ABSTRACT
Thirty-three is, quite literally, a crucial age for any western male, the age of crucifixions and triumphs. The 33-year-old Jean-Luc Godard who made Le Mépris was no beginner since he had already directed five features, five shorts, and three episodes for ‘omnibus’ films, and long since put behind him the period of his masterly first attempts. But in the course of a career that had consisted solely of climaxes, each more powerful than the last, 1963 was the year in which he made not only Les Carabiniers, his most resounding flop and most provocative movie, but also Le Mépris, the film that came closest to the prevailing models of the time, from both an aesthetic and an industrial point of view.
