Is It Fair to Claim That Le Mépris, Film De Jean-Luc Godard, Shows Issues in Film Production but Fails to Comment on the Prominent Causes Concerning This?

Is it fair to claim that Le Mépris, film de Jean-Luc Godard, shows issues in film production but fails to comment on the prominent causes concerning this?

In this essay I shall begin by analysing the films immediately apparent criticisms and in doing so reveal some deeper criticisms that it puts forward in relation to commoditisation. I shall then relate this to Adorno's criticisms of the Culture industry in order to flesh out these ideas. With the films main criticism now discussed it will be possible to delve deeper into the more theoretical side of the issues raised which will lead to the discussion of metaphysics and perception through analysis of Bergson and Deleuze. With this larger framework of film theory laid out it will be possible to once again analyse the film and discuss whether it hints upon and supports such theories.

Le Mépris follows a French script writer and his wife and their diminishing relationship as he rewrites a film in order to make it more commercial to appease an American producer. The film concludes with him and his wife splitting and her running off with the American producer. It cannot be overstated the complexity of the subtext within this film but nevertheless the most clear messages that it portrays is one of the nature of contempt and secondly a criticism of the method of film production within Hollywood and big productions. I shall begin by focusing on the latter and then delve deeper into it using Adorno's the Culture Industry to flesh out the criticisms. The lead character Paul Javal is hired to rewrite Fritz Lang's artsy screenplay of 'Odyssey' into something with more mass appeal; more sex, more violence, more common tropes. It is the tension between Fitz Lang the director and Jeremy Prokosch the producer that represents a key issue with modern filmmaking, this being the difference of interests between the money men and the artists. This necessarily arises in big productions due to the cost of filming and the want of financial return from those who funded the project, Jean-Luc Godard himself admits in an interview that the early scene of Brigitte Bardot nude the bed was filmed due to a producer saying "The film is beautiful, but not commercial." With this said Godard does not put the blame solely on the producers as can be seen in Le Mépris, Paul also gets 'corrupted' by capitalism, Jeremy tells him that due to the fact he has a beautiful wife he shall agree to rewrite the script. To enforce this argument it is readily seen that Jeremy has a beautiful car, in order for this to be so money has to be of importance to him, his comment is a hint that Paul is in the same situation but with his beautiful wife. Moreover the early scene where in Camille is asking whether Paul likes each of her body parts and then concludes by asking "so you love me totally" and he responds "yes" without mention of her as a subject, this can be seen to reflect Jeremy's relationship with his car. It is these hints of Paul's relation with Camille becoming or being that of a commodity and his falling into the capitalist psychology of commodification that forms the foundation of his betrayal. Camille comes to realise this as she first comes into contact with Jeremy's car she examines it and strokes it while in deep thought as to suppose that it is at this moment that she realises this potential tragic shift. The reality of this shift comes into light as he betrays Camille by gifting her company to Jeremy by encouraging her to ride in his car alone. It is this that is the initial and unforgivable cause for contempt between Camille and Paul, Camille now realises Paul's inescapable fall into capitalism and loss of romanticism. It is by no coincidence at this moment that they lose each other both in terms of their relationship and physically within the film as they call each other's names, first "Paul!" and then in response "Camille!".

It is this new thought of things as commodity and 'ex-change value' and the importance given to money that Godard comments on and more over how this is in active opposition to art, or even arguably real beauty and truth. Once again to reiterate this is seen not only in the struggle between Fitz Lang and Jeremy in terms of the film but also this conflict is within the very foundations of contempt in each relation. Ultimately it is contempt for the seemingly irresistible pull and struggle with capitalism that causes these frictions, Godard famously says in Godard on Godard that "to live in Parisian society today, at whatever level or on whatever plane, one is forced to prostitute oneself in one way or another, or else to live according to conditions resembling those of prostitution." (Jean-Luc Godard, 1986) He chooses to take a subtle dialectical and transformative approach to the issue of capitalism, this is not surprising, in Cinema 2 Deleuze describes Godard as saying 'to describe is to observe mutations' (Gilles Deleuze, 1989) and therefore it can be seen why the film does not tell us what causes the contempt that Camille has for Paul but shows it through observable behaviour changes. The exact method in which he achieves this effect shall be discussed but what is important at this stage is that Godard is commenting on the issues of filmmaking with the commoditisation of culture but also the wider results of capitalist society and thought. Interestingly Le Mépris is commonly known as Godard's most 'Hollywood' like film and was the film he made with the biggest budget, arguably this was necessary for his point to come across. Raphaelle Burns writes that Le Mépris is "the opportunity for Godard to stage his own defiant opposition to the narrowing effects of the media industry of his time. He is clearly attacking the requirements to reduce the media to the presentation of fact, what has been without its possibility, and critiquing the resultant veiling of the power of images for the sake of pure profit and spectacle." (Raphaelle Burns, 2011)

To explore this idea it is necessary to look at Adorno's essay Culture Industry, he claims that the culture industry is what was created with the industrialization of art. To fully grasp what is meant by the culture industry it is necessary to first discuss the role of technology and in particular the ability to copy art exactly. This had huge consequences as it destroyed what Walter Benjamin called the 'aura' of artworks, the authenticity of art was lost and it became accessible to the masses and therefore destroyed the idea of elitist 'taste'. With this destruction of aura Adorno describes how art then began to be judged on mass appeal over artistic value and therefore pieces of art became commodities. This led to art becoming what Adorno calls