Provoked in Venice: The Rider Quintet, vol. 3

Revolt

REVOLT I — That wasnormalissimo too. That woman lived her life to possess this cabana at Ostia-By-The-Sea, (like the screenwriter's wife at the start of that long out of print Moravia novel, what the hell is the title? A Ghost at Noon. who is consumed by the desire for a bigger and better apartment in a (higher?) high rise) and for her daughter to have the privilege to munch the latest in "snack" foods— whichfor allyou know has been approved for spaceflights . . . the chemicals may be nutritional improvements over so called "real" ingredients, like that killer, salt, and that carbo-bomb, potato . . . The cheesiest video joints carry a dubbed version of Contempt, the filmJean Luc Godard improvised around Moravia's themes. CONTEMPT OR L£ MEPRIS Director:Jean-Luc Godard Cast: Brigitte Bardot as Camille, a secretary Fritz Lang as Fritz Lang Jack Palance asJerry Prokosch, an Americanproducer Michel Piccoli as Paul, novelistand screenwriter 8 And the coital "B.B" (Brigitte Bardot) on the box is not the "B.B." (Bertholt Brecht) quoted by Fritz Lang in the film. / think that both Brecht and Pavese would have liked the cutting of causal links, psychologizing, explanations, the. . . hint of omniscience despite the singular point-of-view? . . . in Godard's, focused yet sumptuous, disorienting yet powerful, "tragedy in longshot". . .. Sometimes we don't do so badly, you and I. And then you'll turn against me, without warning, like a storm breaking in a cloudless sky. A sky that's cloudless to the eye. I know. Don't know it. Live it. Moravia's novel attempts to set the record straight so that Homer's name should appear above Freud's on the metaphorical marquee of history. Lang makes it as clear as the merging of sea and sky on Capri that O O o J J f Homer's world was realto Homer, and fights topreserve the spirit o/"The Odyssey against theproducer's vapid Freudianizing of Ulysses'reluctance to return home. On what grounds? That Penelope never loved him anyway. And Lang wants to end on Odysseus'first sight of Ithaca. 2, Camille becomes contemptuous of her screenwriter husband instantaneously at Cinecitta. 9 (—Posters for Hatarion the crumbling walls.—) But he deserves itfor lamenting having married a "stupid 28year old typist." When Prokosch asks Camille to ride with him to his villa in his red Porsche convertible, she hesitates as if waiting for her husband to say "no, she'll ride with me," and when without hesitation despite her hint hint hint he says "it's all right" (but how did he mean what he said?) she withdraws all her love ForeverAfter and substitutes for it contempt: distilled. Like a potion you might carry in avial. A contagionof contempt. Oh hell, her riding with the producer isjust the last straw and foreshadows their doom. How still their bodies are in the aftermath of their tawdry indelible death on the highway. The bodies slumped pathetically, like a human version of roadkill.You don't seethe crash; you hear it; at an eerie distance. The second half was shot in Capri. Sea and sky were one. Jeweled turquoise. But it wasshot on the tawny sun-baked roof of the villa once owned by the fascist novelist Curzio Malaparte where he did his calisthenics every morning. And on the shadedpaths through the woods. Lovely rambles. Lost worlds. The sea pristine in spite of everything. 10 If the Fascists and Nazis were nothing if notphysically fit, haveyou considered that there might be something to consider about the American obsession with exercise. Not in that way. Although if Palance had a tantrum in the screening room . . .(Pause.) Is it apocryphal or true that Godard kept the camera running as the actor hurled a film can across the room like a discus thrower, wrecking footage and provoking Lang to comment on his breakthrough of feeling for Greek culture? What provoked it? Let's just say that what the producer saw in the rushes was not how he imagined the script on the screen. Where history is concerned Lang sawfar beyond his time. In Metropolis, Mabuse, M. Hitler loved Metropolis so much, with its alluring robots. But hated M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse because he saw the Nazi soul reflected as, control-crazy, murderous,andinsane. But the Fiihrer counted on his own mesmeric powers to get Lang back on track and...