In Godard's 1978 speech at the Montreal Academy of Cinematic Arts in Canada, Godard had already explained the ins and outs of "Contempt" very thoroughly. For this commissioned film, Godard himself considered it a failure, although He felt it was the first time that he had enough budget to make an ideal film. In Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," she also mentioned that "Contempt" has obvious flaws, but it is still enough to make people feel Excited.
I only briefly discuss some of my personal viewing experiences
1. In "Contempt", we saw the maturity of Godard's soundtrack for the first time, at least I think Godard didn't pay much attention to it before "Contempt" The ability of the soundtrack to set off the entire atmosphere. Contempt adds to the heaviness of the film with its recurring strings.
2. "Contempt" is a film about a film, Godard said sarcastically in his Montreal speech: "These people are at least more honest than Truffaut's film, which tries to make the audience say "That's how movies are made." Franz Lang played the director who was preparing to shoot "The Odyssey" in "Contempt", so "Contempt" unfolds in the atmosphere of the whole dignified Greek epic, which is mixed with the discussion of Greek culture and the reflection on contemporary culture. Those frozen long shots of the sculptures of the Greek gods are unforgettable against the background of the grand strings. I'm sure Angelopoulos' "The Gaze of Ulysses" took too much inspiration from "Contempt," which is also about film, and also has a background in Greek mythology.
3. Godard still added a trance-like emotional entanglement that he was good at in "Contempt", and repeatedly facing dialogues such as the bedroom scene in "Exhausted" is indeed easy to cause aesthetic fatigue. I've clearly felt a certain kind of impatience watching the emotional scenes in Contempt, and the witty, trance-like scenes have grown tired of me. But Godard has a brilliant foreshadowing in "Contempt". His story of Ulysses and Penelope is a metaphor for the emotional entanglement of the young screenwriter, and he re-examines the current humble emotions from ancient Greek mythology. People respect.
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