“It would be foolish, in conclusion, to pretend that Moravia was anything but the most profound of pessimists.” Writes Tim Parks. It’s a truth permeated throughout Contempt.
“I don’t love you anymore.” No one wants to hear those five words. The first three words could pique an interest in potential conquest, a challenge. The first four words could be the result of unrequited love. The full five words though? There was something there and now there is not. There was a pre- and now there is a post-. We compartment these into eras, historical or personal. It never gets easier the more we experience.
Contempt’s protagonist, a screen-writer, wants to find out why his wife of many years no longer loves him. Not even that: despises him. Did he do something? Surely he must have done something. Or she loves another man. It could be the producer that the screen-writer works for. But it could be something more simple than that. It might just be the passage of time. Changing and not changing. Or not changing enough. Or too much change.
“...habit, even though it may be an affectionate habit, creeps into love with fatal effect,...”
Anguish. Melancholy. Alienation. This is the heart of Contempt. Delusions of grandeur. The screen-writer, stuck in a vocation creating the 1950s Italian equivalent of contemporary blockbusters, has larger theatrical ambitions. He’s a very serious man (all us writers are). His work is below him - but it’s just to make money, it’s just to keep an apartment, it’s just to please his wife. And when his wife stops loving him? Work, too, ceases to have meaning.
“But I loved her, and love has a great capacity not only for illusion but also for forgetfulness.”
This book was revered as a post-WW2 examination of a world without love, and how love can turn to hate. Does this sound familiar to you? This could be today, this could be Moravia’s 1950s Italy, this could be Martin McDonagh’s 1920s Ireland, as depicted in The Banshees of Inisherin (a recommended watch). While McDonagh’s characterization of a friendship curtly cut off has a more Beckettian feel, there are faint echoes of what Moravia was exploring in his work as well.
The late French filmmaker (you know the one) also felt connection here: "Mr. Godard has attempted to make this film communicate a sense of the alienation of individuals in this complex modern world. And he has clearly directed to get a tempo that suggests irritation and ennui."
Connection. If all these works explore the lack of connection between two people then I should do my due diligence and provide the yin to the yang. There must be sincere, loving, surprising connections in the world. It can’t all be hostility and chaos, right?
Someone at Vanity Fair deserves a raise for thinking that Colin Farrell and Emma Thompson should interview each other: he can’t remember the name of a movie he was in (Minority Report), Thompson recalls hearing her parents having sex, and the duo explores the Irish way of using humor to find truth (and not deflect from it, as the stereotype might be).
“I feel like we're actors and the nice thing about actors is we don't leave anything behind. We don't leave shit behind, paintings, books, whatever. We're just here for a bit, then we die and we're gone.” - Emma Thompson
This wild interview led me to watch Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (another recommended watch - didn’t I start off writing about a book?). So now we are in 2020s England. The film focuses on two characters. A near constant flood of dialogue between the widowed Thompson and titular sex worker (played by Daryl McCormack). My Dinner With Andre but make it horny. But also: heartfelt. And funny. And neurotic. And complex. And contradictory. And messy. Like love.
And then: while writing all this down, kids walk down my street ringing bells, I see a man in religious garb, another man playing accordion. A dozen people walk down the street in a mini-parade, and the best I can guess is that this is some kind of Orthodox Christmas celebration after church.
I think about living in a world where no one would have to write a Contempt again. The habit of war is as hard to kick as the habit of love.
“How’s the book?” “It’s sad.” “Sad? Well you should read a not sad one Siobhán or else you might get sad.” “Hmmm.”
And yet…connection. The January 2023 issue of New City has an article about the time Fleetwood Mac played the blues in Chicago. I’m listening to a recording of “I Need Your Love.” Recorded in 1969, with Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, Otis Spann. Did you know about this? I never knew about this. I’ll take a copy if you can find one. There’s still much to discover in the world - as alienating, melancholy, and hostile as it can seem some time.