It all starts, with so much elegance and grace, with such smooth outlines, that your eyes caress and trace, Paul Javal and bride Camille, she seeks assertion, he makes her feel, that he won't allow a soul to take his place. But the ties that bind are easy to let go, and Camille is feeling Paul isn't so true, like a plate than can be shared, causes contempt and despair, and attraction comes unstuck like perished glue.

An often tricky piece of cinema that hardly entertains but leaves a mark that you may or may not be able to reconcile. Brigitte Bardot is as elegant as ever, in a film about a film that leaves you pondering how on earth could Paul Jarval let her go and wondering how many times you need to re-watch it to gather the intent.

Strangely enough, director Jean-Luc Godard understood Bardot's capabilities best, and with "Le Mépris," he succeeded where Malle had failed… Because the movie reflected Bardot's new life, the viewer was shown the woman, the actress, the public image, and the private life… "B.B." was dead; Brigitte Bardot was alive and well…

Of all the movies about movies "Le Mépris" may be the most penetrating, the most alienated and least entertaining... Not many people have seen "Le Mépris," but of those who have many despise it greatly…

"Le Mépris" is one of the few films that actually encourages its audiences to walk out… Aside from the fact that it has something important to say and says it interestingly, "Le Mépris" is a nadir of entertainment, and for this reason, and because it is one of the most alienated and alienating films ever made, one can choose to call it great too…

In his film debut, Michel Piccoli (Paul Juval) is a failed playwright who wants to write for the stage, but his sexy wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), requests a middle-class style of life... Paul has used his savings to buy her an apartment in a stylish building in Rome and is now financially enslaved... The American film producer and tycoon, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance), has offered him a job as screenwriter of 'The Odyssey,' to be directed by then veteran German-American filmmaker Fritz Lang (played by Fritz Lang!).

Paul sells out, signs the contract with Prokosch and earns the never ending contempt of his wife, who drifts into a liaison with Jerry—not so clear anyway...

Obviously, Prokosch is the Great Vulgarian Producer… He wants Lang to direct 'The Odyssey' because "a German, Schliemann, discovered Troy." Prokosch buys and sells mens' souls... He rushes around the film studio in a flashy red sports car, and reads stupid and pretentious maxims from a red book he carries in his breast pocket…

The story of the dissolution of the Javals' marriage and Camille's contempt for Paul is entwined with the legend of Ulysses, and also with a sort of documentary look at what it's like to make a movie: the compromises, the idiocy, the boredom, and the fatigue…

There are references to film and film-making throughout the motion picture: posters on walls for Howard Hawks' "Hatari" and Hitchcock's "Psycho," brief looks at the inside of a movie studio, and the goings-on in a screening room… But perhaps the most interesting and mystical element in this film are its first and final shots…

On Godard's instructions we are compelled to point inwards, to submit, to think, and to contemplate... Godard seems to suggest that the provocative statement of "Le Mépris" which is sombre, beautiful and rich, is in reality a short interesting anecdote about us all...

Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt is a beautiful film visually and an ugly film thematically, depicting the disintegration of a marriage. One wonders how Godard, who had just married the ravishing Anna Karina the same year Contempt was released, managed to write a film so pessimistic about the union of marriage and how it corrupts both parties mentally.

The eye-popping color scheme of Contempt, thanks to Raoul Coutard's predictably wonderful cinematography as well as CinemaScope, a specific kind of anamorphic lens for widescreen shooting, is one of the defining reasons for this film's greatness. The process of CinemaScope enhances the color extraordinarily, adding a new layer of vivid texture to the film and a spot-on visual scheme throughout the film. Ordinary things like walking along the beach, admiring the ocean, or just simple conversations staged inside unremarkable buildings become a feast for the eyes simply because Godard uses this delightful method of shooting.

But what a way to use the film's visual scheme to contrast it with its overall bleak tone. The film revolves around an American film producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) who decides to adapt Homer's renowned and iconic piece Odyssey for the big screen. He hires famed director Fritz Lang, who treats the film as if it were an artistic indie film and not the epic he had envisioned. Prokosch decides to hire Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli), a writer and playwright, trusting him to handle Homer's work with the respect he knows it deserves.

Paul, however, begins to feel increased pressure with adapting this work, as well as opposition in line of his own personal artistic expression as well as studio interest. To add to his already filling plate, Paul's marriage to the incredibly beautiful Camille (Brigitte Bardot) is on the rockiest of waters with persistent fights occurring between the two as well as Camille's hot and cold attitude towards him and their marriage.

Godard's Contempt is a multilayered piece of work to say the least. The film can be taken as a surface examination of a marriage in total jeopardy, and perhaps a depiction of the death of a practical union between two impractical people, or simply seen as an on-screen showcase for the issues and opposition Godard faced when he began making films on his own in the 1960's. I've already established that Godard is a rebel filmmaker in every regard; he consciously set out to fight against typical French filmmaking conventions and, in turn, pushed French cinema through an unthinkable New Wave movement, redefining cinematic aesthetics, tampering with narrative convention, and even adding deeper morals and themes provided with new visionary techniques and darker tones to films.

He puts his talents and his desire to destroy and construct to use with Contempt and, in turn, makes a fascinating film. Rotten Tomatoes' consensus on the film states that it is "essential cinema" and blends the ideas of "meta" and "physique," a statement I couldn't agree more with. Godard has always been big on abstraction with film to, at times, treading the line of being inaccessible in what he's trying to say. The best way that I've heard his work put, by a colleague, is that his films "are like having an intellectual conversation." So many ideas are getting tossed around, most of his films lack central ideas (one thing I've been known to critique with his films), and some I find to be next to impossible in trying to extract even some meaning out.

Contempt is definitely abstract and lives up the description of "meta;" various scenes leave a viewer confused and questioning what they were supposed to take away from a certain part. However, the overarching theme of the decline of marriage and artistic creativity remains accessible and digestible through the abstraction. Just by the inclusion of Fritz Lang, one of Godard's biggest cinematic influences, we can evidently see that Godard is commenting about how warped studios become in money, profits, and the meticulous "Hollywood/film accounting" process that they forget about the visionaries, the film stylists, and those who have original ideas that desperately need to find ways out in the public. Cinema had to inherently be discovered by rebels, illusionists, and subversive artists, and these are the same people that are finding the film industry a harder and harder place to break out, let alone work. Through Paul Javal, Godard details this struggle beautifully.

As stated, the film's style - or "physique" - is dashing in every regard. When one sees stills from the film taken out of context, one can easily infer Contempt to be a film masquerading in a more positive light than it actually is. However, make no mistake, as Contempt deals with the disintegration of a marriage in its darkest form. If capturing how difficult it was to make a film when you're barricaded by philistines wasn't subversive enough, Godard dares enter the realm of showing how marriage itself is a practical union between two people but people themselves aren't always practical. Look at the character of Camille, who seems to play psychological mind-games with her husband, never really solving anything and just getting him to dance around a whirlwind of mixed singles and unidentified irritations she seems to form overnight.

After watching what I deem Godard's "happiest" film so far, his sophomore effort A Woman is a Woman, entering into Contempt's world was a rough wakeup call. Godard is one of the moodiest filmmakers I have yet to discover. I'd love to catch him on a good day, but he's so much more thought-provoking, alive, and blustering when he's angry.

Starring: Michel Piccoli, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, and Fritz Lang. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.