Chronique de... David datant du 1er Février 2006:

David

Présentation de David par Alexis:

David est âgé de 22 ans. Il est anglais, donc par définition c'est quelqu'un de très sympa, possédant un humour sarcastique, aimant le football et l'alcool. Mais David dépasse ce cadre déjà avantageux. Il est cultivé, aime lire et aller au théâtre. Il apprécie le cinéma français, principalement celui de Marcel Pagnol et des réalisateurs de la Nouvelle Vague comme Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais et Jean Eustache. De plus, c'est un excellent cuisinier. Enfin, il possède un très bon français qu'il étudie à l'université King's College, de Londres. Nous nous sommes rencontrés l'an dernier à Toulouse alors qu'il effectuait une année d'études à la faculté du Mirail.

Pour son université, il a composé une dissertation autour du film Le Mépris, de Godard, en répondant à cette question: Le Mépris est l'histoire d'un malentendu entre un homme et une femme (Godard). Jusqu'à quel point considérez vous cette déclaration comme étant une exacte description de Le Mépris ? Il nous livre donc cette analyse en anglais, précédée d'un résumé en français.

Le Mépris

Réalisateur: Jean-Luc Godard
Interprètes: Brigitte Bardot (Camille Javal), Michel Piccoli (Paul Javal), Fritz Lang (Lui-même), Jack Palance (Jeremy (en anglais: Gerry) Prokosch)…
Date de sortie: 27 décembre 1963
Genre: Drame
Durée: 1h45
Nationalité: France, Italie

 

Le Mépris est l'histoire d'un scénariste de films (Paul) à qui un producteur américain (Gerry) demande d’écrire une nouvelle version de L’Odyssée car celle écrite par le réalisateur et écrivain Fritz Lang (joué par lui-même) est trop fidèle à l’histoire originale. En fait, Gerry préfèrerait un style hollywoodien avec de l’action, du sexe, de la violence, une histoire de héros et de méchants. Paul est en crise. D'un côté, il a besoin d'argent pour payer l’appartement que sa femme (Camille) aime tant, de l'autre, il est un écrivain qui produit des histoires classiques, et écrire une histoire hollywoodienne serait trahir ses valeurs. Paul ne sait pas quoi faire mais finalement il accepte l’offre de Gerry et prend l’argent. Après avoir accepté l’offre de Gerry, Camille commence à mépriser Paul. Paul ne sait pas pourquoi. Finalement le couple se sépare, Camille part avec Gerry, Paul est seul et Camille et Gerry meurent dans un accident de voiture.
Le Mépris est un film de la Nouvelle Vague, donc la narration est moins importante que ce que souhaite exprimer le réalisateur dans le film. L’histoire est une série de symboles visuels qui représentent la vraie sémantique du film. Godard voulait exprimer les difficultés qu'un réalisateur rencontre quand il écrit un film. Soit vous écrivez un film qui adhère aux goûts du public, un film que Gerry voudrait, et vous gagnez beaucoup d'argent, soit vous produisez un film artistique qui n’est pas écrit pour faire du profit, mais plutôt pour faire de l’art. Godard dit que si vous ne pouvez pas produire un film artistique pour le cinéma, le cinéma est mort.
Généralement, la narration d’un couple est le centre d’un film, mais ici, Godard utilise le couple pour représenter une idée. Par exemple, dans l’appartement de Paul et Camille, quand le couple se dispute, la caméra ne se concentre pas sur les visages des personnages mais plutôt autour d’eux et Godard les sépare physiquement par l’emplacement d'objets entre eux (un pilier ou une table) pour représenter leur séparation. Donc si vous regardez ce film, tentez de ne pas être distrait par l’histoire du couple et cherchez ce que Godard exprime par ses allégories.

 

 

 

Le Mépris is the story of a misunderstanding between a man and a woman (Godard). To what extent do you consider this statement to be an accurate description of Le Mépris ?

The statement made by Godard that Le Mépris is the story of a misunderstanding between a man and a woman, seems to be highly ironic. This is because Le Mépris does feature, on a superficial level, a misunderstanding between a man and a woman, yet to have an understanding of the film is to see this statement as absurd.

Godard, in making Le Mépris, set out to confound the audience who would come to the cinema with a standard set of expectations for a film. Unlike the tradition of film being merely a show which adhered to the bounds of a narrative yet which expressed very little, the films of ‘la nouvelle vague’ created a type of cinema which allowed the writer to convey his thoughts, and as Lynn Higgins put it in ‘New novel, new wave, new politics’, “reflected a desire to create a cinema that would be not derivative of literature but rather its equal.”
Le Mépris in this respect is certainly a new wave film. The multi-layered nature of the film allows Godard to convey many ideas to the audience through many different mediums. Though the narrative is ever present, it is often of periphery importance to what is being expressed by Godard. Le Mépris explores film production and the difficulties of producing artistic film when bound by constraints such as financial costs and the attendant demand to produce a film which adheres to the tastes of the public. It explores Godard’s view that cinema needs to adapt to the conditions of the modern world, namely for it to reflect the psychological world in which we live rather than the hero’s and villains type world of the past. The film explores more deeply the effects of money on cinema and culture in general. I will also deal with Godard’s exploration of the alteration of form in order to express these concerns by other means than the narrative. By exploring the how and in what ways Godard expresses himself in Le Mépris, it will become evident that Godard’s statement is not an accurate description of the film.

The theme of motion in crisis is present on one level of Le Mépris. Traditionally films were based on movement. Hitchcock’s films for example would contain a character that would perceive something and would have an emotional response followed by an action based movement. Gilles Deleuze in "l’image movement" however, saw the events of the Second World War as the throwing into crisis man’s ability to move within the world. This idea is reflected by Godard experimenting with the interruption of the progression of the film by playing with the montage. For example when Paul and Francesca descend the hill to arrive at the studio, Godard deliberately cuts the scene halfway through so that they arrive at the bottom of the hill without us seeing how they got there, thus the expected  movement is interrupted; an allegory for motion cinema being broken up. Furthermore the conflict between the cinema of motion and cinema which reflects the psychological age in which we live is symbolised by the scene when Gerry wants to take Camille to his villa yet there is no room for Paul in his car. If Gerry represents money and American commercial cinematic interests and his car represents speed and motion then the two are a marriage that we could find in a commercial Hollywood film. In this case, if there is no room for Paul, who represents the psychological type cinema in the car, this reflects the psychological type hero not having a place in motion cinema. The car crash at the end of the film represents the ultimate failure of speed and motion within the cinema.

The conflict between the interests of the commercial films which appeal to the tastes of the general public, and the artistic cinema is manifested by Gerry’s desire to create a commercialised hero’s and villains type version of the Odyssey which would make more money, versus Lang’s incarnation which would be faithful to artistic cinema and the original story. Also we have Gerry representing American money, splitting the couple, literally at one point, apart, such as when he drives his car: the symbol of motion and speed between them.
Godard then symbolises the American money and motion based action films splitting cinema in half. Indeed at the end of Gerry’s opening speech, he rues his lost kingdom in which could be found ‘real people’ with ‘real emotions’. Francesca, however, translates "lost kingdom" as "la fin du cinema". This is an intentional error by Godard made in order to show that if all that is left of the cinema is the hero’s and villains type cinema, then cinema is dead. Moreover, Gerry makes his speech with the backdrop of the derelict Italian film studio and we learn from Francesca that cinema is in a very bad way as Gerry has been firing staff and is effectively causing ruin, further representing the decay of artistic cinema due to the influence of money.

In turning away from creating a film which adheres to a narrative and focuses on the human drama, Godard chooses mimesis rather than diegesis to show the audience what is going. This is represented in the film by the breakdown of communication between Paul and Camille. Paul is in a similar position to a first time audience of Le Mépris who would be looking for reasons for Camille’s contempt from what she says to Paul or from the emotions of her face. Yet neither actor manifests their emotions so it is very hard to tell what they are thinking or feeling. Godard makes the viewer look elsewhere to understand what is going on. We can see this when Paul asks Camille a question and she responds with a citation from her book, “man can rebel against things that are evil or wrong,” and then, ”one must rebel when trapped by circumstances or conventions.”

This implies not only Paul’s situation with regards to Gerry and the script, but also the position of the script writer in the real world. Godard clearly rebelled when writing Le Mépris, as he could have been trapped by the conventions of commercial cinema. Paul however cannot understand this and thinks Camille is being deliberately obstructive. Godard here communicates through other means that a simple exchange which we could find in conventional film. Indeed as with regards to the couple, we are shown why they are being split up rather than being told. During the scenes in the flat Paul and Camille are often split apart by the shot, for example when they sit at a table, a pillar is placed in between them. This demonstrates how the flat is literally splitting them up and also in the abstract sense that it is the cause of Paul writing the script for money to pay for the apartment yet in writing the script he is pushing Camille away and therefore the flat splits them up in this sense too.           

Throughout the film, Godard makes the audience aware of the camera and the process of filming in general. There is the example the production of the Odyssey within Le Mépris. This is also the case when, at the beginning of the film, Godard films a camera and crew who are filming Francesca (Gerry’s secretary) walking along a road which reminds the audience of the ever present camera and crew that work behind the lens. This is a far cry from the position of the Hollywood director whose aim is to remain but an observer and all the focus is on the drama between the characters. Indeed Godard’s wish to be a presence within the film becomes a reality when he appears as Lang’s sub director; preparing the scene for the filming of the odyssey on Gerry’s boat, a subtle message that he is ever present during the film.                                                           

The very name Le Mépris can mean not only contempt but also misunderstanding of even the miss-take meaning wrongly shot. These ‘miss takes’ occur throughout the film. The way in which the film is shot gives another message to the audience. Godard often uses a very wide camera angle, even when shooting two people during a scene of dialogue in which conventionally the director would use a close up of the face to show expressions. When Paul and Lang discuss this type of wide shot Lang says it is not suitable for men, only for serpents and caves. This serves as a reminder that the wide shot that Godard uses doesn’t focus on human expression and so avoids human drama as a focus. We can see this during the scene when they leave Gerry’s house after their first visit, Paul and Camille are walking side by side. Paul stops to tie up his shoe lace and Camille is forced to stop so that Paul doesn’t go out of the shot. This, albeit subtly, makes the audience aware that the pair are adhering to the demands of the director and not the other way round as would be the case in Hollywood. Also the opening shot, to use an example twice, shows this as the wide shot captures Francesca and the camera man, mirroring Godard’s wish for the audience to look beyond the characters at what else might be being dealt with, in this case the production of film, which the camera and crew represent.

Godard also explores the effect of American money on art and culture. During the scene when Lang shows his version of the Odyssey, Gerry throws a tantrum and hurls a film canister like a discus. Lang tells Gerry that now he is getting a feel for Greek culture, Gerry retorts that when he hears the word culture he gets out his cheque book. Gerry knows he can manipulate film with his money, just like Joseph Gobbels who said ‘when I hear the word culture I get out my revolver’. American money then is being compared to Nazi ideology by its manipulation of culture. Yet even further than this, American money is portrayed as effacing history. Lang’s version of the Odyssey features the use of statues rather than actors to play the roles of the characters. A statue is an indexical link to the past as it is a recording of something that has happened, an imprint of the past, in this case a recording of the story of the Odyssey. Gerry’s wanting to replace the statues with actors who play action roles, for example portraying the story through Gerry’s eyes cuts the indexical link with the past, creating a doctored version which may be to the tastes of the public, but is not true to history. Godard shows this as American culture assimilating and erasing other cultures, replacing them with its own consumable version. Henri Bazin the founder of ‘Les Cahiers du cinéma’ made the statement:
«Le cinéma substitue à notre regard un monde qui s’accorde à nos désirs. Le Mépris est l’histoire de ce monde.»
This statement accurately reflects Godard’s wish to break away from creating a film which was in agreement with our desires. Le Mépris is a story about the struggle between the creation of this type of cinema: the commercial cinema and creating cinema for the sake of art. Gerry who represents money is causing conflict in the film at every turn because he has all the power as is reflected in his assuming the role of Poseidon the God controlling Paul /Odysseus’s fate. He can manipulate the way films are made because films need money to be produced. Thus this struggle ensues and the overall effect when one takes a step back to look at how all the layers link in, is one of a rejection by Godard to create conventional cinema. From Paul eventually refusing to write the script, to the use of wide camera angles to avoid showing the audience the human drama that it craves, Godard resists and remains true to the mantra of la Nouvelle Vague whilst at the same time depicting the conflict he faced in making Le Mépris. To return to the statement that Le Mépris is the story of an understanding between a man and a woman, we can see the tongue in cheek spirit in which Godard made this statement, as the film, deliberately avoids simply being enslaved to a narrative as this statement implies and therefore it would be impossible to see this statement as an accurate description of Le Mépris.

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