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Contempt (1963)
"Le mépris" (original title)

 -  Drama  -  18 December 1964 (USA)
7.7
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Ratings: 7.7/10 from 13,022 users  
Reviews: 111 user | 105 critic

Paul Javal is a writer who is hired to make a script for a new movie about Ulysses more commercial, which is to be directed by Fritz Lang and produced by Jeremy Prokosch. But because he let... See full summary »

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Title: Contempt (1963)

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Cast

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Himself
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Storyline

Paul Javal is a writer who is hired to make a script for a new movie about Ulysses more commercial, which is to be directed by Fritz Lang and produced by Jeremy Prokosch. But because he let his wife Camille drive with Prokosch and he is late, she believes, he uses her as a sort of present for Prokosch to get get a better payment. So the relationship ends. Written by Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

american | apartment | marriage | italy | capri | See more »

Taglines:

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] See more »

Genres:

Drama

Certificate:

Not Rated | See all certifications »
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Details

Country:

|

Language:

| | |

Release Date:

18 December 1964 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Contempt  »

Box Office

Budget:

$900,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$33,284 (USA) (27 June 1997)

Gross:

$153,141 (USA) (5 September 2008)
 »

Company Credits

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Technical Specs

Runtime:

| (cut) (re-edited)

Sound Mix:

Color:

(Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
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Did You Know?

Trivia

Jean-Luc Godard was very dismissive of the source material - Alberto Moravia's novel 'Il Disprezzo' - calling it "a nice vulgar read for a train journey". See more »

Goofs

It is possible that all "mistakes" in the film that involve visible equipment are intentional, or at least intentionally uncorrected: the film, after all, is about the artificiality of making a film, and the initial credit sequence shows filmmakers shooting the film itself. See more »

Quotes

Paul Javal: I like CinemaScope very much.
Fritz Lang: Oh, it wasn't meant for human beings. Just for snakes - and funerals.
See more »

Crazy Credits

The opening cast credits are read, without titles See more »

Connections

Referenced in My Voyage to Italy (1999) See more »

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User Reviews

The Director, The Producer, Their Writer & His Wife

Fritz Lang, playing himself, is set to direct a more commercial adaptation of Homer's "Odyssey". Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), the producer, despises art films and hires screenwriter Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) to help Lang commercialize the movie. Javal 'offers' his young wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot, sexier than ever, in one of her few serious roles), to Prokosch, thinking he'll get a better payment. But he didn't know that would sparkle Camille's contempt and ruin their marriage.

"Le Mépris" aka "Contempt" is Godard's existentialist, provocative essay of the relationships between artistic and commercial cinema, man and woman/husband and wife (he was married to his then-muse Anna Karina, with whom he made some of his best films; after their divorce in 1967, he married Anne Wiazemsky, with whom he made "La Chinoise", "Week End" and others). Gorgeously photographed by Raoul Coutard and scored by the master Georges Delerue, and with some "influences" of Antonioni's trilogy (L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse), "Le Mépris" is not my favourite Godard, but it's certainly a vigorous film. 9/10.


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