CONTEMPT (1963)

What happens when a writer wants a job writing a screenplay so bad that he's not only willing to prostitute himself by writing bad material for money, but he's also willing to pimp out his hot young wife to a wolfish producer?  In a nutshell, that's the plot of French "New Wave" director Jean-Luc Godard's classic 1963 film Le Mepris (Contempt).

Of course, the main attraction of this movie in 2015 is not its' intellectual content or its' cutting edge direction but Brigitte Bardot at the height of blond bombshell sex symbol-ness.  The film's most famous scene, the opening sequence in which a very naked Bardot lies in bed on her stomach and asks Michel Piccoli if he likes various parts of her body, was sarcastically shot by Godard after the producers pitched a fit at him that they had paid for Bardot and Godard had turned in a movie that didn't have even one nude shot of her.  Filmed partially with a red filter, the scene certainly has Bardot totally naked but she stays on her stomach in bed the whole time and all we get to see is BB's magnificent backside.

Paul and Camille discuss their marriage.

Based upon a novel by celebrated Italian writer Alberto Moravia, the story is about a playwright Paul (Michel Piccoli) and his young hot wife, Camille (BB).  Paul is hired by a wolfish American movie producer Jerry Prokosch(Jack Palance) who wants him to re-write a script for a movie already in production. The famous German directior Fritz Lang (playing himself) has been shooting a film version of Homer's Odyssey.  Lang has been making an "art film" but Prokosch wants a sword and sandal epic with lots of action and sex.  Prokosch has picked Paul to rewrite the script because he knows that that Paul has a good looking young wife and needs the money.  Prokosch pitches a fit in a screening of Lang's artistic dailies and throws cannisters of film everywhere.  Paul decides to sell out his artistic vision for $10,000 and write the crappy script that Prokosch wants.

Camille gets pimped out to the wolfish Prokosch

Paul has already prostituted himself out for money when, apparently, he tries to also pimp out his wife to Prokosch.  When Camille shows up to meet Paul at Cinecetta studios in Rome, it's obvious that Prokosch has the hots for her.  Although Camille wants to stay with her husband and not go with Prokosch, Paul insists that she ride alone with Prokosch in his Alfa Romeo to his villa for a drink and Paul will follow alone in a taxi.  This begins the downhill spiral of Paul and Camille's marriage.

A full half hour of the movie follows Paul and Camille around in their apartment as they discuss their relationship.  Camille, obviously upset, lets Paul know that she doesn't want to sleep with him anymore.  She concedes, however, that she is still willing to make love to him occasionally, she just wants to sleep on the couch.  She also lets Paul know that she doesn't like Prokosch and she doesn't want to go with the production company to Capri where the movie will be filmed.  At one point, the clueless Paul slaps Camille, and says "I never should have married a twenty eight year old typist!"

Director Jean-Luc Godard and Brigitte Bardot on the set of Le Mepris

Of course, when they get to Capri, Paul and Camille's marriage disintegrates.  Once again, Paul insists that Camille go off alone with Prokosch when she only wants to stay with her husband.  Camille finally gives in and begins to have an affair with Prokosch (all that's ever shown is Camille and Prokosch kissing - the rest is left to the audience's imagination).  Camille leaves with Prokosch to go back to Rome. When Prokosch asks her what she intends to do in Rome, Camille tells him that she is going back to her old job as a typist.  Telling her that she's crazy, Pokosch then pulls out in front of a tractor trailer truck and both Prokosch and Camille are killed in the wreck.  A devastated Paul leaves Capri and tells Fritz Lang that he's now going to finish writing his play which he had abandoned to write Prokosch's script.  The End.

Contempt is actually a lot better than it sounds like it should be.  The movie is beautifully filmed in Cinemascope.  The shots of the natural beauty of the Isle of Capri are stunning.  The moral of the story seems to be don't sell out to The Man.  If Paul hadn't prostituted himself and pimped out his wife for money, they would have remained happy.  At one point, Camille even tells Paul that when he was a struggling writer and they had no money that they were happy.  Contempt is also about the movie industry and it's interesting that Godard was having the same kinds of problems with his producers, who wanted to see BB naked on screen, that his fictional screen writer was having with Prokosch.  If you want to get really artsy about it, some critics have said that Contempt parallel's Homer's Odyssey with Paul as Odysseus, Camille as Penelope and Prokosch as Poseiden.  Some critics have seen parallels with the break up of director Godard's own marriage in the movie.  At one point in the apartment, BB puts on a brunette wig, which made her look like Godard's estranged wife, actress Anna Karina.

Contempt is definitely worth watching.  I streamed the film off of the Internet from Amazon.  The movie is in French, Italian and English.  The picture was excellent.  Three and a half stars.