In Contempt directed by Jean-Luc Godard, which role is played by Brigitte Bardot?

In Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 film Contempt, Brigitte Bardot plays Camille Javal, a woman whose relationship with her husband gradually disintegrates under the weight of professional tensions and unspoken words. This masterpiece of French New Wave cinema is a reflection on cinema, love and the incommunicability of the couple.

Camille Javal is the wife of Paul Javal, played by Michel Piccoli, a screenwriter charged with reworking the film adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, produced by the powerful Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance). Gradually, Camille distances herself from her husband, who seems willing to compromise his artistic integrity to satisfy the producer’s demands.

Camille’s character illustrates a subtle but profound emotional shift. In a famous opening scene, she asks Paul about his love for her, in an intimate sequence bathed in red and blue light. This moment marks the beginning of a slow deterioration in their relationship, as Paul, preoccupied with his career, leaves Camille with a sense of betrayal and contempt.

One of the most striking elements of the film is the evolution of Camille’s gaze on her husband. She gradually moves from tenderness to indifference, then to contempt, making visible a silent transformation that takes place in silences and gestures more than in dialogue.

The role of Camille Javal offers Brigitte Bardot one of her most striking characters, far from the sex symbol image that made her famous in Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman (1956). In Contempt, she plays a complex woman whose emotions and thoughts often remain implicit, captured by Godard’s long, contemplative shots.

Godard plays with Bardot’s physical presence, notably in the opening scene where she is filmed nude, a moment that had been added at the producer’s request to exploit her sex-symbol image. Far from being a simple seduction sequence, this scene sets up the amorous doubt that haunts the entire film.

Beyond the marital drama, Contempt is a film about the impossibility of communication, both in human relationships and in cinema itself. In it, Jean-Luc Godard explores the tensions between art and commerce, illustrated by the production of the film on The Odyssey, in which director Fritz Lang (played by himself) attempts to defend his vision against the mercantile demands of Prokosch.

The film is also marked by the use of meticulous aesthetics, notably with the sublime settings of the Villa Malaparte in Capri, which becomes the symbol of the characters’ emotional estrangement.

In Contempt, Brigitte Bardot plays Camille Javal, a woman whose love for her husband turns to indifference, then contempt. Her character symbolizes the degradation of feelings in the face of compromise and implicit betrayal. In this role, Bardot reveals a more nuanced facet of her talent, in a film that remains an essential reference for auteur cinema and the French New Wave.

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