Godard does it all. In Le Mépris / Contempt (1963), Fritz Lang (Metropolis, 1927, M, 1931) is making a full color movie version of Homer's Odyssey, but Jeremy Prokosch, Lang's brash American producer (played by Jack Palance, the towering Ukrainian American from Pennsylvania) wants a rewite, so he seeks to hire Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) to do it; Prokosch also has a strong attraction to Paul's wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot); Giorgia Moll plays Francesca Vanini, Prokosch's lively assistant, with whom Paul flirts.
Contempt gets at the nuances and challenges of marriage and art and other relationships, not to mention aspects of the Homeric world and, specifically, the story of Odysseus (Ulysses), Penelope and her suitors. In one scene with Fritz Lang, Paul speculates about Odysseus' original motive: "He used the Trojan War to get away from his wife." But what about the suitors?
Visually, Le Mépris is pleasing to the eyes -- very colorful. Brigitte Bardot's Camille is brooding and weird but . . . so what, who cares?
Today's Rune: Breakthrough.
3 comments:
if I understand it right once Odysseus got home he killed the hundred suitors. Seems about right to me.
I never got past that pic of Bridgett Bardot, man. You should have put that at the bottom of the post. :)
Chuckles . . .
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