Comments on: CONTEMPT by Jean-Luc Godard

By: Jan

Jan — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:38:15 +0000

The seemingly misplaced/weird music fading in/out was _intentional_!

By: Samran

Samran — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:25:22 +0000

on Bingham Bryant’s comments.

Saying Antonioni respected Godard has nothing to do with Dan’s criticism on “Contempt” and logically it doesn’t posit “Contempt” is a good film.

I think the meanings of Dan’s unanswered questions are just to provoke dialogue in viewer’s mind. But again the ideas you have tossed here are just desperate ideas, and not proven, hence useless. If you prove what you have said with what is actually present in the film, that would save you, Godard and “Contempt”!

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:32:09 +0000

“Secondly, you made the same mistake that dozens of other critics made upon Contempt’s release, and still do, by following the age-old idiom: If you don’t understand it, trash it.”

But you also make the same mistake that everyone else makes: If you find that somebody disagrees with the majority critical opinion of an art film, immediately assume they don’t understand it.

Dan wrote a very intelligent review of the film, despite disagreeing with Godard and the accepted critical opinion of Godard’s work. I don’t see why Dan’s opinion should be regarded as any less valuable or informed than some other critics’. I don’t think he’s saying Godard was a hack. But sometimes, just sometimes, when a director decides to spend 20 minutes showing a long traffic jam – maybe he’s not commenting on the isolation of modern man in a contemporary society – maybe he really is just f***ing with your patience. Just for fun.

By: Bingham Bryant

Bingham Bryant — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:51:45 +0000

I agree with the above poster, and would add a few things.
First of all, Antonioni had a huge amount of respect for Godard. When Antonioni’s “The Red Desert” won the top award at cannes, he even went as far as to say that he believed Godard’s “A Married Woman” should have won instead.
Secondly, you made the same mistake that dozens of other critics made upon Contempt’s release, and still do, by following the age-old idiom: If you don’t understand it, trash it. You pose questions as to the meanings of several things in your review, but only rhetorically, you have no wish to actually understand them. Contempt is an incredibly complex film, where every single thing has meaning, from those posters to the colour scheme. But the general idea of the film, which you seem to have missed, is the struggle to create art, the battle between emotion and intellect, instinct and thought, and Godard’s equation of the act of the creation of art with a human relationship. In effect, saying that art is an act of love, and love is a form of art.

By: Shane James Bordas

Shane James Bordas — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 02:09:31 +0000

To slight Godard is one thing, but to call another writer “wrong” because you don’t share their view is the tell-tale sign of a hack. I can’t argue with your regard for Bergman (my personal favourite) or Antonioni (although I would argue that Godard is the greater artist there) but to use them as whipping posts for your obvious frustration with the work JLG is laughable and hardly the work of a serious critic. You need to try harder.

By: Jack

Jack — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 11:37:05 +0000

“A big negative, however, is the Georges Delerue score. The main theme herks and jerks into inappropriate scenes, and often adds a melodramatic touch that is almost laughable. It also rises up and cuts off without warning — and without any relation to what is taking place on-screen.”

Maybe it was just me, but when I saw Contempt, I instantly thought of Louis Armstrong’s We Have All the Time in the World, from that James Bond film, which I believe was the last song he recorded, when I first heard that main theme. Did you think of that, too?