Godard's Contempt at the Duke Screen Society
Details
Tribute to Jean-Luc Godard (1930-2022)
Join us for 2 screenings of works from the legendary filmmaker’s early and late periods.
2:00PM: Contempt (1963, 103 min)
3:45PM: Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars (2023, 20 min)
– Introduced by Prof. Anne-Gaëlle Saliot (Romance Studies/Cinematic Arts)
***
Contempt (Le Mépris)
(Jean-Luc Godard, 1963, 102 min, France, DCP)
New 4K Restoration!
Jean-Luc Godard’s subversive foray into commercial filmmaking is a star-studded Cinemascope epic. Contempt (Le Mépris) stars Michel Piccoli as a screenwriter torn between the demands of a proud European director (played by legendary director Fritz Lang), a crude and arrogant American producer (Jack Palance), and his disillusioned wife (Brigitte Bardot), as he attempts to doctor the script for a new film version of The Odyssey. Based on Alberto Moravia’s novel Il Disprezzo, Contempt is a brilliant study of marital breakdown, artistic compromise, and the cinematic process.
“One of the defining moments of modern filmmaking. Thrilling in its stylistic freedom, hilarious in its dry wit and yet infinitely sad in its vision of a media-cluttered modern world cut off from the wholeness and harmony of the Greeks. Remains as vital and challenging as the day it was made.” – Dave Kehr
“Has the glow of greatness… An acid satire, an act of worship… Sports the nimbleness of comedy, strolls defiantly in the direction of the tragic… Why this should break the heart I have no idea, but it does.” – Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
“My favorite of Godard’s films is Contempt. [...] It’s an elegy for cinema, for love, for honor, for western civilization itself.” – Martin Scorsese, Cahiers du Cinéma
https://cinematicarts.duke.edu/screensociety/screenings/tribute-jean-luc-godard-1930-2022-contempt-1963-trailer-film-2023
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057345
Let's gather 15 min before the show in front of the theater.
Group discussion will follow in the Rubenstein lobby or, if there is enough interest, at some downtown location nearby.