CONTEMPT (1992)

In the early '60s, directorial enfant terrible Jean-Luc Godard was approached by deep-pocket producers Carlo Ponti and Joseph Levine. Intending to buy Art, they waved a fat budget at Godard -- who responded with this magnificent flip of the bird. It's about a French screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) hired by Hollywood producer Jerry Prokosh (a hilariously crass Jack Palance) to doctor the script for a misguided production of Homer's ''The Odyssey'' (i.e., to put in more T&A). The title emotion ricochets through every level of the movie: the sudden, inexplicable contempt of the writer's wife (Brigitte Bardot) for her husband; Prokosh's contempt for art; the gods' contempt for Odysseus; and above all Godard's contempt for Ponti and Levine (which extended to shooting their required Bardot nude scene as unerotically as possible). Fashioned as a neurotic fantasia on the theme of selling out, ''Contempt'' is one of Godard's finest, most accessible works. One caveat: This cropped-print video mangles the gorgeous wide-screen visuals. Where's letterboxing when you really need it?

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