Contempt (Le Mepris) (1963)

I admittedly haven't seen all that much Godard. I saw Masculin Feminin, which is barely comprehensible. I watched ten minutes of Adieu au Langage on Netflix and it was unwatchable. Maybe I'm just not a Godard fan. But Le Mepris is gorgeous. To begin with, there is a plot! The music is super emotional. The characters are complex. And the cinematography is visually stunning. The whole movie was kind of mesmerizing.

It is supremely European. Giorgia Moll plays interpreter for the group of English, French, German and Italian speaking characters. The characters speak in their own languages without regard for the others and the very impressive interpreter must act as the go-between. Kind of interesting that only the French was subtitled, and only if it wasn't also translated orally in English. So you really have to pay attention to who is saying what.

Godard's editing style is rather unique. I wonder if he thinks in the same way he cuts together his movies because some of the montages are otherwise inexplicable. The introductory credits is like a unique behind-the-scenes take with narration. There is some voice-over in the middle too when Camille and Paul discuss the dissolution of their marriage. That whole long apartment scene is masterful. It feels natural. There is one unnatural part at the end of the movie. That is the car accident. The car accident is inexcusably dumb. There is no way he didn't see a giant truck, especially to ram into the section of the truck that drags the huge semitrailer. Also, even though there is plot, the gun never pays off; you don't introduce a gun in act two if it never gets used...

Holy Motors (2012)

I've seen a lot of strange films but this might just be the strangest--downright insane. You have literally zero idea what you're watching until about halfway through the movie. And even then, you can only guess. Here's my best guess. Denis Lavant plays an actor, who plays out his assigned scenes not on a set but in the real world, followed by a small unseen camera. He is driven around to the various locations in a limo that doubles as a dressing room. He makes total transformations. Despite the oddness of this movie, it is totally mesmerizing and actually hilariously awkward.

The limo represents the only refuge from the outside world in which he must be someone he is not, even when that is not so obvious. It's a commentary on modern celebrity. Celebrities wear a persona for the outside world. Whenever they exit their limo, they are constantly being watched by unseen eyes. And so they must put on a facade to be the person society expects them to be. It's all fake, dramatized. It's kind of genius.

I just want to pick out a few scenes of note. One follows the character Merde, who also features in Tokyo! We watched this film in Professor Mason's class. It is another crazy character who abducts a silent Eva Mendes. He lives in the sewers and bites a woman's hand. It is probably the most raucously disturbing scene.

Then there are two musical scenes. One is a musical interlude. It is entirely out of place, literally an intermission. Denis Lavant leads an accordion band through a church. It is actually infectious. I've never liked accordion more. His expressions are dispassionate giving nothing away. I'm really unsure what to make of this scene, other than it just being kind of fun. The other musical scene features Kylie Minogue marvelously singing "Who Were We." We are originally led to believe that this is not a scene, but two former lovers meeting by chance. But there is no chance. Everything is scripted, including relationships. Isn't that true in real Hollywood? 

Mauvais Sang/The Night is Young (1986)

Denis Lavant is a brooding teenager torn between two women in future Paris. It's a sci-fi gangster movie that actually revolves around romance. It is hard to explain, but the tone of the movie is sci-fi even if the elements of science fiction remain unseen. Somehow it feels futuristic without looking it. Lavant's ringtone is Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, alluding to tragic love though I'm not sure the ending is so tragic. Perhaps it is actually freeing. There is a famous scene in which Lavant dances to Modern Love by David Bowie. Maybe dance isn't the right word. He contorts his body and drags and beats himself as if he is trapped.  Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha does an homage to this scene. Leos Carax is a stylish director. And I love his clever pseudonym. Put the spaces in the right plae and it spells Le Oscar a X, like The Oscar goes to X.