bardot's busty bacchanale

the cinema substitutes a world that conforms to our ideas. cinema replaces our gaze with a world in harmony with our desires. le mepris is the story of that world.




It is no longer the presence of God, but the absence of God that is reassuring man



Monsieur Prokosch: "Whenever I hear the word `culture,' I reach for my checkbook."
Monsieur Lang aussi: "Les Hitlériens disaient: 'mon révolver'," which the subtitles render "The Italians used to say 'my revolver'"

Herr Thiemann: Wenn ich Kultur höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning!
Hanns Johst's Schlageter, Act I, Scene I, the character of Thiemann speaking in the first performance on April 20, 1933, for Hitler's birthday
(Every time someone mentions the word 'culture', I reach for my Browning)

Misson of Burma: That's when i reach for my revolver (*)


"You'll do it because you need the money,"
"How do you know," Monsieur Piccoli responds.
Prokosch: "I understand you have a very beautiful wife"...




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one of godards more conventional films.
beautiful colors and bodies and score and theory.
intimations of art over america.
a luscious joy to watch,
sounds warm -
like ayler from that era.
image of specific cool.
primary colors adrift in ideological melodramas.
wrapped in shag carpets.
penelope out of love.
and all those damned fedoras.

great scene with palance watching the mermaids and his melding from self-deification through embarassed american teen to olympian discus thrower ending with bend over so i might write this check. and then, inevitably, this being godard, the cherry red alfa bids an oily adieu to traffic.
"Mind if your wife comes"