Le mépris

This is classic classic art-house filmmaking, a poetic and deeply affectingportrayal of the breakdown of the art film industry in Europe–personifiedby the calmly sagacious Fritz Lang–paralleled by the breakdown of arelationship.

The film features Brigitte Bardot in what is possibly her most convincingrole–not just a pretty face here, but an actress in full right. JackPalance shines as the boorish American producer.

The film’s complex themes–drawing heavily on the symbology of Homer’sOdyssey–are perhaps most elegantly presented in a 30 minute conversationbetween Camille (Bardot) and her husband, the film writer. Filled tooverflowing with impoverished dialogue that leads nowhere and everywhere atonce, we are left with a sense of estrangement amidst the empty rooms of theforgotten film industry.

Shot in Cinemascope, the saturation of colors–emphasis on Mediterraneanblues–is convincing and well-suited to the expansive themes. The cyclicmusical score is one of the best in film history.

This is an important, MUST-WATCH film. Unfortunately, it is not readilyavailable for rental in most places. The film was re-released on thebig-screen in 1997, but has not yet been re-released on video. I, for one,look forward to that day.

A good movie but far from a great one. Everyone with even rudimentaryknowledge of Godard will be able to see through and read into his tricks.Due to the talent and international financing a somewhat diluted, toneddownfilm shouldn’t be a huge surprise.

See "Weekend" or "Alphaville" instead.

I have nothing to say about this film, as I have not seen it. I would liketo see it, however the deluge of (highly) contradictory reviews at this sitehinder any attempts at closure as far as my decision is concerned. Be luckythat you may expend time lamenting (or praising) this film for the mereprice of three of your American dollars (rental). The rest of the world(i.e. Us) have to buy and then decide whether or not it’s a pile ofcelluloid offal. Do not complain so vacuously so often. criticism and/or praise is good, but if your intention in writing a review is directed athelping other people ’sift out’ their cinematic choices (as opposed toshowing off the little grey cells or alternately becoming reactionary towardother people’s snotty intellectual vanities etc.) then at least bother towrite something balanced (ish) and less pontificatory. Thank you so much.

I know this comment will make me sound like a film Philistine, but Ifind Jean Luc Godard's movies more often than not to be endurancetests, and "Contempt" was no exception.

Godard's chief MO was to puncture the illusion of cinema and reveal itto be a construct — he basically wanted to strip away the exterior andshow the machinery working underneath. Fair enough. I think approacheslike Godard's are necessary in any art form if it is to grow. However,that doesn't necessarily make the results enjoyable to watch. Godardfilms are abstract, cold and ever so slightly lifeless. Watching aGodard film is like reading an essay about the Great Depression whenyou could be reading "The Grapes of Wrath" instead.

Grade: C+

This is a movie to be looked at as much as watched. Godard’s use of colouris beautiful. The re-occurance of primary colours throughout the filmgivesit an energy all of it’s own. Long scenes of somewhat inane dialogue arecoloured by lovingly constructed pictorial scenes.

The movie-buff Godard is felt throughout the movie, from the strategicallyplaced movie posters to the business of movie making. Lang is delightfulasthe movie director who tolerates the machiavellian whims of his producerplayed by Palance, who is totally unbelievable as the producer who seducesCamille/Bardot and manipulates her screen writer husband Paul/Picolli. Thesets are sparse, sexy and dynamic. The acting fairly minimalist. Nothinghappens, but we see the dynamics involved in the making of a movie playedout in front of us. The story is a tragedy, yet it is not a story atall.

Godard, in retrospect, wished to offer the movie-goer a differentperspective on a world unknown to most people. He could have been writingand filming about anything (as we would see later in Weekend) The subjectmatter is irrelevant. It is what you see that appears to matter more thanwhat you understand. And in that respect Godard’s movies were high-classleft-wing propaganda movies. A product of their time. Godard didn’tunderstand that the proletariat wished for entertainment, and thecinematicbourgeoisie wanted intellectual movie-making not intellectual movies!

However, as a piece of cinematic history it is worth aviewing.

I don't want to delve into all of the reasons why I found this movieunbearable so I will just give a few examples: 1. The back and forthtranslation between French and English is VERY distracting andannoying. 2. The dialogue between the main characters is extremelyrepetitive and doesn't reach any real resolution. 3. Do not expect tosee anything about film-making in this movie, despite what it says onthe back of the DVD. The few scenes of a camera crew are just filler.4. I am not against nudity in film, but the amount of screen timedevoted to Bardot's behind was ridiculous and not really necessary.

The only aspect of this film that impressed me was the cinematography;the scenery is really quite breathtaking. If you want to see a film byJean-Luc Godard, I recommend Breathless because that is the only one ofhis movies that did not bore me to tears.

This is one of the most pompous movies to have ever been made.

It prides itself as being a great movie about cinema when it really

is nothing but a bunch of Godard-ism that goes around in circles

and doesn’t even try to make sense. The use of ‘The Odyssey’ is a

really cheap trick here, because it doesn’t really do anything.

Talking about different theories relating to Odysseus and

Penelope can be interesting, but when we see the way it’s being

filmed, oh my god! It’s plain ridiculous, just as Bardot is a snotty

and terrible actress and wife. In the end, one doesn’t understand if

this movie is about relationships, rewriting history, or -as it claims-

cinema. It does not belong to the absurd either, so why doesn’t

anything make sense? Because it looks intellectual. I have

actually seen this twice, and the first time I must admit is sort of

OK. The second time though was pure torture. Although the music

initially sounds nice, it is used in such a dramatic way in the movie

that all it does is bang on the viewers’ nerves. When I think about

the movie now that’s what really gets to me most, in a very

aggravating way. Colors are nice, but is that enough to make a

movie good? Nevertheless, it is a pure Godard, and it is worth

viewing just to get a sense of what he can be like.

Come see Bardot’s butt and more thrills in this wondrously filmed Goddardepic that’s self reflective about being self reflective about being selfreflective. You’ll love Jack Palance: "I know how the gods feel, I feellike a god sometimes". this movie MUST be seen widescreened. Not sure ifit’s available, but Martin Scorcese has been championing a re-release of thefilm and it’s making its art-house rounds."the cinema is dead"

Contempt is Godard’s one of the most celebrated movies. The plot of themovie is simple and characters quite real. The movie is made in acertain style. All the scenes are well shot and very well thought of.Despite all movie making hoopla and Hollywood bashing and Ulyssesreferences I found the movie quite boring. The movie is so real that ithangs somewhere in between great cinema and documentary. Movie doesn’thave anything
to say. Producers are pimps and directors are whores is acontrite topic. Discussions between husband wife are repetitive andlengthy. If thats the point then its a silly point. There are nudescenes which are supposed to be mocking nudity in 60s. That reminds meof a great quote by mahatma Gandhi ‘An eye for an eye makes the worldblind’. Through out the movie i knew what was coming. Even the climaxis so horribly predictable. The movie has just too much Godard in it.You know all the time that he is standing there in the middle of thescreen. A bad movie by a great director.

An odd film. Brigitte Bardot was, of course major eye candy then, andthat is the major charm of this film. It seems like the plot from themovie based on "The Odyssey" is obviously supposed to parallel therelationship between Paul and Camille. Or, more likely, therelationship is the model for the re-interpretation of Homer. A littleinteresting are the brief scenes which refer to the pistol Paulcarried. I suppose it must have just been mis-direction, as iteventually had no bearing on the denouement of the plot. If it were amore modern movie, or one where the director was not in completecontrol, I would have thought that the film was focus-grouped, and analternate ending inserted. Some of the direction was a bit bothersome.The art-film snobs think that this shows mastery of the craft, but Ifind it off-putting. I don’t know why people raved about this film. Itwas OK, but worth watching mainly due to Bardot.

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Lord of the Flies

I grew up knowing movies to have great special effects and computergraphicsand obviously we can’t expect a movie from 1963 to have these effects.Despite the lack of effects the movie could have been filmed to showcertainscenes with a lot more effectiveness. The acting in this film was, for themost part, absolutely brutal. They’re just kids and can’t be expected topull off Oscar performances but most lines were given with no emotion andbad timing. It’s not a wonder that only two of the boys in this movie wenton to greater things (Ralph and Robert). The direction could also havebeenmuch better. Even from small things that could have been edited out lateror redone in a matter of two seconds. ((one of the first scenes when thechoir is reciting their names, every persons timing was horribly off andthefirst boy "Henry" kept glancing at the camera and couldn’t even focusenoughon the one line he was given to deliver it with any effectiveness)) It isthe directors job to notice these small things and convince actors to avoidthem. Especially when they’re dealing with children.

In William Golding’s defense this story was incredible. I suggest readingthe book and not watching the movie because there is much more to the bookthan there is top the movie. If you’ve seen the movie but never read thebook, I suggest taking the time to read it, whether you liked the movie ornot.

I found this movie rather slow-moving, yet confronting. The movie seemedmore like a comedy at times than in the thriller/drama genre. The actorswere very poor and lacked many of the characteristics expressed in thenovelyet some of the scenes were very powerful. This movie dealt with socialandhuman issues and toyed with the idea of role play and social status.I didnot enjoy this movie, yet i will give it credibility for being quite truetothe book.

*NO REAL SPOILERS, BUT SOME PEOPLE MAY SEE THE LAST SENTENCE AS ONE*Well, the book is quite nice, but please do not watch themotion-picture. It just does not have the certain something. Inaddition their (actors’) singing is insufferable. The only funny aspectof the film is the character Piggy. Well, there are also some seriousaspects like for example society’s cruelty and nature’s laws. If peopleknow that there are no consequences they are able to fulfill insaneactions. Nature’s laws: Kill and be killed; eat and be eaten; save yourown life. However, these aspects also occur in the book. Uh, yeah,before I forget it: Simon will never say anything again.

Hello,

My name is Leticia, sorry for been that quick , but do you know where ican get this in full movie?

I love this movie is drama, horror and sort of others.

I would really like more, if you can get this film or if you could saythe website for me, because I tried to see where does this film willbe, but I couldn't find so that would be a pleasure.

O.K.A.Y send me the site or the movie and I really how you are going todo because i'm new in this site. Thanks for it

bye bye

Not as good as the second one (1990). It’s filled with bad child actors,and seems to skip through a little too quickly without explaining what’sgoing on very well. The book is much better in this regard of course. Asusual, read the book. As a film, this just isn’t very good. As a lookintothe savagery encoded in everyone, even the most highly educatedwell-mannered English boys, it’s an excellent lesson in sociology andpsychology.

Warning: You might want to read the book or see the movie before you readthis.

Now this, along with Catcher in the Rye, is a book that should stay thatway. Lord of the Flies is an intirely emotional and mentally deep book, onefull of simbalism that just couldnt transfer well on screen.Ex. The book explains just what the ‘Lord of the Flies’ is, whereas themovie doesnt. In the book this explanation comes in a semi-hallucination tomy favourite character in the book, Simon. Simon is a very deep character,as is Ralph and even Jack. Without this character development, the boystransition into madness is muddled and unclear.Where is Simons conversation with the pig and the fly?Why do we see the parachuter before the boys realize what itis?In the book, we know about as much as they do when they first see it,hightening the suspense.Why does Ralph not talk to the sailor at the end like it wasintended?Where are the shelters in the movie?Keep this wonderful novel on paper. It doesnt belong on the screen. And ifyou are going to make it into a movie, find some betteractors.

…hideous and horrendous massacres of a classic piece of literature Ihave ever seen. If this is the better of the two versions, I shudder tothink how awful the 1990 version must be.

The introduction is static, vague, uninteresting and long. Thelanguage, although being directly sourced from the book, captures noneof Golding's subtlety and flow. The direction is bland, with nothingnew or exciting.Point-the-camera-and-let-him-talk-then-point-the-camera-at-the-other-guy-to-let-him-talk direction.

The cast, with the exception of Hugh Edwards as Piggy, are awful. Atthe most basic level of matching the actors to Golding's descriptionsin the book. Ralph is described as relatively tall, quite broad andaltogether looking like a boxer. He is also described, repeatedly, asbeing 'fair'. Fair hair, blue eyes, pale skin. James Aubrey is shortand skinny with brown hair and eyes. He seems, in fact, as short assome of the littluns. He has no status over the tribe. He is also muchshorter than Jack, creating a difference of status between them. Jacklooks like he could beat the hell out of Ralph with ease. They aremeant to be two equal-but-opposite forces butting against each other,with the decision of power being made by the sway of the masses(littluns).

The biggest problem with this movie, however, is the lack of time. Theevents of this movie could have easily taken place over 2 or 3 days, aweek at the most. The long hair, sunburn and tan, and generalomnipresent filth are all symbolic of their descent into savagery. Surein the movie, their clothes get ripped and they get smudged withwell-placed dirt but this only serves to further break the illusion asyou raise an eyebrow at their perfect hair, fabulous teeth andunblemished skin.

I think, though, that the time is ripe for another stab at this deepand introspective story, perhaps with a director who can fully graspthe meaning of this story.

Appalling acting, and visual effects to match. I especially disliked Piggy’shigh squeaky voice, and the scene where Piggy collects names (the boys takea long time to answer, especially Roger.)I’d rather watch the American version.

If you want to watch this and you haven’t read the book, you’ll be lost. Alot of crucial points in the pages of William Golding’s masterpiece novelare lost here, while others that are based on them are retained, thus thestory flows very jerkily. The musical score is almost non-existent, andwhile it works when applied, there are some scenes that could really havebenefited from good scoring that are given in complete silence. The scriptis, for the most part, almost verbatum from the novel, which is nice, butsome new scenes are added that are totally pointless, and moments ofdialogue crucial to the original story are foolishly skipped. Peter Brooks,however, does do a nice job of directing the movie. His camera angles aregood and he gets genuine drama out of some scenes, and establishes theisland quite well before the real story starts. The collection of stillimages the opening credits are projected over to a children’s choir is alsopleasantly eerie. The one thing that destroys this movie totally, though, isthe kids’ performances. The acting is so BAD it’s surreal, robbing all thescenes of any energy. It doesn’t totally kill the movie, but comes close.Brooks’ direction alon
e has to carry the movie, and it staggers a bit underthe burden. I don’t think Golding would have been proud ofthis.

I’m going to go on a limb and say that this quite possibly would be theworst movie ever made. The acting is horrible. And yes, I know thatthey’re just little boys, but come on now. There are talented kid actorsaround. A monkey could perform better than the kids in Lord of the Flies.

The book was a great book. I really enjoyed reading it. So, read the bookand don’t see the movie. Unless you like a movie where staring takes upmore time than dialogue.

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8½

It’s said, in 8 1/2, that "The audience should understand the film." Why,ohwhy did Fellini not adhere to such logic when making thisfilm?

I understand that this was an autobiographical, comic fantasy. Perhaps itwas not to be "understood". Perhaps that line was written purely forirony’ssake.

I gave the movie a generous 6/10 — it only garnered such a high scorebecause it is both foreign and over 30 years old.

Regardless, I found the film an abstruse, meandering bore. It was a task ofendurance just to watch it — all 138 minutes of it!

i need to learn how NOT to get sucked into watching a film just becauseit’sgot a high rating and a lot of critics seem to praise it. This is a primeexample. 8 1/2 was an utter bore, and although I admit I couldn’tcomprehend this piece of poop, I also don’t care to. I also can’tcomprehend why people refer to this as Fellini’s "masterpiece"…I saw"Amarcord" and "La Strada", both of which were very entertaining. Thisartsy fartsy film is simply a chore to sit thru.

I have not seen all of it but what I saw looked really awful. Why shouldwecare about these neurotic, narcisistic characters with stupid, evenheretic,Nietzsche references and splendid use of music with no images to match itall. Even Godard is more interesting than this.

This movie was downright weird and not in a good way. The acting wasgood, especially by the main character but the plot was way tooconfusing. Without reading from posts on here beforehand and watchingthe movie numerous times it’d be near impossible to try to separate thedream sequences from reality. Obviously a lot of effort was put intothis movie and it must’ve had a mega-sized budget for back in the early60’s to have all those people and sets in it. There were a handful offunny quotes that I found mildly amusing but this movie didn’t stop tomake me think about life like I figured it would and his finalrealization wasn’t anything splendid as one would expect. What wasreally funny was how the thing most people noticed about the movie werehow cool the dude’s sunglasses were (and hey they were pretty sweet).This film just screams ‘one long acid trip’ from beginning to end.Another thing that p*ssed me off were that the subtitles were sometimesimpossible to read due to their white font and the sometimes whitebackground that was behind them…so I’m sure I missed at least a fewimportant things there as well. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t anywherenear a bad movie, but I feel it’s far overrated for my tastes.

Movies : I’d end up falling asleep.

DVD Purchase : Not worth it.

Rental : Worth the rental price, but I noticed that some publiclibraries have it so check there first as that way it’ll be free!

This is one of the most overrated films of all time.

I viewed it recently hoping to catch up on classic films that I didn'tget around to viewing when they were "must- sees" and essential back inthe 1960's.

Good points:

Claudia Cardinale is so beautiful as to make any male take"three-steps-backwards" when she appears as the girl at the Spa; later,she's also a centerpiece, but not so overwhelming.

Eddra Gale as "La Saraghina" is also great, as is Sandra Milo as"Carla". Anouk Aimée as "Luisa" does a journeyman job in anunsympathetic role.

Marcello Mastroianni as "Guido". Nice hat.

Bad points:

Almost everything else. The opening sequence pales by comparison to"Touch of Evil", "Thief", "Road Warrior" and too many others to list.

In summary: Self-indulgent, neurotic, tedious, predictable, boring …

My thesaurus runs out.

This movie "wows" many for superficial reasons I'd say. Regarding itsautobiographical angle, director Fellini picks handsome MarceloMastroianni to portray him in this self-portrayal fantasy and thebeautiful Claudia Cardinale as his saviour figure. Both were fine butthe material needed darkening.

Lots of movie-business buffoonery and wild characters make for somesmirking fun but it's all very euro-weird, like a Godard film drunk onchampagne. Dated look at playboy-director type in crisis doesn't makeme care a whit about him… We're observers of an artist in flux whoseems to take nothing seriously but his flawless hair-do.

"8 1/2" had its' day in the sun, however now it can be seen as just anexercise in fluffy silliness in comparison with the more politicallycharged movies emergent in the sixties.

I have enjoyed watching directors such as Bergman, Godard, Antonioni,Bava etc and had little knowledge of Fellini. I have the segment TobyDammit which is average compared to the Malle and Vadim. I viewedSatyricon which was OK. Someone recommended I view 8 1/2 to see truefilm genius. A film about the hardships of being a director is over 2hours of overindulgent felliniesque wankfest. If the film portrayedFellini's dreams,how boring and tedious to sit through. Running aroundwith a handycam filming overbearing people,vocally out of sync doesn'tequal great cinema, I've seen more artistry from 1920's french porn.Fellini's poor imagination and banality is pure cinematic torture,mademe nauseous. Ranks no.1 worst film of the 20th century.

A film becomes dated not merely because it is a product of its time (bythat standard, all movies are dated). A dated movie is one that comesoff as a parody of its time.

A filmmaker who set out to make a parody of a pretentious early-60sart-house film would end up with something very like 8 1/2.

Watching this film, I found myself confirmed in my long-standing beliefthat artists are among the least interesting people in the world.

I do, however, understand why filmmakers and film students love thismovie so much: It confirms them in their belief that no matter howrich, famous, and oversexed they get, people will still want to hearthem whine about their little problems.

The direction, the cinematography, and the performances were adequate,but no more. The music was poor.

Occasionally, almost in spite of himself, Fellini will give ussomething which verges on the interesting, such as the scene whereLuisa confronts Guido with the presence of his mistress. But he neversticks with it, preferring to sink back into his dreary littlefantasies.

This is the only Fellini film I’ve seen so far (I’ve seen it twice; myopinion did not improve on second viewing), but LA DOLCE VITA’s comingon TV next month. Maybe I’ll give that one a try before I write Fellinioff as an overrated hack.

(Update: I watched LA DOLCE VITA, and frankly, I not only think thathe’s overrated, but I don’t think that Fellini has any particulartalent for film-making. Again, there is that touch of interest {in thiscase, the paparazzi} which Fellini abandons).

I adore European movies such as Rocco and His Brothers, WildStrawberries, The Virgin Spring, The Discreet Charm of Bourgeoisie,Paris Texas and I like Fellini, La Strada the most. However, I thinkthat Otto e Mezzo is the most uninteresting and tasteless so the worstEuropean movie ever made. There is nothing gives audience pleasure orthere is nothing to enjoy except for the scene the woman dances infront of the children on the beach. There is not another scene which isimpressive or dramatic because this movie is about a tasteless life ofa tasteless man in a tasteless world. Look at the current poster ofOtto e Mezzo on the main page. It reflects its content anyway. Thereare colorful black and white films, Otto e Mezzo is not one of them.Some people maintain that it promotes cinema. Is this cinema at first?Cinema is art, so cinema is 'beauty'.The film is a kind of tormentor,it does not hurt you, but you offen
d cinema and you cannot come to lifeunless watch colorful black and white European movies.

I saw this film at Istanbul Film Festival.From the beginning to the end Ican’t remember any minutes that I felt myself happy.It was really veryboring.How people show this film as Fellini’s best work.In this filmFellinican’t explain his very confused feelings to audience.Just see this film forClaudia Cardinale.

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