Contempt by Alberto Moravia Read Free Book Online Page B

determination and interest rather than in any sort of attraction or sympathy. Of course it can also happen that the film is of superior quality, that the director and his collaborators were already, beforehand, bound together by mutual esteem and friendship, and that, in fact, the work is carried out in the ideal conditions that may occur in any human activity, however disagreeable; but these favorable combinations are rare—as, indeed, good films are rare.
    It was after I had signed the contract for a second filmscript—this time not with Battista but with another producer—that courage and determination suddenly abandoned me and I began, with increasing repugnance and annoyance, to resent all the disadvantages of which I have already spoken. Each day, from the time when I got up in the morning, seemed like an arid desert, with no oasis of meditation or leisure, dominated by the merciless sun of forced cinema inspiration. As soon as I entered the director’s house and he welcomed me in his study with some remark such as: “Well, did you think about it last night? Did you find a solution?”—I had a feeling of boredom and rebellion. Then, during our work, everything seemed to be infected with impatience and disgust—the divagations of every kind by which the director and the script-writers, as I have already mentioned, seek to alleviate the long hours of discussion; the incomprehension or obtuseness or simple divergence of opinion amongst my collaborators as the script was gradually written; even the director’s praises for each of my inventions or decisions, praises which tasted bitter to me because I felt, as I have said, that I was giving the best of myself for something which did not fundamentally concern me and in which I was not participating willingly. This last disadvantage, in fact, appeared to me at that time to be the most intolerable of all; and, each time that the director, speaking in the demagogic, vulgar way that is common to so many of them, jumped up in his chair and exclaimed: “Bravo! You’re a wow!”—I could not help thinking, contemptuously: “I might have put that idea into some drama or comedy of my own.” Furthermore, by some strange and bitter contradiction, I could never manage, in spite of my repugnance, to fail in my duty as a script-writer. Film-scripts are rather like the old-fashioned four-in-hands, in which there were some horses, stronger or more willing, who did the pulling, and others who pretended to pull while really they allowed themselves to be dragged along by their companions. Well, in spite of all my impatience and disgust, I was always the horse who did the pulling; the other two, the director and my script-writer colleague, when faced with any difficulty always waited—as I very soon noticed—for me to come forward with my solution. And I, though inwardly cursing both my conscientiousness and my facility, did not hesitate but, with some sudden inspiration, provided the solution required. I was not driven to do this from any spirit of rivalry, but merely from a sense of honesty stronger than any contrary desire: I was paid, therefore I had to work. But each time I was ashamed of myself and had a feeling both of avarice and of regret, as though, for a little money, I had ruined something beyond price, something of which I could, somehow or other, have made an infinitely better use.
    As I said, I did not become aware of all these disadvantages until two months after I had signed the first contract with Battista. And at first I did not understand why they had not been obvious to me from the beginning and why I had taken such a long time to notice them. But, when the feeling of repugnance and failure aroused in my mind by the work I had once so ardently desired still persisted, I could not help—very gradually, as often happens—coming to connect it in some way with my relations with Emilia. And at last I realized that the work disgusted me because Emilia no longer