatrical]

Plot:

Paul Javal is a writer who is hired to make a script for a new movie about Ulysses more commercial,...

Plot Keywords:

Fritz Lang | Apartment | Marriage | American | Italy

Cast

Brigitte Bardot	...	Camille Javal
Michel Piccoli	...	Paul Javal
Jack Palance	...	Jeremy Prokosch
Giorgia Moll	...	Francesca Vanini
Fritz Lang	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Contempt (USA)
Il disprezzo (Italy)

Runtime:

103 min | Finland:97 min | USA:102 min | Italy:82 min (re-edited version) (cut)

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French | English | German | Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Brazil:16 | Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:6 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | West Germany:16 | UK:AA (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Isle of Capri, Naples, Campania, Italy

Company:

Les Films Concordia

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: While the camera follows Paul and Camille around their apartment, its shadow can be seen on a nearby wall for a few seconds.

Quotes:

Jerry Prokosch: I like gods. I like them very much. I know exactly how they feel - exactly.
Fritz Lang: Jerry, don't forget. The gods have not created man. Man has created gods.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2003)

Possibly the most boring movie ever made.

Don't let the hype frighten you into thinking this flick is over your head. I know it's supposed to be multi-layered and beautifully complex, but it's really just a big fat bore. Godard's arrogant, meandering story is repetitive, static and brimming with stupid dialogue. Take, for example, the famous thirty minute conversation between Bardot and her screenwriter hubbie, an exercise in tedium that is hard to rival in French cinema (and that's saying a lot). Devoid of human warmth or genuine characterizations, Godard's movie is peopled with cardboard stand-ins for archetypes. His story, cribbed in part from Homer's much more entertaining THE ODYSSEY, is so slow as to be unnoticeable and is peppered with annoying references to classic Hollywood cinema that only serve to illustrate how superficial Godard's skills are compared with the directors he admires. It is a telling fact that the sole entertaining moments in the movie come from Jack Palance's portrayel of a gauche, lowbrow movie producer in search of a fresh approach to his stalled ODYSSEY project. The rest of the film is held at bay by poker-faced Frenchmen and ad nauseum appearances of Bridget Bardot's ass. This is a great one for faux intellectuals and classics professors, but if you're looking for a real movie--one that tugs the emotions instead of the cerebellum--you should turn elsewhere.