Always elegant Kristin Scott Thomas introduced Jean Luc Godard’s Le Mépris (Contempt) starring Brigitte Bardot, at the Electric Cinema:

“Most of [Godard’s] films are completely mysterious to me. I saw this one first in 1981. It was a restored copy… in Paris and everyone was very very excited about it….. Paris is a wonderfully sort of cinephile town with masses of cinemas all over the place and this film was being shown twenty years after it had been made… almost. Not as a sort of curiosity but more as a fantastic cry of help for the state of cinema. And I think it’s still relevant today. Godard’s wrestling with producers and backers and financiers and all that…. I think the thing that has stayed with me… has been Godard’s color. He uses color in the most extraordinary way. It’s incredibly simple what he does.… but even today with all of these fantastic things that we do now with film…. it remains incredibly powerful and moving his use of blocks of color…. And it’s a great story about the collapse of a love affair, about doubts in a love affair, about contempt.…”

 

“It’s a great story about the collapse of a love affair, about doubts in a love affair, about contempt…”

 

Le Mépris (Contempt)

Le Mépris (1963), directed by Jean-Luc Godard, is a complex, multi-layered masterpiece that intelligently reveals the deterioration of a marriage, the condemnation of Hollywood, and the journey of the Odyssey. Paul (Michel Piccoli), a failed playwright, is hired by producer, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), to work on the script which is a remake of Homer’s Odyssey. When Paul and his beautiful wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot) arrive in Rome, he slowly starts to lose everything and his relationship of passionate love turns quickly into contempt. Godard’s beautiful imagery, brilliant use of colors, and challenging storyline leaves the viewers in a state of awe that demands a second viewing.

Sponsor 
MOTOROLA