French Film ‘Contempt’ to be Screened April 30 at UW

Director Jean-Luc Godard’s classic French film “Contempt” (“Le Mépris,” 1963) will be screened Tuesday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 129 of the University of Wyoming’s Classroom Building.

Laura De Lozier, the Classics section coordinator in the UW Department of Modern and Classical Languages, will introduce the film. “Contempt” runs 104 minutes and is in French, Italian, German and English, with English subtitles. The screening is free and open to the public; however, the film contains nudity, violence and language that may not be suitable for all audiences. Complimentary pizza and soda will be available.

“Contempt,” a seminal film by Godard, a French New Wave director, was his first big-budget international picture with A-list stars. Filmed in CinemaScope at locations in Italy, it examines the commercialism of art and the price of selling out -- both on a marriage and on a film career.

The film centers on a French writer (Michel Piccoli) and his wife (Brigitte Bardot), who are wooed by an American producer (Jack Palance) who is clashing with the famous Austrian director Fritz Lang (played by himself) over a cinematic adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey.”

The event is sponsored by Cena Cinemaque, the Classics Movie Series, founded in 2004 by De Lozier to illustrate the cinematic reception of Greece and Rome.

“Its name comes from Latin and Greek and means ‘a meal and a movie,’” De Lozier says.

The event is sponsored by the UW Classics program with assistance and support of UW Libraries and the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

RSVPs are requested, to help in coordinating refreshments, by emailing De Lozier at delozier@uwyo.edu.