Godard’s ‘Contempt’ is complex yet poetic

Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 “Contempt” opened at the old Academy Theater on Hollywood Boulevard in March 1965, without a press preview. Despite a scratchy print accidentally projected out of focus, the film was clearly a masterpiece, a poetic, deeply reflective reverie on the interplay between a disintegrating marriage and the problematic filming of “The Odyssey” in Italy.

Now revived at the Nuart in West L.A., it is one of Godard’s most beautiful, fluid and romantic films, enriched by cinematographer Raoul Coutard’s bold, sometimes symbolic use of color and by Georges Delerue’s rapturous score.

“Contempt” contains the references to the films and their directors that were characteristic of Godard in that era, and indeed he casts Fritz Lang as himself, hired by an overbearing, pretentious Hollywood producer (Jack Palance) to direct the film-within-the film. Palance wants to present Ulysses as a neurotic modern hero, but Lang wants to capture the purity of a classic Greek saga in the tradition of his great German silent epics.

Based loosely on an Alberto Moravia novel, “Contempt” takes its title from the growing disenchantment a young wife (Brigitte Bardot) feels for her husband (Michel Piccoli), hired to adapt Homer to the screen but yearning to be a playwright. Lang and Piccoli’s discussion of the meaning of Ulysses’ 10-year wanderings has implications for the Bardot-Piccoli relationship; women may be perplexing and contradictory, but Godard seems ultimately on their side.

As well as an exploration of the perilous contradictions in married life, “Contempt” can be taken as an essay on moviemaking and moviemakers, and the legendary Lang, philosophical and imperturbable, functions as a kind of Greek chorus and representative of the world of movies. As a person playing himself, he symbolizes the confusion of illusion and truth, appearance and reality, embodied by the medium of film. “Contempt” draws the viewer into its complex story with its rhythmic, restless action.

Godard elicits endless nuances and shadings from his actors, especially Piccoli and Bardot, who moves way beyond her famous sex kitten image to give the performance of a lifetime. With several levels of meaning and open to interpretation, “Contempt” demands the concentration typical of Godard yet, along with “Breathless,” is arguably the most accessible of all his films.

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“Contempt.” MPAA rating: Unrated. Nudity, adult themes. In French, English and German with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. Exclusively at the Nuart through Thursday, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 281-8223.