Brigitte Bardot in Godard's French New Wave Film Contempt

"Love means never having to say you're sorry," at least this is what Ali MacGraw's character say in Love Story. But what if love means something else to another person? And what if it means two different things to one couple? And what does "Love means never having to say you're sorry" mean anyway? 

To one person it could mean you can treat a person anyway you want and feel no guilt or regret about it. To another it might mean understanding and forgiveness are offered without limit or request. Language itself is tricky but the language of love even more so because it is complicated by translation, perspective, and desire.

French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard tackles language and its misconceptions through the translation of desire in the 1963 film Contempt.

A quote from film theorist Andre Bazin runs in the spoken rather than written opening credits, "The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires." The narrator adds, "Contempt is a story of that world."

Desire is a need waiting to be fulfilled but it is also the basest level of human emotion, rather animalistic. To show this Godard leaves many things unsaid in the film, only recognizable by body language.

He begins the film with a very wordy but unemotional profession of desire between the two main characters Camille (Brigitte Bardot) and Paul (Michel Piccoli). Shortly after, Paul makes one crucial decision that begins the unraveling of his marriage to Camille. Most women will catch on to what Paul does wrong instantly even though it isn't verbalized until the end of the film. The ultimate reason for the demise of the relationship is because Camille truly loves Paul but Paul merely desires Camille.

This is a film that should not be spoiled by too much plot discussion, just sit back and enjoy.

What To Watch For

Godard's use of Shakespeare's a play within the play technique. It is threefold-In the opening credits we see Godard filming COntempt as the camera moves down the tracks; we see the film Contempt itself; and later we learn that the characters within Contempt are shooting a movie of The Odyssey.