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.

  

AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1956)

In 1956 Brigitte Bardot was a 23 year old aspiring starlet who had already appeared in a number of films.  Her husband, director Roger Vadim, put her into this movie (French title: Et Dieu . . . crea la femme) which skyrocketed his young wife into stardom and made Bardot an international sex symbol.

The superficial plot involves Juliette Hardy (Bardot) an 18 year old orphan.  Juliette just can't help herself - she likes to lie out in the sun naked, go barefooted, dance, drink and she REALLY likes MEN.  Juliette is also fabulously beautiful.

A Girl Just Can't Help It: She's Gotta Take a Sunbath Naked In the Yard!

As the film opens, Juliette's foster mother has had enough and announces that Juliette is going back to the orphanage until she's 21.  By this time, Juliette is being pursued by the wealthy magnate Eric (Curd Jurgens) and Antoine Tardieu (Christian Marquand).

Antoine and Juliette washed up on the beach

Antoine promises to take Juliette away with him, but she overhears Antoine tell his buddies that he just intends to bed Juliette in a one night stand and then dump her.  Outraged, Juliette flees to the lavish yacht owned by Eric but also refuses to sleep with him or become his mistress.

Juliette has resigned herself to going back to the orphanage when Antoine's younger brother, Michel, asks Juliette to marry him.  Juliette realizes that this is a mistake and warns Michel that she will probably betray him because she just can't help it.  When Michel insists, Juliette says yes and they are married over the objection of Michel's mother.

On the way back home from the wedding, Michel gets into a fight with a local tough guy who has called Juliette a whore.  Skipping the wedding dinner, Juliette takes Michel upstairs and consummates their marriage, scandalously coming downstairs wearing only a bathrobe and loading up take out plates to take back upstairs.  Apparently, this was just as scandalous to the censors in 1956 as it was to the family at the dinner.

Juliette tries hard to be a good and faithful wife to Michel.  Eventually, she is bored out of her mind and doesn't know what to do with herself.  The real problems start, however, when Eric buys out the small shipyard owned by the Tardieu family and makes Antoine his local manager.  When Antoine moves back to St. Tropez, Juliette knows they're going to have a hard time keeping their hands off each other.

Juliette has become really bored with this marriage thing!

When Juliette takes a boat with a bad engine out for a spin, Antoine has to swim out and save her.  Washing up on a remote beach, Juliette and Antoine do what comes natural and have sex.  Being a very honest girl, Juliette takes to her bed saying she has a fever and tells Michel and Antoine's younger brother who tells their mother.  Momma Tardieu tells Michel when he comes home that he needs to run that whore off this minute.  Instead, Michel pursues Juliette to a local bar where she is letting loose and wildly dancing with the Rumba band.  Overcome with jealousy, Michel pulls a gun to kill Juliette but is stopped by Eric who was come to the bar to try to take Juliette for himself.  Eric is shot by Michel and has Antoine take him to a doctor who will be discreet and not tell the police.
Eric orders Antoine to leave St. Tropez and transfers him to a job out of town.  In the last scene we see Michel take Juliette home, apparently for a little sexual healing.  The End.

Juliette gets down with the band!

The film was a big hit in France and stirred up a firestorm of controversy when released in the U.S.  The National League of Decency condemned the move and attempts were made to ban the film in various jurisdictions.

Despite its thin plot, And God Created Woman is a visual feast.  Shot in Cinemascope on location in St. Tropez, the color and the scenery jump out at you.  And, of course, the young Brigitte Bardot is stunningly gorgeous and well deserves her "sex kitten" reputation.  Bardot really doesn't do much acting in this, she mostly just struts around showing off her "assets."

As proof positive that time destroys everything, here's a recent picture of Ms. Bardot 

I watched the Criterion Collection DVD with a fully restored print of the movie in the original French with subtitles. Four out of five bikinis.