Contempt for the Devil (two Godard films re-released on DVD)

“Sympathy for the Devil" and "Contempt” 

Every kind of break up leaves you confused and disconnected, miserable and unclear to where and why it all began. Both films tell the story of self-polluting relationships parting ways. One: between a band, the other: man and woman fall out of love. Both films also start at the end of their relationships, or the beginning of the end, which is ironic, because there is no narrative finish line, or expected resolution. The common link between the two- there is no finite ending. You could loop these films, you’d come up with the same objective conclusions. Like “Zabriskie Point’s” slight lyrical tone, there must be more behind the script, and the way it unravels. Godard eliminates the need for climax: “Sympathy for the Devil” ends with a third of the Rolling Stones on the floor artistically defeated, jamming nonsense on a jembey drum and guitar. “Contempt” ends with an unexpected, unexplained car crash.

The creation of a song is like a trying romance of two in love. The band is shot enclosed in one isolated room, within isolated booths, just as Paul and Camille’s feelings for each other are kept non-communicative and dysfunctional self-claustrophobic. Each band member metaphorically represents a particular different repressed emotion between the two. (Mick- the neurotic, Keith- confident, laid back, Charlie- the heart and soul of the band trying to keep it together, Bill- apathetic, and Brian- death, insignificance)

By avoiding resolution, Godard’s films go on tangents of poetry prose and the philosophical at any impromptu moment. He injects stories within stories. Godard hides the intellectual message, behind the obvious (i.e. - The Vietnam War debates, behind the making of a rock and roll song, or a couple drifting apart, beneath a playwright hired to rewrite “The Odyssey” for the big screen). There are commingling symbols of construction, such as Paul and Camille’s unfinished apartment, or The Stones recording studio having to be set up differently every song take. (I see the coldness of the studio, or apartment, as a recurrent play on themes of uninspired love and distracted loneliness)

I love how Godard leaves the audience to think for themselves, to fill in the blanks, where the story hits a wall. He doesn’t deliberately tell you The Rolling Stones are at the end of their creative peak, he gives you open-minded confusion, same with the car crash at the end of “Contempt”. He does not explain visually, or lyrically what exactly happened. It’s as if he recognizes an anticipated climax, then dilutes it with any kind of rising tension. The politics of both “Sympathy” and “Contempt” are uniquely the same. It’s big business corporations in the way of personal evolution. Tragedy has always been more interesting to watch unfold, and Godard is the best at magnifying this to show us there is more to cinema, than the usual expectations of the average popcorn movie goer. He turns motion pictures to poetry, freeing himself from systematic three-act rhetoric, the common link between the entire Godard-catalog. To watch him apply this to a love story, or a band documentary, becomes a study on sociology and habitualness. He exemplifies: It is habitual, that human creatures cannot stay together indefinitely. I feel both films resound this statement beautifully.