As of today, the majority of movie critics agree with suggestions that the genre of auteur film, which gained a particular popularity with moviegoers during the course of fifties and sixties, should be discussed within the context of many European producers of the era having strived to endow their cinematographic creations with an acute artistic sounding. In its turn, this explains why auteur directors had made a point in prompting people to refer to their movies as anything but conventional – as true intellectuals, the promoters of cinematographic auterism never ceased trying to present their works as the instruments of intellectual/artistic exaltation, as opposed to serving the purpose of entertainment alone, as it has traditionally been the case with the bulk of Hollywood movies, for example. As Shyon Baumann had rightly pointed out in his article Intellectualization and Art World Development: Film in the United States: “The auteuristic intellectualization of film involved the application of aesthetic standards and so was a crucial development in the promotion of film to the status of art” (2001, 411). Given the fact that the representatives of auteur genre in filmmaking refused to think of their movies’ actual quality as being reflective of these movies’ capacity to appeal to viewing audiences, in commercial sense of this word, it comes as no surprise that auteur films’ foremost feature appears being their utter intellectualization, along with their clearly defined ideological/philosophical non-conformism.
In their book Studying Film, Nathan Abrams et al. provide us with the insight onto what represented the semiotic distinctiveness of auteur movies, associated with a so-called New Wave movement, within French school of cinematography: “The (New Wave) narratives were often built around apparently chance-events and were often digressive and open-ended. Characters were typically young, somehow dissatisfied with life. Dialogue was idiosyncratic and fragmented and often included lengthy meaningful silences. Little family life was ever shown. Settings were contemporary, often urban” (2001, p. 264). Thus, the contextual framework of French auteur movies implies their strong affiliation with the genre of theatric dramaturgy. This suggestion allow us to a gain a better understanding of what Susan Sontag had in mind, while coming up with the following remark, in regards to French director Jean Luc Godard: “His work constitutes a formidable meditation on the possibilities of cinema… he enters the history of film as its first consciously destructive figure” – apparently, the films of Godard should be discussed within the context of this French director trying to elevate the whole genre of cinematography to the status of a high (elitist) art. However, by striving to turn his movies into the tools of philosophical enlightenment, Godard subtly implied conventional cinema being less aesthetically and intellectually refined. In our paper, we will aim to explore this thesis even further in regards to the themes and motives contained in Godard’s 1963 movie Le Mepris (Contempt).
Given Godard’s strong affiliation with existentialist discourse of the sixties, there can be very little doubt as to the fact that, just as it was the case with many of his other early movies, Le Mepris was meant to provide viewers with innermost insight onto the very roots of a developing estrangement/alienation between two individuals, as being dialectically predetermined. However, Le Mepris does not utilize a rationale-based approach to explain why romantic relationship between the characters of Paul and Camille had deteriorated beyond the point of repair – instead, it prompts viewers to consider the tragedy of Paul and Camille as having been irrationally inspired. Even though Camille did have a formal reason to begin treating Paul with contempt, as the result of her husband’s failure to protect its wife from sexual advances, on the part of Jeremy Prokosch, the process of Camille growing weary of Paul is being represented in the movie as having originated out of her suddenly emerged moodiness. In its turn, this explains why Camille had refused explaining the actual motivations behind her coldness: “Paul: Why don’t you love me anymore? Camille: There is no way I’ll ever love you again”. Apparently, Camille’s contempt towards Paul was more of an attitude-based as opposed to being simply a reaction to her husband’s inability to ‘act as a man’. In her article Contempt as a Moral Attitude, Michelle Mason comes up with essentially the same conclusion: “In Le Mepris, contempt is an attitude. One might just as easily refer to it as an emotion or feeling. “Attitude” best captures, I think, contempt’s quality as a form of regard” (2003, 239). Nevertheless, despite the fact that the reason why Camille stopped treating her husband with affection could not be rationalized within the framework of a conventional cinematography, film’s portrayal of a relation between these two characters appears utterly plausible.
It seems that, as auteur director, Godard was never truly concerned with providing semantic plausibility to his cinematographic representations – and yet, the existential realism had never ceased being the foremost trademark of Godard’s movies. Louis Marcorelles and Ernest Callenbach’s article Jean-Luc Godard’s Half-Truths, contains excerpts from interviews with Godard, in which he expressed his opinions, in regards to what cinematographic realism ought to be: “Realism does not consist in reproducing reality, but in showing how things really are” (1964, p. 5). Thus, director’s claims that his movies represent high art are not altogether deprived of rationale – after all, the concept of art has been traditionally discussed within the context of one’s ability to represent the emanations of surrounding reality as being associated with aesthetic/intellectual intensity.
In its turn, this explains why Le Mepris features scenes, in which Godard’s own attitude towards the negative impact of commercialization on cinematography as an art is being expressed rather explicitly. For example, at the beginning of the movie, Fritz Lang quotes lines from Dante’s “Inferno”, which correspond to Godard’s understanding of art as such that is meant helping people to think beyond their animalistic urges: “Think of the seed of your creation. You were not born to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge”. The time when Paul had decided to write a script for Prokosch’s movie was exactly the moment when Paul’s romantic relationship with Camille began to deteriorate. In its turn, this explains the subtleties of Camille’s contempt towards Paul – as a woman with especially acute sensory perception of surrounding reality, she came to realize that by accepting Prokosh’s job-offer, Paul became intellectually corrupted. This was exactly what made him being less of a man and not the fact that he allowed Prokosh to flirt with his wife, as many critics imply.
By the end of Le Mepris, Paul realized that his socialization with Prokosh was depriving him of his intellectual integrity, which is why he decided to refuse writing a script for a movie: “I will write for the theater, not for movies”. However, by that time, he had sunk in the eyes of Camille so low that no reconciliation could be reached between them. Thus, even though Le Mepris is best described as an apolitical film, it nevertheless contains a variety of ideas of semi-political sounding, which is why it would not be an exaggeration to think of this movie in terms of being essentially a manifesto of cinematographic anti-commercialization. Therefore, Sontag’s referral to Godard as ‘consciously destructive figure’ makes perfectly legitimate sense – by adopting an intolerant attitude towards the intellectual and emotional shallowness of Hollywood’s movies, Godard had actively confronted the very concept of cinematography as simply one among many forms of commercially driven entertainment.
In its turn, this explains why, in order to be able to enjoy Le Mepris, its viewers must be capable of operating with abstract categories, so that movie’s symbolic undertones would become apparent to them and that they would be able to perceive film’s structural and semantic unconventionality as its actual strength. In the book Studying Film, from which we have quoted earlier, authors state: “According to the counter-cinema argument, the pleasures of mainstream entertainment films seduce the spectator into a state of passive receptivity so that ideologically reactionary/conservative ‘messages’ are allowed free passage… Auteure film-makers have insisted on the need to dismantle this kind of pleasure, and have called openly for its destruction” (2001, 148). As we have pointed out earlier, the pleasure that people derive out of watching mainstream movies, cannot be discussed outside of the notion of semantic and structural wholesomeness and the notion of emotional intensity.
Nevertheless, the commercial appeal of mainstream movies is being purchased at the expense of depriving these films of their capacity to serve as brain-cells’ stimulants. This is why, it became a commonplace practice among French auteur directors to intentionally aim at filming their cinematographic pieces in such a way that their plots would appear being the least concerned with observation of principle of cognitive completeness. As it was rightly pointed out in Studying Film: “In counter-cinema, events do not follow each other in a logical cause and effect structure; there is likely to be digression and (deliberate) incoherence… the spectator must make sense of it” (2001, p. 146). The watching of Le Mepris substantiates the validity of this statement perfectly well – despite movie scenes’ long-lasting, these scenes do not feature behavioral coherence, on the part of participating characters. Yet, the way in which these characters act does not become less realistic, as a result. Godard’s affiliation with the philosophy of existentialism had prompted him to assume that, when it comes to portraying developmental subtleties of a relationship between two individuals, it is the matter of crucial importance for director to never cease being observant of the principle of spontaneity.
In his article Godard on Godard: Notes for Reading, Brian Henderson provides us with better understanding as to what accounted for psychological plausibility of this particular Godard’s film: “Godard has his intellectual coordinates right, he is reacting against phenomenology in the name of that classical (dualistic) psychology which phenomenology critiqued” (1974, 37). Therefore, the spontaneity of plot’s development in Le Mepris and also the fact that some movie’s scenes do not make logical sense, simply reflects Godard’s awareness of existentialist concept of absurd as such that defines the essence of objective challenges, which people face throughout their lives.
For example, movie’s final scene features Prokosch and Camille being killed in car accident – yet, this kind of finale would not be acceptable in mainstream film, simply because it does not logically derive out of previous scenes. It is only when we take into consideration movie’s ideological context that we get to realize why Le Mepris could not have ended on a more positive note – by thinking that there was nothing wrong with turning the cinematographic interpretation of Homer’s “Odyssey” into the instrument of generating a commercial profit, Prokosh had unwillingly reduced himself to being simply a bulk of organic matter, driven by animalistic instincts of lust and enrichment. This is exactly why there was nothing truly noble about how he and Camille had left this world – their deaths are being represented to viewers as purely accidental.
Such movie’s conclusion was absolutely necessary within the context of Godard striving to promote existentialist discourse of ‘absurd’ and ‘nothingness’. While relating the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre to Godard’s cinematography in his article Sartre, the Philosophy of Nothingness, and the Modern Melodrama, Andras Kovacs state: “Nothingness for modernism is not the contrary the nothingness of life, like death in the romantic sense. Nothingness is death within life – life itself, that is” (2006, 137). Thus, it is not an accident that in Le Mepris, the images of ancient Greek Gods serve a semi-independent role of promoting Godard’s outlook on the concept of true divinity as such that cannot be conceived outside of such divinity’s realization of its own mortality.
In Le Mepris, the totality of existence, reflected in Camille’s nakedness, is being continuously counter-measured by the totality of non-existence, culminated in the scene of a car accident. As it was rightly suggested in Paul Coates’ article Le Mépris: Women, Statues, Gods: “Surveying the totality is godlike, and so humans’ aspiration to such vision is impossible, leaves them with nothing, with nothingness in fact, a sequence allegorized in that key early camera movement that slides on a long rightward diagonal down and away from the blue sky to the deeper blue of the sea” (1998, p. 33). Therefore, Godard’s foremost agenda in Le Mepris was concerned with his intention to introduce the notion of high aesthetics into otherwise anti-aesthetic movie industry. And, as we are well aware of – it is namely the dramaturgic genre of tragedy, which ancient Greeks and Romans considered ‘high’, as opposed to the ‘low’ genre of comedy. Such Godard’s intention itself was rather revolutionary, as it broke away with predispositions of mainstream cinematography, as we know it.
In its turn, such our thesis is being consistent with Sontag’s suggestion that: “His (Godard’s) work constitutes a formidable meditation on the possibilities of cinema”. Whereas; prior to Godard and other representatives of New Wave movement, the purpose of movies was considered providing a visualization to literary narratives, after New Wave auteur cinema had gained prominence in artistic circles, this effectively ceased being the case. From sixties onwards, more and more movie producers were becoming increasingly preoccupied with turning directed films into mediums for promoting a variety of aesthetic, philosophical and political ideas. Therefore, we can only agree with Mary Jean Green, Lynn Higgins and Marianne Hirsch, who in their article Rochefort and Godard: Two or Three Things about Prostitution, referred to Godard’s movies as nothing less of an attempt to design an entirely new cinematic language: “Godard’s film is a search for a new cinematic language that might correspond to the multiplicity and disjointedness of modern life” (1979, p. 447). Despite the fact that nowadays, the genre of auteur film had clearly fallen out of favor with movie-going audiences, due to moviegoers’ continuously declining biological quality, reflected in their lessened ability to derive pleasure out of indulging in intellectual pursuits, there can be little doubt as to objective value of Godard’s cinematographic legacy. We believe that such our suggestion is being consistent with paper’s initial thesis-statement, which implies that the relation of Godard’s Le Mepris to the mainstream movies of the era should be discussed within the framework of intellectual sophistication vs. intellectual shallowness.
The conclusion of this paper can be articulated as follows: Jean Luc Godard’s film Le Mepris really does represent rather drastic departure from the norms of conventional cinematograph. However, even though Le Mepris is being clearly concerned with utilization of a variety of truly innovative movie-shooting methods, it would be wrong to refer to this film as quite unintelligible, as some critics do, but rather as the piece of cinematographic art, which requires potential viewers to be endowed with a certain degree of intellectual sophistication, in order to be able to enjoy watching it. Unfortunately, in the near future, the number of people potentially capable of enjoying Le Mepris is likely to decline considerably, due to particulars of demographic dynamics in today’s Western countries.
References
- Abrams, Nathan et al. Studying Film. New York: Edward Arnold Ltd., 2001. Print.
- Baumann, Shyon “Intellectualization and Art World Development: Film in the United States”. American Sociological Review 66.3 (2001): 404-426. Print.
- Coates, Paul “Le Mépris: Women, Statues, Gods”. Film Criticism 22.3 (1998): 38-50. Print.
- Green, Mary et al. “Rochefort and Godard: Two or Three Things about Prostitution”. The French Review 52.3 (1979): 440-448. Print.
- Henderson, Brian “Godard on Godard: Notes for a Reading”. Film Quarterly 27.4 (1974): 34-46. Print.
- Kovacs, Andras “Sartre, the Philosophy of Nothingness, and the Modern Melodrama”. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64.1 (2006): 135-145. Print.
- Le Mépris. Dir. Jean Luc Godard. Perfs. Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance. Cocinor, 1963.
- Marcorelles, Louis & Callenbach, Ernest “Jean-Luc Godard’s Half-Truths”. Film Quarterly 17.3 (1964): 4-7. Print.
- Mason, Michelle “Contempt as a Moral Attitude”. Ethics 113.2 (2003): 234-272. Print.