MovieChat Forums > Le mépris (1964) Discussion > 8 1/2

8 1/2

posted 16 years ago by bingham_bryant
6 replies | jump to latest

Did anyone else catch Godard's reference to 8 1/2 in Contempt? In the extended apartment scene, after Piccoli has gotten out of the bathtub, he is wearing a dark hat, a towel wrapped around himself as a toga, and brandishing his belt like a whip, in other words, is dressed exactly like Mastraionni as Guido in the harem scene.
It's an interesting reference for Godard to have made, considering the fact that both characters are filmmakers struggling to hold onto their artistic vision.

[–] jimster22 16 years ago

As interesting as this thought is, Piccoli is a playwright working on the Odyssey script for more money, not a "filmmaker" in the same sense that Guido is in 8 1/2.

I took that the toga was meant to connect him to the Greek gods/characters of the Odyssey in a visual way.

One shot is what it's all about.
-Robert De Niro, The Deer Hunter

[–] bingham_bryant 16 years ago

Piccoli says he's working purely for the money, but that's not the whole truth. The whole film is a metaphor for the struggle to create art, with both Bardot and the Odyssey film as symbols for the work of art. Piccoli's intellectualism, his absurdly cold, rational nature is what leads him to abandon both his wife and the film.
Although, I agree, the toga is also a point of connection with the greeks.

[–] shroomn 16 years ago

interesting

[–] Just_Another_Film_Buff 16 years ago

The toga,
Intensely personal films,
Struggle for artistic identity
Struggle with women,
And both of them the same year... Wierd

http://theseventhart.info

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] 16 years ago

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