Contempt

Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" is one of the most hypnotic films I've ever seen, there is an unusual sort of melancholy that goes with it which is unlike anything else. The film is about a marriage that disintegrates over the making of a movie, it's also a story of artistic compromises and selling out. It can be thought of as both a love letter to cinema, but one that is also full of bitter resentment.

"Contempt" came along early in Godard's career; he was the new wave whirl wind directing films like "Breathless", "A Woman is a Woman", and "Vivre Sa Vie". Those films basked in a certain free style "anything goes" approach to movie makingmaking, they were alive, free and vibrant, you could tell they were made by a young film enthusiast, but also a master. However, all that changed with "Contempt"; his sixth film in only four years; the innovation and enthusiasm is still there, but with less of his virtuoso touches (although they were still visible in smaller ways), and more of an assured approach.

The story of "Contempt" concerns a French screenwriter named Paul (Michel Piccoli), who has been hired by a crude American Producer, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) to do re-writes on a filmed version of Homer's "The Odyssey". Prokosch is butting heads with the director of the film (played here by real life filmmaker Fritz Lang as a Godardian version of himself), and wants Paul to re-write the script. Paul decides to take the job partially in part to keep his lovely wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot) living in luxury. But in taking the job, Paul loses stature in Camille's eyes, and she soon begins to distance herself away from him; there is also the unsaid implication from Camille that Paul is not shielding her from his producer's flirtatious advances. This conflict leads to the film's centerpiece, which is a lengthy scene of husband and wife in their apartment. Much is said between them in this scene, and much is left unsaid, they dance around their true feelings, things are implied, second guessed, but the truth is never really revealed to us, it's one of the most honest looks at a couple who can't, or won't fully communicate.

The film moves on to Capri where "The Odyssey" is being filmed; Godard keeps things desolate and isolated, not what you would expect for the making of an epic film. The story weaves in and out of the agony of the making of the film to Paul and Camille's further isolation from each other, soon all that is left to do is finish the movie as best as you can.

"Contempt" is the kind of film that very much mirrors the real life making of it. Godard had a much publicized spat with the film's real producers. There is an infamous story of the producers Carlo Ponti and Joseph E. Levine being upset about the official rough cut of the film complaining that there wasn't enough of French sex pot Brigitte Bardot's naked body. Not one nude scene was shot with her, she didn't even have any sexy costumes to wear. Godard's "compromise" came when he decided to film a prologue for the beginning with Bardot laid out naked in bed with Piccoli as they go through an inventory of her body parts. The scene isn't so much erotic, but very romantic as Piccoli pronounces to his wife that he loves her "totally, tenderly, tragically", which also serves as foreshadowing the couple's disillusionment with each other.

You could sense Godard's own commentary on working with his own producers with the character of Jeremy Prokosch played with an over the top absurdity by Jack Palance. Prokosch sees himself as a God, although he's mindless in the ways movies are made. Going over dailies in the screening room with Lang, Jeremy gets upset because what is being filmed isn't in the script, when Lang protests that it is indeed in the script, Jeremy looks at the pages himself only to find that Lang was right, a nice satirical point that most producers don't even bother reading what they are financing.

Paul's dilemma is choosing the pay cheque over the art, and in choosing that, it causes a rift between him and Camille. There is also the suggestion that Paul is in a way pimping out Camille to Jeremy, although probably indirectly, he perhaps doesn't even know he's doing it, yet in Camille's eyes he is.

The way this film has continued to be so striking and moving is how it stimulates us as intelligent viewers, Godard never spells anything out for us, for some, that's his calling card. The long scene in the bedroom is a tour de force of watching a couple in their mundane ways, but also failing miserably at communication. Harsh things are said, then they seem to make up, but then other things are said, at one point Paul strikes Camille, it's like a dance that almost becomes repetitive. There is a moment in this scene in which Bardot wears a black wig, one that purposely makes her resemble Godard's wife at the time actress Anna Karina, who starred in many of his films, while Piccoli wears a fedora that makes him look very much like Godard, an example of life imitating art, Godard and Karina would divorce within a year.

Repetition runs throughout in "Contempt" that I find interesting; much of it comes from the film's famous romantic score by Georges Delerue, certainly a masterpiece of music in its own right. Godard uses the score very much, it floats in the film as if recalling a certain memory, or feeling, but sometimes it acts as just a reminder of the emotional sadness the film carries till the bitter end. The motif of repetition is done again in a series of jump cuts of Bardot's face in different instances, again, I feel they are used to magnify a memory or an emotion, perhaps this was Paul's reflection of his wife, it's hard to tell, but it adds to the allure of the film.

The ending of "Contempt" seems rather inevitable, but it still comes as a shock and only adds to the melancholy of it all. Jean-Luc Godard was the definition of progressive cinema in the 1960s; every new film of his looked as if he had just re-written the book on movie making. He began with a romantic, freewheeling style which bled into a more political and essay type agenda. Between this time, he made "Contempt", his most moving film, which is something you don't often associate with a director like him. You could say Godard's whole subject of his films was film itself, he said once that "film is alive", and no doubt he was the best one who could see the parallels of both a movie and a marriage falling apart.

To Be or Not to Be

Ernst Lubitsch's "To Be or not to Be" is one of the most serious comedies ever made, which makes it all the more hilarious. It is one of those movies that remind you how important it is to laugh at something utterly serious because the reality behind it can be utterly devastating. It is an unapologetic comedy about a group of Polish actors who thwart a Nazi plot to exterminate the underground resistance. It was made in 1942 right in the middle of the second world war as a bitter indictment on the atrocities of the Third Reich, but it's also hilarious.

The film stars Jack Benny as a famous actor Joseph Tura, he's is vein, egotistical, and a great ham. Joseph, along with his wife Maria Tura (Carol Lumbard in her final film) are two of Poland's most famous actors. They love each other, yet they bicker constantly mostly about who's name should come first on the marquee. Also despite their love, that doesn't stop Maria from carrying on a rendevous romance with a young admirer of hers named Stanislav Sobinski (Robert Stack) a young Navi flyer. Each night, Stanislov goes to meet Maria in her dressing room while her husband is on stage playing Hamlet. The cue for Stanislov to meet Maria is once Joseph goes into his "To be or not to be...." speech during the play. Each night at the same time, Stanislov gets up from the audience and leaves to meet Maria in her dressing room, all the while Joseph is under the impression that this is just a regular audience member who is walking out on his performance, something that completely horrifies him.

But pretty soon, this love triangle is interrupted by the very real life occurrence of Germany invading Poland; soon the city of Warsaw is bombed, the theatre is closed, markets and shops are destroyed, and some members of the acting company are seen shoveling snow. Stanislav goes off to fight in the war, but he soon finds out about a double agent for the Nazi's by the name of Professor Siletsky (Stanley Ridges)who has acquired the names of people in the Polish underground movement. Stanislav's is to apprehend Siletsky before he meets the Nazis, but it all goes wrong, and pretty soon it falls on Maria, Joseph, and their troupe of actors to save the day.

The movie has a very straight forward comedic plot which is as hilarious as it is suspenseful. There are some real tense moments such as Maria being stuck in Professor Siletsky's hotel room which is crowded and run by Nazis. There's also a moment where Joseph is disguised as Siletsky to fool the Nazis but he is then put in a room which contains the very real, and very dead person he is impersonating. Yet we forget that we are watching a comedy, and the solutions to these tense moments relieve us with hearty laughter.

Much of the fun of "To Be or Not to Be" has to do with the life and ego of actors. The role of Joseph Tura was specifically written with Jack Benny in mind, and he has never made a more memorable part in the movies. Benny revels in Tura's vanity, and also his insecurity. During the film's moments when Tura is disguised as Siletsky, he often asks the people he's with if he has heard of "that great actor Joseph Tura" to which the reply is mostly a no; however in one of the film's most notorious lines, one of the main officers, Col Ehrhardt (Sig Ruman) replies that he has heard of Tura and saw him performing "Hamlet" once. He goes on to say that "What he did to Shakespeare, we are now doing to Poland". That line, among others is the reason the film was considered bad taste when it was first released.

Indeed the film did not receive a warm reception in its initial release which was due to the scathing satirical take on the Nazi war machine. No doubt it was sensitive material at the time it was made, however I felt watching it that there was a certain immediacy to it that perhaps took the audience off guard. The film takes a brave approach in its portrayal of the Nazis and their political message which, to Lubitsch was absurd. The main fool of the film comes from Ruman's character Col. Earhardt, a bafoonish military officer who is seen on the phone ordering people shot without investigating them, then there is a running joke of him putting blame on his underling everytime he is wrong about something. Earhardt is a rather broad representation of the sense Hitler's Third Reich made to the sane individual.

But the main aim of ridicule here is Hitler, who know doubt was a fearful conqueror to the Polish people at the time, and who's threats were probably seen as no laughing matter. But the idea the film does take is to deflate Hitler's importance, and it does this by laughing at him and his mindless policies which caused the deaths of millions. This is an angry film but with a lot of heart to it.

Ernst Lubitsch was the director of this film, who, in all of the photographs I've seen him in, he's never without a cigar, and is usually carrying a mischievous grin on his face. He was known for his comedies, he thrived in the silent era beginning in Germany, then became greatly known in Hollywood for his sophisticated style in films like "Trouble in Paradise" and "Design for Living". At some point his films were described as having that "Lubitsch Touch" something that has never been explained quite fully. The reason it's never been explained is because "The Lubitsch Touch" means something different to everyone else, yet it all adds up to a signature that is no doubt belongs to him. When it comes to "To Be or Not to Be", I believe his touch has something to do with tact. I don't think Lubitsch ever became explicit, which is why I'm amazed that this film was considered, or could ever be thought of as tasteless. Lubitsch doesn't need to be crass or derogatory to get his point across, he always took the high road with the targets he aimed at. That comes out in the very brief but righteous scenes the film takes, none more so than when one of the troupe of actors played by Lubitsch regular Felix Bressart must be a distraction during a drastic moment at an Opera Hall. This actor has always wanted to play Shylock from "The Merchant of Venice", and when he is captured by the Nazis, he is given his chance to say that character's famous monologue, "If you prick us, do we not bleed..."here Lubitsch sums up the sentiment of the film, a protest against the madness that Hitler stood for. These moments are scattered tactfully by Lubitsch throughout the film to give it weight; a way to stand up against dehumanization by throwing in an ounce of humanity.

Of all types of films that are lost from Hollywood's golden age, it's the Lubitsch ones I think I miss the most. To spend the evening with a Lubitsch film is like spending one with people who always know what the right thing to say is in any situation. With "To Be or Not to Be", Lubitsch is commenting that there are serious, and evil things going on in the world, but sometimes the best way to deal with those things is to laugh at it, he knew that comedy, when done right, could be the source of great courage.