Le Mepris, film review: Godard relishes clash between the sublime and the banal
1/30 30 September 2016
An employee hangs works of art with "Grand Teatro" by Marino Marini (R) and bronze sculpture "Sfera N.3" by Arnaldo Pomodoro seen ahead of a Contemporary Art auction on 7 October, at Sotheby's in London
2/30 29 September 2016
Street art by Portuguese artist Odeith is seen in Dresden, during an exhibition "Magic City - art of the streets"
3/30 28 September 2016
Dancers attend a photocall for the new "THE ONE Grand Show" at Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, Germany
4/30 28 September 2016
With an array of thrift store china, humorous souvenirs and handmade tile adorning its walls and floors, the Mosaic Tile House in Venice stands as a monument to two decades of artistic collaboration between Cheri Pann and husband Gonzalo Duran
5/30 27 September 2016
A gallery assistant poses amongst work by Anthea Hamilton from her nominated show "Lichen! Libido!(London!) Chastity!" at a preview of the Turner Prize in London
6/30 27 September 2016
A technician wearing virtual reality glasses checks his installation in three British public telephone booths, set up outside the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands. The installation allows visitors a 3-D look into the museum which has twenty-two paintings belonging to the British Royal Collection, on loan for an exhibit from 29 September 2016 till 8 January 2017
7/30 26 September 2016
An Indian artist dressed as Hindu god Shiva performs on a chariot as he participates in a religious procession 'Ravan ki Barat' held to mark the forthcoming Dussehra festival in Allahabad
8/30 26 September 2016
Jean-Michel Basquiat's 'Air Power', 1984, is displayed at the Bowie/Collector media preview at Sotheby's in New York
9/30 25 September 2016
A woman looks at an untitled painting by Albert Oehlen during the opening of an exhibition of works by German artists Georg Baselitz and Albert Oehlen in Reutlingen, Germany. The exhibition runs at the Kunstverein (art society) Reutlingen until 15 January 2017
10/30 24 September 2016
Fan BingBing (C) attends the closing ceremony of the 64th San Sebastian Film Festival at Kursaal in San Sebastian, Spain
11/30 23 September 2016
A view of the artwork 'You Are Metamorphosing' (1964) as part of the exhibition 'Retrospektive' of Japanese artist Tetsumi Kudo at Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany. The exhibition runs from 25 September 2016 to 1 January 2017
12/30 22 September 2016
Jo Applin from the Courtauld Institute of Art looks at Green Tilework in Live Flesh by Adriana Vareja, which features in a new exhibition, Flesh, at York Art Gallery. The new exhibition features works by Degas, Chardin, Francis Bacon and Sarah Lucas, showing how flesh has been portrayed by artists over the last 600 years
13/30 21 September 2016
Performers Sean Atkins and Sally Miller standing in for the characters played by Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell during a photocall for Tim Burton's "Miss Peregrines Home For Peculiar Children" at Potters Field Park in London
14/30 20 September 2016
A detail from the blanket 'Alpine Cattle Drive' from 1926 by artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner is displayed at the 'Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Arts' in Berlin. The exhibition named 'Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Hieroglyphen' showing the complete collection of Berlin's Nationalgallerie works of the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and will run from 23 September 2016 until 26 February 2017
15/30 20 September 2016
A man looks at portrait photos by US photographer Bruce Gilden in the exhibition 'Masters of Photography' at the photokina in Cologne, Germany. The trade fair on photography, photokina, schowcases some 1,000 exhibitors from 40 countries and runs from 20 to 25 September. The event also features various photo exhibitions
16/30 20 September 2016
A woman looks at 'Blue Poles', 1952 by Jackson Pollock during a photocall at the Royal Academy of Arts, London
17/30 19 September 2016
Art installation The Refusal of Time, a collaboration with Philip Miller, Catherine Meyburgh and Peter Galison, which features as part of the William Kentridge exhibition Thick Time, showing from 21 September to 15 January at the Whitechapel Gallery in London
18/30 18 September 2016
Artists creating one off designs at the Mm6 Maison Margiela presentation during London Fashion Week Spring/Summer collections 2017 in London
19/30 18 September 2016
Bethenny Frankel attends the special screening of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" to celebrate the 25th Anniversary Edition release on Blu-Ray and DVD in New York City
Getty Images for Walt Disney Stu
20/30 17 September 2016
Visitors attend the 2016 Oktoberfest beer festival at Theresienwiese in Munich, Germany
21/30 16 September 2016
Visitors looks at British artist Damien Hirst work of art 'The Incomplete Truth', during the 13th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled 'The World, Europe and Ukraine: storms of changes', organised by the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation at the Mystetsky Arsenal Art Center in Kiev
22/30 16 September 2016
Tracey Emin's "My Bed" is exhibited at the Tate Liverpool as part of the exhibition Tracey Emin And William Blake In Focus, which highlights surprising links between the two artists
23/30 15 September 2016
Musician Dave Grohl (L) joins musician Tom Morello of Prophets of Rage onstage at the Forum in Inglewood, California
24/30 14 September 2016
Model feebee poses as part of art installation "Narcissism. Dazzle room" made by artist Shigeki Matsuyama at rooms33 fashion and design exhibition in Tokyo. Matsuyama's installation features a strong contrast of black and white, which he learned from dazzle camouflage used mainly in World War I
25/30 13 September 2016
Visitors look at artworks by Chinese painter Cui Ruzhuo during the exhibition 'Glossiness of Uncarved Jade' held at the exhibition hall 'Manezh' in St. Petersburg, Russia. More than 200 paintings by the Chinese artist are presented until 25 September
26/30 12 September 2016
A visitor looks at Raphael's painting 'Extase de Sainte Cecile', 1515, from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence during the opening of a Raphael exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, Russia. The first Russian exhibition of the works of the Italian Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino includes eight paintings and three drawings which come from Italy. Th exhibit opens to the public from 13 September to 11 December
27/30 11 September 2016
Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd perform during Otis Redding 75th Birthday Celebration - Rehearsals at the Macon City Auditorium in Macon, Georgia
Getty Images for Otis Redding 75
28/30 10 September 2016
Sakari Oramo conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers at the Last Night of the Proms 2016 at the Royal Albert Hall in London
29/30 9 September 2016
A visitor walks past a piece entitled "Fruitcake" by Joana Vasconcelo, during the Beyond Limits selling exhibition at Chatsworth House near Bakewell
30/30 8 September 2016
A sculpture of a crescent standing on the 2,140 meters high mountain 'Freiheit' (German for 'freedom'), in the Alpstein region of the Appenzell alps, eastern Switzerland. The sculpture is lighted during the nights by means of solar panels. The 38-year-old Swiss artist and atheist Christian Meier set the crescent on the peak to start a debate on the meaning of religious symbols - as summit crosses - on mountains. 'Because so many peaks have crosses on them, it struck me as a great idea to put up an equally absurd contrast'. 'Naturally I wanted to provoke in a fun way. But it goes beyond that. The actions of an artist should be food for thought, both visually and in content'
A strong strain of fatalism also runs through Le Mepris – a sense that the characters can't defend themselves against their destinies. There is a film within a film structure. In the story, Lang is making his own screen adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey. Jack Palance, looking every bit as threatening and charismatic as when he played the gunslinger in Shane, is Lang's American producer. As the team struggle to make their movie, there is continual talk about the relationship between humans and the gods.
Godard relishes the clash between the sublime and the banal. Scenes of Camille and Javal bickering could come straight from any soap opera but thanks to Georges Delerue's majestic, elegiac music, the use of colour and the classical settings (much of the film was shot in Capri), the characters take on an unworldly glamour. As played by Bardot, Camille isn't just a 28-year-old typist married to a cash-strapped writer but is the ultimate screen siren. Jamal, meanwhile, is the Odysseus-like wanderer. This is also a film exploring betrayal: the deceptions of the American producer, the infidelity of Camille, Javal's mercenary decision to take the job writing the movie in the first place. The miracle here is that for all its use of irony and self-reflexive devices, Le Mepris still ends up with a considerable emotional punch.