Contempt Analysis

 Contempt (1963)

Written & Directed by: Jean Luc Godard

Films which are set in the world of cinema are always intriguing, at least to film geeks. The opening shot has a camera tracking towards us slowly, with the credits being spoken out, and when it comes close to us - it slowly pans and tilts towards us. We have seen stories of filmmakers in films like Pain and Glory, 8 1/2, Stardust Memories, Day for Night, Hong Sang-soo's films and every filmmaker has a unique voice. Godard shoots long conversations between characters around one single conflict, the entire sequence in the house where they keep going back and forth - it holds our attention because of the way the conversation is designed, the proper orchestration of the amount of tension in the argument between them. Their conflict has two layers to it, about why she has stopped loving him and why she wouldn't tell him about what it is. It is just like ghosting, no matter what he asks her - she has stopped giving him answers.

We can't not talk about the style, when it is a Godard's film - in this film there is a sequence where we see some montages, and there is voice over of both the characters one after the other - I have never seen interchanging voice over of two different characters in one scene - it felt like a very interesting way to show both points of view - because usually films use voice over for one character, we dive deep into only that point of view and we see other characters from the lens of this character. And also, the camera movements were well used, whether it's a tracking back and forth between two characters while they are talking, or the slow panning shots to capture the landscapes. The translation from one language to another, actually adds to the scene in some places, not as much in Lost in Translation which generates humor out of it - here it adds a sense of uncertainty to the scene.