MovieChat Forums > Le mépris (1964) Discussion > Review

Review

posted 22 years ago by mob61uk
8 replies | jump to latest

The Time Out film guide describes this film as "a dazzling fable".
I'm afraid that I found it barely watchable. The only thing that
kept me going was the strangeness of seeing Jack Palance and Fritz
Lang in a "New Wave" film.

The story - a wife's contempt for her husband, who is a script writer
on a film version of The odyssey directed by Lang - is dealt with in
a lacklustre way. I found almost no interest in the characters.
There were, however, a few nice cinematic in-jokes.

It was the worst film I've seen for quite a while.

[–] Beren 22 years ago

Sure, but Bardot had a nice body.

[–] SmashMe55 21 years ago

The real story is about a man (Piccoli) who is imprisoned between two way of thinking and cannot decide on his own, thats why his wife feels contempt for him. Fritz Lang is the old guy that believes in the antique way of saying things like in the ancient greece, on the other hand Palance is the new way of thinking, money and profit. You have to watch this film with another perspective.

[–] 21 years ago

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[–] 21 years ago

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[–] cinemanewyork 19 years ago

Was there a pattern to the way he replayed Delarue's theme over and over at different places throughout the movie?

thank-you. that's the one thing that freaking got under my skin and had a gangrene party. if i could have that silenced (as the end of the film calls out) i'm pretty sure i'd love this film.

and yes, i'm not a fan of piccoli either.

as for the filters, check out the threads on the color in the film. red, white, blue shows up a lot and someone mentioned the france flag but however you look at it, there's a kindly reason for its presence.

argh, i'm still irritated by the damn tune.

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] WhenNothingWas 21 years ago

Watch it again. Had someone asked me how I felt about Contempt after I first watched it I would have responded with something like: "I don't know - I think so." However, I have seen it 3 times since then (I even bought its highly priced Criterion edition), and it has gotten better and better each time.

[–] 19 years ago

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