Recently, Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Le Mepris’ (a.k.a. ‘Contempt’) was shown again in cinemas in Hong Kong. The cast featured a genuinely cosmopolitan selection of actors and actresses, and the film explored diverse themes like love, professional relationships, authorship, and cinema as an art. ‘Le Mepris’ chronicled the deteriorating relationships of a screenwriter and his wife (played by Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot), when he was asked by an American producer (played by Jack Palance) to rewrite a script of ‘Odyssey’ by a director from Europe (Fritz Lang in an iconic acting role). Done in color and Cinemascope, Godard delivered his promise to offer the audience a Panavision/Technicolor film!
The Cinemascope was a widescreen cinematographic process that was popular in the 1950s. It would soon fall out of favour and gave way to other types of improved widescreen process. The key motivation for the innovation was to provide a more epic spectacle for the audience, thus boosting the entertainment value of watching films. Certain genres have indeed been benefited from this photographic style, which somewhat guaranteed an epic feel in terms of the visual aspects. Yet the process itself was not easily executed and many filmmakers, including the great masters, have expressed their dislikes of the novel system. As Fritz Lang’s character mocked in the film, Cinemascope was only good for shooting long things like a coffin or a boa constrictor. That should not be surprising when we consider Lang’s origin from the Expressionist cinema of the 1920s, when films were often shot in the Academy Ratio (1.33:1). Furthermore, wide-angle lenses were often employed to give a stronger depth of field.
It was not certain if Godard himself liked Cinemascope or not, yet the talent filmmaker from the French New Wave made brilliant use of this tricky format through a careful consideration of mise-en-scene, adopting the technique to his own advantage. Godard used the horizontal width of the film format to show his intention, to illustrate the distance between the couple. In some cases, the wide format exaggerated the compartmental aspect of the couple's apartment. The irony was that while the household was supposed to be the places for intimate relationships, the husband and wife were alienated by the modernized arrangement and were isolated, while desperately regaining a sense of intimacy from each other. Godard has made a judicious choice of using Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ as the film-in-the-film: while the epic poem has an adventure theme throughout, it is easy to overlook the subtle theme of familial relationships: Odysseus was desperately to return home tor restore the order of the oikos (household), and Penelope’s faith towards Odysseus not only reflected her moral outlook but also her commitment to the family. In the middle of ‘Le Mepris’, the producer and the director came into a severe dispute regarding the interpretation of Homer’s epic, where the American producer made an interesting proposal that Odysseus left because of Penelope’s possible infidelity. Which exactly reflected the writer and the wife’s ongoing situation, when the wife was attracted to the playboy-type producer. Like Odysseus, the writer would eventually return home, yet with a sense of loss. Without giving spoilers, the readers should watch that for themselves!
by Ed Law
Film Analysis
