Contempt (1963): Socionics Analysis of a Case Study of Conflict and Duality

Contempt (Le Mépris) is a 1963 French film directed and written by Jean-Luc Godard (IEI), the most "conventional" and most expensive of his films, with the script following closely the general plot of the novel Il disprezzo by Alberto Moravia. Godard was reportedly unhappy with the whole experience of making a conventional movie with his freedom limited by the producers; he also thought little of the novel. Be that as it may (or maybe because of it), I have found that the insights of the film and the points it seems to make, although not immediately explicit and often confusing for audiences, are made clear by socionics analysis.

The basic story is simple (spoilers follow): the French couple Paul and Camille Javal (played by Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot) live in Rome.  Paul, whose goal is to establish himself as a serious playwright, still needs to make a living by writing crime novels and as a screenwriter-for-hire for the Italian film industry, having written a script for the commercially successful "Toto against Hercules". That leads to an invitation by Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch (played by Jack Palance) for Paul to re-write the script of the film he is currently shooting in Italy, a version of the Odyssey, directed by the master of German expressionism, Fritz Lang (played by Lang himself). Prokosch fears that Lang is making it too "artsy" and not commercial enough. Paul accepts the job, with Lang not objecting, because his fees will allow him to pay off the apartment in Rome where he and Camille live. Several encounters between Paul, Camille, Lang and Prokosch (and his assistant/interpreter, Francesca) take place in Rome and finally in Capri, where the Odyssey is being shot. The relationship between Camille and Paul is shown as very loving at first, but gradually cooling off each time they encounter the other characters, culminating in Camille clearly telling Paul in Capri that she no longer loves him; on the contrary, now she only feels contempt for him, and it is suggested that she may be starting a relationship with Prokosch.

The script itself does not make it easy for the audiences to understand exactly why Camille's feelings towards Paul shifted from love to contempt in just a couple of days. A large part of the dialogue is of the increasingly exasperated Paul asking her precisely that, with Camille initially either denying it or giving vague answers, until making it brutally clear in the final sequences in Capri that she indeed now detested him but refusing to explain why: that I will never tell you, until I die. Brief lines of dialogue suggest that Paul does suspect her true reasons and they are hinted at throughout the film, but still not in a very explicit way or explaining precisely why Camille's attitude towards her husband would change so drastically.

A fully consistent explanation is given by looking at the socionics types of the characters. Camille is a very clear and consistent IEI (which is Godard's own type and perhaps also Bardot's); Jeremy Prokosch is an equally clear and consistent SLE, although one whose need to brag about himself points to a clumsy use of E6 not unlike Donald Trump's (also a SLE). Paul is less consistently portrayed but he can be typed as a LSE.  That is, Camille and Paul's relationship was one of LSE-IEI Conflict, and the inherent issues with that relationship were brought to the surface in the presence of Camille's Dual, the SLE Prokosch.

Camille and Paul, although married, did not really understand each other's motivations. Paul was utterly captivated by Camille's beauty and her apparently solid love for him, which he assumed was a "fixed" thing: that is a manifestation of R5, a difficulty with understanding the status of others' relationships to oneself and how stable they are. From her side, Camille admired in Paul what she saw as his artistic integrity and independence, as well as his efforts to provide for her and thus protect her - appreciation of apparent L in others as well as a sign of her F5, the appreciation of others using assertiveness and power on her behalf.

That started to collapse with the entrance of Jeremy Prokosch. First, Paul decided to "sell out" to a vulgar Hollywood producer for the sake of the money he would have to finish paying off their apartment - a "mercenary" P motivation which however may be seen as corrupt by an IEI putting idealistic integrity (higher focus on L) first. Second, Paul, a LSE with very strong but devalued F8, clearly was not intimidated or impressed by Prokosch's overbearing use of F1, essentially not taking him seriously. That however caused precisely the wrong impression on Camille when, on two occasions, Prokosch (not very appropriately) offered Camille rides on his car and later boat, without her husband, with Paul not objecting and even encouraging her to accept, despite her expecting him to object and so "protect" her. But Paul was not taking Prokosch seriously as far as a threat to his relationship with his wife was concerned, due to his dismissive attitude to Prokosch's F and his obliviousness to risks to his R status with Camille - probably also aggravated by LSEs's difficulties in perceiving trends due to their T4. Also, from a practical P perspective, Paul saw no reason to object to her accepting rides from Prokosch.

From a F perspective though - the one that would be natural for the SLE-IEI Dual pair of Camille and Prokosch - what was going on was a high F man making clear his dominance of those around him, extending that to another man's wife. Paul's reaction was perceived not as obliviousness or not taking it seriously, but as submission to Prokosch's F, even to the point of letting his wife exposed to it as well. Paul's "corruption of his artistic integrity" - giving priority to P concerns over L principles - was not enough to make Camille despise him; but his apparent refusal to exercise F on her behalf was too much for her F5. He failed to show precisely what she most expected from him. Hence, her attitude to him became one of contempt. If Paul had used his F to "mark his territory" and said he would take a taxi with Camille, the first time, Prokosch might have taken the hint and Paul might have saved his marriage - at least for a time. As it was, the obvious manifestation of his R5 - his insistent asking of Camille for an explanation as to why she now despised him - would be as puzzling and irritating to her own R8 as her own desire for F had been to him.

There is a good-quality full version of Contempt on YouTube here - unfortunately not with English subtitles. The trailer of the 2016 restoration and re-release, with subtitles in English, is here.

Caligula (EIE): Personality Type Analysis

Caligula, official name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also known as the Emperor Gaius, was the third Roman Emperor, from 37 until his assassination in 41 at the age of twenty-eight. Along with his nephew the Emperor Nero (SEI), Caligula is probably the most (in)famous of all Roman Emperors, known popularly, for two millennia, as the archetype of the insane, depraved ruler. "Caligula" is a nickname, meaning "Little Boots", which he got as a little boy: his parents liked to dress him up in soldier's uniform while among the Rhine legions.

Caligula's "madness":  The image of Caligula as mad, in the sense of clinically insane, goes back to his own time. The most notorious story is that he appointed his horse to the position of consul (i.e. most senior magistrate); that however is an exaggeration of the historical record, which is that Caligula just said he was thinking of doing that. Nevertheless, all the existing historical records are consistent in pointing to Caligula as fond of making sarcastic, insulting, shocking remarks, as well as engaging in equally shocking and cruel behaviour, which often seemed inexplicable, and so it was easy to characterise him as insane. Nowadays the most accepted theory is that although an erratic and often capricious and irresponsible ruler, Caligula's behaviour was closer to what we'd today call a "troll" rather than that of a true lunatic.

Background: Caligula was the great-grandson of Augustus (LIE) and grand-nephew of Tiberius (ILI). Although only twenty-four years old, with no experience in government, and mostly unknown to the general public when Tiberius died, Caligula was the most suitable survivor of the "dynastic civil war" of the ruling family that took place in Tiberius' reign. He was acclaimed and accepted as Emperor of Rome by the Senate, the army, and the general population without much difficulty, above all because he had "inherited" the popularity of his late father, Germanicus.

Caligula was extremely popular at first due to feel-good gestures aimed at erasing the "gloom and doom" mood of the last years of Tiberius, especially the free (or rather reckless) spending on spectacles and public works, dissipating in less than one year the reserves built up by his predecessor. When money ran out, he had to turn to draconian measures to raise money, including higher taxes and confiscation of property of members of the aristocracy on trumped-up charges. He also executed or exiled close members of his family and inner circle, including his two surviving sisters and the Praetorian Prefect, Macro, who had been his most important supporter. A massive military expedition with the official aim of conquering Britain never crossed the Channel; instead Caligula stopped in France to remove and execute his own military governor on charges of conspiracy. Returning to Rome, he addressed the ongoing conflicts between the Greek and Jewish communities in Alexandria by ordering a statue of himself placed at the Temple of Jerusalem, since the Greeks had accused the Jews of not honouring the emperor. The local Roman governor managed to stall fulfilling that inflammatory plan until Caligula's timely assassination. That was the result of a plot involving not only members of Caligula's inner circle, but also senior members of his Praetorian Guard, fed up with the way the emperor would taunt and insult them: by giving them ridiculous and obscene watchwords and moving his finger pornographically when offering his hand to be kissed. A faction of the conspirators, and of the Senate, intended to abolish the very position of emperor and return to the system of the Republic; such dreams were completely derailed when the majority of the Praetorian Guard acclaimed Caligula's uncle, Claudius (ILI) as emperor.

Caligula's obelisk, St Peter's Square, Vatican

Caligula's behaviour:  As already mentioned above, it was Caligula's personal and public behaviour that made the theory of his lunacy seem credible. In a nutshell, he seemed to enjoy taunting, humiliating and scaring anyone of any kind of authority that was in his immediate presence; when interacting with truly humble members of the public, he tended to be more easy-going. His behaviour could be called that of a "troll" or prankster, except that his practically unlimited power, and his lack of scruples in punishing and even executing people, made his behaviour absolutely terrifying to those around him. His assassination was a backlash from that behaviour.

The most complete eyewitness description of Caligula's personal behavior was written by Philo of Alexandria, in his On the Embassy to Gaius, describing how he led an embassy of Jews from Alexandria to make their case to the emperor regarding the ongoing clashes there. Caligula received them as he was inspecting one of his villas and ordering changes in its interior decoration. Caligula seemed to only half listen to Philo's arguments as the whole group followed him from room to room, occasionally taunting them with questions like "why don't you eat pork?" As the Jews argued that different nations have different customs, and some don't eat lamb for instance, Caligula retorted "they're right, for it's not very nice". After complaining to the embassy that Jews were not paying him enough respect by making sacrifices to his statues, he ordered them to leave, saying, "these men do not appear to me to be wicked so much as unfortunate and foolish, in not believing that I have been endowed with the nature of a god".

This behavior - which is consistent with many other reports - makes clear that Caligula did not care at all about making others feel comfortable, welcome, or at ease; on the contrary, his inclination was to make others uncomfortable, scared, uncertain of whether he was joking or not. His pattern was to show in an "in your face" manner that he was far more powerful than those around him. Sometimes he would make the point explicitly, saying, "remember that I can do whatever I want to whomever I want". This very consistent pattern in his behaviour already points to F as quadra value with very subdued S, that is, to the Beta or Gamma quadras. That he also seemed very focused on the emotional response he would cause on others (whether fear, terror, or humiliation) points to a higher focus on E than on P.

Those priorities can also be seen in what is known of his actions in government. First, for someone who was emperor for under four years, the impact of Caligula's building projects in Italy is extraordinary (the tight-fisted Tiberius had built next to nothing in twenty-three years). Caligula brought to Rome the famous obelisk in St Peter's Square, weighing 326 tonnes, ordering the design and construction of a giant ship specifically for that purpose (it would remain the longest recorded ship for centuries, surpassed only in the 19th century). The obelisk was originally placed in Caligula's circus, or race-track, also built by the emperor on his private estates there. Even without knowing the actual sums, it is clear that they must have been astronomical. He also built a vast palace on the Palatine Hill (until then the so-called "imperial palace" had been a network of previously existing private houses), extending it down towards the Forum, behind the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Archaeological evidence confirms that Caligula actually connected the back of the temple to his palace, and it's recorded that he joked that the twin gods were now his "doorkeepers" - yet another example of his sense of humour aimed at making others uncomfortable or at being "edgy". Those building projects, focusing on the biggest, largest, most shocking etc., regardless of cost, are physical manifestations of a higher focus on F and E than on P, pointing to the Beta quadra (or if Gamma, only to SEE).

Caligula's palace on the Palatine hill, with the columns of the Temple of Castor

Much more bizarrely, and defying rational explanation, in the year 39 AD Caligula assembled the available ships (disrupting the grain supply in the process) besides building more for the purpose, in the bay of Naples. He ordered a pontoon bridge, over 2 miles long, built on the ships, connecting the towns of Baiae and Puteoli. Then, wearing Alexander the Great's armour, he spent two days riding his horse back and forth across the bridge, followed by soldiers and cronies, alternating that with wild drunken parties at night, with lots of people falling or being thrown into the sea, with a few drowning in the process. A contemporary, Seneca, wrote that the diversion of merchant ships to that purpose caused a disruption in the grain supply to Rome and its surroundings, with even a short-lived famine.

To the extent that this bizarre and hugely expensive spectacle had any purpose, it can only have been a combination of Caligula's personal amusement, and some kind of "message" he intended to convey with that spectacle, in an "artistic" way; and that message would be somehow related to Caligula's power. The problem is that contemporaries were all baffled at the precise reason for that exercise, demonstrating that Caligula did not bother announcing it. Since it preceded Caligula's (never completed) expedition to Britain, it has been speculated that it was meant as a symbol of his mastery of the seas and of his future conquest of Britain. But whatever Caligula had precisely in mind, the fact that its precise purpose remained unannounced and was almost certainly of symbolic meaning, points strongly to T as in one of Caligula's stronger functions, and T + E in particular. That Caligula again did not care about the expense of that project (and was seemingly unconcerned with the disruption of ship traffic caused by it) points again to P as a subdued and not very strong function.  This combination of functional preferences points more strongly to the Beta quadra, and to EIE or IEI in particular.

Caligula seemed to find it easy to think of cutting, witty remarks, and his approach to policies, projects and even interior decoration seemed more quirky and impulsive than settled; the historian Tacitus (LSI) summed that up with, "his impulsive ideas shifted like a weather-cock". This points to an ease with I and maybe to an Energiser. Finally, what sealed Caligula's fate was his inability or lack of concern with how the attitude of those around him was being shaped by his behaviour.  By making his inner circle, and even his personal armed guard, hate him more than they feared him, he was opening himself to his eventual assassination, yet he did not seem to realise that. That points not only to R as subdued in relation to E, but to R as more like an Ignoring rather than Background function, that is, R7 rather than R8, and I8 rather than I7. Finally, his approach to F - constantly reminding others of how powerful he was in an over-the-top way, which should be unnecessary - fits perfectly F6.

That is, the type that fits the evidence best on Caligula's functional preferences and strengths is EIE.

To learn more about EIE, click here.

Sources: the scholarly work on all aspects of Caligula's reign, referencing all the available historical and archaeological evidence, is Anthony Barrett's Caligula: the corruption of power