Friday, February 29, 2008

Weekend Video - Contempt




Lindsay Lohan and Bert Stern's recreation of his famous Marilyn Monroe "Last Sitting" pictures in New York Magazine last week brought over 20,000,000 viewers to the mag's website - making it the most viewed picture spread in the world.

Picking up on the theme of homage, above is a clip from Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Mepris" featuring Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli. (How great that J.Lu. is becoming such a regular!) Below - the homage/ad from Chanel and a short "making of" film by Bettina Rheims. In this case Stern seems more guilty of ripping himself of than Chanel does of Godard, where their upfront commercialism and the phallic mischief of the product placement make for a surreal mix of art and business.





Then as a special bonus - the original French trailer for the movie. Have you ever seen a better trailer? Better film-making? (To explain the odd image below, the plot of the movie revolves around the making of a film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey.)

2 comments:

Shane Lavalette said...

What a complete and total genius that man was!

Unfortunately, genius and Chanel do not mix; all of the delightful and honest beauty that is Godard is entirely lost.

Molly Stevens said...

Hear, Hear, Shane. It's heartbreaking.

Too bad you can't see the drastic tone shifts in the famous Bardot scene on the You Tube version.

And her rear is the reason I go to the gym.