Considered by several film critics as the most successful box office hit commercial film of Jean-Luc Godard, one of the leading figures of the Nouvelle Vague, Contempt (Le Mépris 1963), based on Disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon), a novel by the famous Italian novelist Alberto Moravia, is all about a crumbling relationship, set within the framework of a film within a film. The film stars Michel Piccoli as Paul Javal, a French screenplay writer, who has achieved commercial success in Rome, hired to rework a film adaptation of The Odyssey for a crude and arrogant Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch, played by Jack Palance, and to be directed by the legendary German filmmaker Fritz Lang, playing himself in the role, along with Brigitte Bardot starring as beautiful Camille, the sexy, former typist, disillusioned wife of Paul. The story of the film revolves around Paul, who accepts an offer to write a screen play for a Hollywood producer, mainly for the purpose of buying a flat to the delight of Camilla, his beautiful wife, and winning her heart. But in the process, as he becomes more and more engrossed in writing the screenplay, he loses his esteem and image in her eyes, and she starts to resent him more, as she presumes that her husband is knowingly pushing her into the arms of Prokosch, the producer, to strengthen his ties with him.

The film, considered very much about love and anguish, and depicted as the greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe by Colin MacCabe of Sight & Sound, a monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute, has certainly influenced a generation of filmmakers, including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Quentin Tarantino and also Martin Scorsese, one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, who called Contempt brilliant, romantic and genuinely tragic, and also one of the greatest films ever made about the actual process of filmmaking. Contempt is one of the French new wave master’s seminal films, a satire on the making of a Hollywood-style movie that exploits Bardot’s femme fatale Camille with no less aplomb than Hollywood itself.

Contempt (1963) begins with a top-to-tail tour of Brigitte Bardot’s tanned and naked body, as she lolls exquisitely in bed with her screenplay writer husband, and asks him if he loves her thighs, her arms, her breasts, and he replies in every case that he gazes upon perfection, and also assures her by saying that he loves her totally, tenderly, tragically. After a solemn declaration of love, devotion, and everlasting adoration Paul asks insecure Camille to join him on a trip to Rome for the shooting of the film, and she joins her husband on the first day of the project at the eerily empty Cinecittà studios Cinema City in Rome. There she meets Jeremy Prokosch, the American producer, who was obviously taken aback by her appealing beauty. He spontaneously invites everyone back to his villa for drinks, and offers Camille a ride in his two-seat sports car, leaving his secretary and Paul Javal to follow behind. However, Camille did not like the idea and was less than thrilled by the unwanted offer. She looks to Paul for his signal of supporting her to decline the offer, but he passively withdraws, opting to follow by taxi instead, leaving Camille alone with Jeremy Prokosch.

The attitude of Paul made Camille uneasy, and she secretly started to suspect about his integrity and intention, as he did not seem to protect her as he should, and was allowing the powerful, predatory Prokosch to flirt with her and using her to strengthen his ties with the corrupted man for his future benefit. Nevertheless, Paul did not catch up with them until 30 minutes later, explaining that he was delayed by a traffic accident. But Camille’s suspicion about the honesty of her husband deepened when she witnessed Paul groping Francesca, secretary of Prokosch. The incident leads to the second act of the film, an extended marital argument between Piccoli and Bardot, when, back at their apartment, they start to discuss the subtle tension that has arisen between them in the first few hours of the project, and suddenly Camille announces to her bewildered husband that she no longer loves him. However, Paul patiently tries to pacify his wife and convinces her to accept Prokosch's invitation to join them for filming in Capri, with the hope of winning her heart and rekindling her love for him.

However, their discord unfolds again during their visit to the producer's sensational villa in Capri, jutting out high above the Mediterranean, with its roof reached by a broad flight of steps that looks like the ascent to an Ancient Greek temple, where the production of the film is being discussed. During the discussion, Prokosch and the German filmmaker Fritz Lang became locked in a conflict over the correct interpretation of Homer's Odysseus, and the stalemate aggravated by the difficulty of communication between the German director Lang, the French screenwriter Paul, and the American producer Prokosch, while Francesca was acting as the interpreter, mediating all conversations. Finally, when Paul compromises his integrity by appeasing the arrogant producer by taking his side against Lang, and suggesting that Odysseus left home because of his wife's infidelity, Camille's suspicions of her husband's servility are confirmed, and she begins to see him as weak and self-serving. As a result, over the course of a single day, their marriage begins to unknot, marred by miscommunication and suppressed resentment.

As if to take revenge, Camille deliberately allows Paul to find her in Prokosch's embrace, and in the ensuing confrontation, she clearly imparts that her respect for him has turned to contempt because she believes he has bartered her to Prokosch for his future benefits. Although Paul denies her accusation, offering to sever his ties with the film and leave Capri, Camille refuses to change her decision and departs for Rome with the producer. But they were killed in a car crash, and Paul prepares to leave Capri, while Fritz Lang continues working on the film.

Contempt (1963), one of the masterpieces of Jean-Luc Godard, is a melancholic, cerebral, and visually elegant film about a failing marriage, unfurling the decay of idealism, both in love and art. Interestingly, the early sequence of nudity in the film was belatedly photographed after the producers screamed at Godard for cheating them by shooting a film starring Bardot, but without any nude shots, not even a sexy costume. In return, Godard obliged them by adding a prologue of husband and wife in bed and acres of skin but no eroticism. Although upon its initial release in 1963, the film received a mixed and often negative reaction from critics, particularly in the United States, it was a rare commercial success, probably due to the presence of Brigitte Bardot. However, over time, critical opinion shifted dramatically, and its re-release decades later was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews. The film is now widely considered a masterpiece of 20th-century cinema, and is regarded as one of Godard's most beautiful and accessible narrative films, influencing a generation of filmmakers.