Open and closed
('Ouvert et fermé' by Jean Narboni, Cahiers du Cinema 152, February 1964)
Filmmakers have learned to take pride in their craft. Once, they relied on the intricate game of grids to cloak the secrets within their films; subsequently, they abandoned these misleading paths that obscured the entrance and instead revealed the film's essence. Contempt, like The Birds, now reveals this secret in the obviousness of its irreducibility, the first milestones of a cinema that would not content…