Le Mépris and Its Story of Cinema: a Fabric of Quotations*
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Laura Mulvey LE MÉPRIS AND ITS STORY OF CINEMA: A FABRIC OF QUOTATIONS* In Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) and quotation the world of cinéphilia the cinema has a central presence on seeps into Le Mépris mediating bet- various different levels. The making ween past and present. As quotation of a film has brought the central cha- necessarily refers backwards in time, racters together and the dramatic pro- Godard evokes a now ended era with cesses of film-making are often shown an aesthetic device that always comes on screen, as a backdrop to the hu- out of the past. Thus, in Le Mépris, man drama. But woven into this overt form (quotation) is appropriate to its presence is another story about the content (history). cinema: its histories and its contem- But, on the other hand, quotation is a porary crises. Only occasionally expli- key modernist formal device, fragmen- citly reaching the surface of the film, ting a text’s cohesion, disrupting tradi- this story is concealed in signs, images tional forms of reading by introducing and allusions. The unifying thread that other layers to a linear structure. As ties these oblique references together Peter Wollen puts it in his discussion is the world of cinéphilia, Godard’s of quotation in Godard’s Le Vent d’Est formative years as a critic for the Ca- (1970): hiers du Cinéma and the films and di- One of the main characteristics of moder- rectors he had written about and loved nism […] was the play of allusion within during the 1950s. That world had, by and between texts… The effects to break 1963, moved into a past tense: the Ho- up the heterogeneity of the work, to open llywood studio system that had produ- up spaces between different texts and ty- ced the politique des auteurs had aged pes of discourses… The space between the and had been overtaken by industrial texts is not only semantic but historical changes; Godard was no longer a ci- too, the different textual strata being re- néphile critic but a successful New sidues of different epochs and different Wave director. But through allusions cultures (WOLLEN, 1982: 102). JULY-DECEMBER 2014 L’ ATALANTE 27 NOTEBOOK · CINEPHILE DIRECTORS IN MODERN TIMES These kinds of insertions also ne- that had overtaken and were overtak- from the days of the Cahiers to those cessarily address the reader/spectator ing the cinema. The anomalies do, of the Nouvelle Vague, from loving a and generate two possible directions of course, take on multiple shapes or particular shot to using it in his own of engagement: one remains with the forms, deviating from a strict concept films. About thirty years later, this text’s overt meaning while the other of quotation. Iampolski sums up this lifelong partiality for quotation cul- takes a detour into a latent and more multiplicity when he points out that an minated in Historie(s) du cinéma. Le uncertain terrain. To reflect Mépris,released in 1963 as on the passing references, a comparatively large bud- especially if they are not un- get fiction film with corres- derlined or emphasised by I would like to reflect on those ponding production va- the film’s action, involves moments when reference to the lues, adapted from a quite a step aside from the main conventional novel, bene- line of the film’s narrative. cinema within Le Mépris intrude fits from the retrospective The temptation is to pause, and direct the spectator away from shadow cast by Histoire(s). to attribute a reference to Not only are both made its source, or attempt to the internal logic of the text, its up of a tissue of film quo- trace it until the trail is lost, tation and reference, but as opposed to following manifest narrative, and towards both were also made du- the forward flow of a text. “other explanations” ring transitional periods So, for instance, when I in film history. Looking analyse, later in this essay, back at Le Mépris from this further associations triggered for me by anomaly takes the form of a fragment perspective, its juxtaposition between the posters in Cinecittà, I will be giving which means: “what is traditionally cinema history and quotation gains priority to certain background ima- considered a quote may end up not be- in significance, the fiction dominates ges over the crucial narrative moment ing one, while what is not traditionally less, the characters give way to their when Camille and Jerry meet, when seen as a quote might end up being emblematic casting and the network- Paul betrays Camille and the theme of one” (IAMPOLSKI, 1998: 31). like structure, central to the Historie(s) contempt begins. Mikhail Iampolski Godard’s taste for quotation has often aesthetic, becomes more visible. Fur- describes the relationship between been commented on and he himself thermore, Historie(s) draws attention quotation and the spectator’s detour in uses the phrase in a long interview in to the place Le Mépris itself occupies the following terms: the special Nouvelle Vague issue of Ca- in film history, how close it lies, in The anomalies that emerge in a text, bloc- hiers du Cinéma (168, December 1962) 1963, to 1950s Hollywood, both as king its development, impel us towards he says, in relation to À bout de souffle: a time of industrial decline but also an intertextual reading. This is because Our earliest films were simply films made the decade which the last great films every normative narrative text possesses by cinéphiles. We could make use of wha- studio system films were still being an internal logic. This logic motivates tever we had already seen in the cinema made. It was these films that Godard the presence of the various fragments to deliberately create references. This was loved in particular and that provi- of which the text is made. If a fragment particularly the case for me. […] I construc- ded his formation as a director (as he cannot find a weighty enough motivation ted certain shots along the lines of ones points out in the 1962 interview). But for its existence from the logic of the text, that I already knew, Preminger’s, Cukor’s, the presence of history draws atten- it becomes an anomaly, forcing the rea- etc. Furthermore, Jean Seberg’s character tion to an aesthetic shift. Quotation in der to seek its motivation in some other follows on from Bonjour Tristesse. I could Le Mépris is no longer simply a taste. logic or explanation outside the text. The have taken the last shot of that film and It enables anelegiac commentary on search is then constructed in the realm of added an inter-title “Three Years Later” the decline of one kind of cinema intertexuality (IAMPOLSKI, 1998: 30). […] It comes from my taste for quotation while celebrating another, the style I would like to reflect on those mo- that has always stayed with me. In life, that Godard had himself developed ments when reference to the cinema people quote things that appeal to them… within the context of the French New within Le Mépris intrude and direct the So I show people quoting: except I arrange Wave. Summing up this situation, Mi- spectator away from the internal logic their quotations in a way that will also ap- chel Marie says: of the text, its manifest narrative, and peal to me (GODARD, 1968: 28). The aesthetic project of Le Mépris is enti- towards “other explanations”. To my Quotation, Godard seems to be sa- rely determined by the context of the end mind, when followed up, the anomalies ying, offered a point of cinematic of classical cinema and the emergence begin to form a network, relating back transition in his trajectory from ci- of new revolutionary forms of narrative to a latent, other story of the changes néphile/critic to cinéphile/director, (MARIE, 1990: 14). 28 L’ ATALANTE JULY-DECEMBER 2014 LE MÉPRIS AND ITS STORY OF CINEMA: A FABRIC OF QUOTATIONS It was Alberto Moravia’s novel Il Diz- duced and distributed movies but also form a triptych in which the old that prezzo (1954) from which Le Mépris is ran their own theatre chains (SCHATZ, Godard loved, especially Hollywood, adapted that gave Godard, in the first 1998: 4). is enunciated through the new he be- instance, the necessary film-within-a In the first instance, these changes lieved in. In his book on Fritz Lang, film framework from which to deve- were set in motion by the Paramount Tom Gunning uses the screening room lop his own themes and reflections. Decree of 1948. The Federal Govern- sequence in Le Mépris to discuss the The novel was based on Moravia’s own ment wanted to break the restrictive complex question of film authorship. real-life encounter with the Italian film practices inherent in Hollywood’s ver- He says: “The film-maker functions industry when, as a journalist, he vi- tically integrated system of production, less as a scriptor than as a fashioner of sited the location of Mario Camerini’s distribution and exhibition. After the palimpsests, texts written over other 1954 spectacular Ulisse (a Lux Film Decree, the studios had to sell their ci- texts creating new meanings from the production with Kirk Douglas as Ulys- nemas. The old financial mode of self- superimposition of old ones” (GUNNING, ses, also starring Silvana Mangano and investment, through which production 2000: 6). For all three of the triptych se- Anthony Quinn). Il Dizprezzo uses a was supported by box-office returns, quences, the concept of palimpsest has film production of The Odyssey as the was gradually replaced by individual special relevance, evoking the way that setting for a tight group of characters package deals put together by indepen- quotation and reference create layers (producer, director, screen-writer and dent producers, stars and increasingly of time, bringing something from past screen-writer’s wife).