I’m not quite sure what Jean-Luc Godard was trying to achieve with Contempt (French: Le Mépris), but if it was to make a good film, he didn’t quite reach that goal. My own challenges with Godard are well-documented, but I’ve always admired his gall as a filmmaker, and someone who essentially helped define postwar European cinema by being one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. However, while we can easily wax poetic about some of his more notable achievements such as Breathless or his later experimental works, it is more difficult to find value in Contempt, a film so perfectly-named, not only for its exploration of the sensation but also in the feeling it inspires in the viewer. Excruciating is too strong a word to use to describe this film, but I fear this may be bordering dangerously close on being overcome by more flaws than its merits, and while we can find something worthwhile in what Godard is saying here (and the way he attempts to say it), it becomes a challenge to see beyond how ill-formed this film is, both in the message it sends and the methods it employs to deliver it. Bearing many of the traits that would later go on to be the folly of those seeking to parody the self-aggrandizing pretensions of the New Wave, and making very little effort to prove itself to be anything else otherwise, this is a tough film to sit through, mostly because there was something there, a spark of promise, that Godard seems so entirely obtuse to, choosing to go his own direction, which blatantly refuses to be anything other than an overwrought, aimless attempt to give insights into the human condition – and like with the majority of the director’s more brutal work during this time, it really amounts to very little of value, if anything at all.

Ultimately, it is understandable why Contempt was such a moment in 1960s cinema – not only was it cinema about cinema (always a favourite with the industry, critics and audiences alike), but it was the kind of film that carries a veneer of importance and insight. Suddenly, a film about a playwright questioning his relationship (and by extent his existence) was more insightful since it was delivered in French, with the elegance and mystery of the European arthouse being used as a way to add nuance to the proceedings. This is perfectly understandable – but when we consider what some of Godard’s colleagues were able to do with similar premises (including his friend and adversary, François Truffaut, who made one of the definitive films about the industry only a decade later with Day for Night, which did tread familiar territory, but in a way that actually felt meaningful), we can start to see how Contempt really isn’t all it is cracked up to be. This isn’t a bad film – to suggest that would mean either no effort was put in, or too much effort to the point where it becomes too heavy-handed. Godard has always been the embodiment of laissez-faire filmmaking, where his style has always been a more freewheeling, easy-going approach to heavy subjects. Contempt situates itself somewhere between a metafictional cinematic odyssey and a tense marital drama – this is not a bad premise, and with a bit more focus, this could’ve been extraordinary. The problem with the film is that Godard promotes a great story, but from the wrong perspective – and to make it even worse, we can’t quite pinpoint exactly where the film falters, with so many components just not working in the way we’d expect it to. Godard has dealt with deep existential topics before, and while they might not always work, they at least were far more compelling than they were under his lacklustre direction here.

To put frustrations into words, the best way to describe Contempt is through looking at it as an extension of its main character. Much like Paul, the film seems to be undergoing some kind of identity crisis, never sure of what it wants to be. On one hand, it is clearly an attempt to be an insightful glimpse into the machinations of the film industry and the backstage drama that goes on behind the camera and often tends to be reflected on screen in inadvertent ways. In this regard, the film is quite decent, especially since it shows Godard working from a space of familiarity – as a young auteur, he was obviously privy to the challenges that came with being a wunderkind of the new generation during a time when the old masters were still working and asserting their vision onto the screen, exemplified by the presence of Fritz Lang in an unending cameo as himself. However, it only mildly succeeds, lacking the wit or intelligence of other films centred on the industry. Perhaps expecting an outright comedy is unnecessary, since Godard (at this point in his career) was far too intent on being profound to resort to any kind of humour, but it doesn’t even attempt to show the absurdity of the situations it presents us with, which were undeniably fertile ground for a more interesting investigation into the egos that drive the industry, and the conflict between artistry and monetary gain. Where the film really doesn’t do well is in the exploration of the marriage plot, which lingers over the film and essentially drives it. Up until the centrepiece scene, everything was going well – suddenly, we’re presented with an extended sequence of the two main characters in their apartment, gradually moving from playful flirtation to outright hostility, where their bickering unveils something simmering below their romance. This sounds like a fascinating character study – believe me, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Poorly-staged, lazily-written and singularly uninterested in making a coherent point, but rather establishing the final act, the film loses its way midway through and never quite recovers, to the point where we’re just biding our time, waiting for it to reach a resolution that simply doesn’t come, and quite literally ends with a crash.

For what its worth, Contempt isn’t a film that impels us to write it off from the outset, and even until the final moments, the optimistic viewer may be desperately hoping for these loose narrative strands to come together in a meaningful way. It’s bewildering the extent to which Contempt seems insistent on living up to its name, especially since Godard is putting in virtually no effort into creating something other than an insidious melodrama that so desperately wants to be the final word on the entirety of romance, a cynical and disconcerting glimpse into the lives of people who decidedly do not exist in any real sense, thinly-written archetypes that just function as props to the director’s meandering self-importance. Godard’s pretensions can sometimes be so wonderfully endearing, especially when he lacks the self-awareness to see the fault in his own vision. Godard genuinely believes he was making a great character-driven drama about the human condition, where the inner quandaries of brooding characters are explored and the fragility of existence is exploited for the sake of showing incredulity to infallible cultural beliefs. What we get instead is a vaguely-infantile drama with unlikable characters expressing their disdain for their own existence. Is it any surprise the only fully-formed performance comes on behalf of Fritz Lang, who wasn’t even an established actor to begin with? The film does have some memorable qualities – most of all, it is definitely a stunning film, with the gorgeous use of colour and framing being by far the most worthwhile aspect of it (and shows Raoul Coutard as being perhaps the only person who emerges entirely unscathed from the film), and the imagery services the story exceptionally well, to the point where it becomes almost lost in this visually-striking version of the world Godard and his crew set out to explore. The problem is, the film itself seems to become too dependent on the scope to actually make much of an impression.

Understandably, Contempt did come early in his career (arriving in a year where he very ambitiously set out to direct three films – I can’t imagine Contempt is in any way the best of them), so we can easily chalk up some of these issues to his more novitiate qualities that he’d mercifully develop as he gradually matured in the industry. He was a young, scrappy outsider pioneering a movement that was built on subversion – it’s important to not define him by these weaknesses. However, this isn’t entirely excusable, since there was promise here that he just didn’t deliver on, choosing to instead follow the path of self-indulgence, where he employs his brand of reflecting his own issues on screen in the hopes that they will rivet audiences and leave us exasperated. Contempt points to one of the biggest flaws in so much of the director’s work – a Godard film may be about several different themes, but at the end of the day, there’s only one subject he wants us to care about: Godard himself, who is simply not nearly as interesting as he believes himself to be, at least not in these early stages of his career. This is an excuse to dismiss Godard overall – he may have his issues, but he’s an undeniably important filmmaker, and his status in the history of film far outweighs these moments of blatant self-indulgence. However, Contempt is just not the film he genuinely believes he’s making, and it’s only worsened by his refusal to make use of the more playful qualities available to him (which he mercifully did make use of in subsequent films). Ultimately, Contempt is not a particularly good film, not for any other reason than it has immense potential and fails to recognize it, instead being aimless and uninteresting. It takes a lot of effort to find real value in this film, and it isn’t worth all the work. There are much better films about the movie industry, far more compelling stories about disintegrating marriage, and more interesting looks into the human condition, some of them from Godard himself – Contempt is quite simply just not one of them.