Le Mepris was Godard's attempt to understand his disintegrating
marriage to Anna Karina. Her part is played by Bardot with glacial
poise, barely concealing wounded pride, while Piccoli makes a very
plausible Godard, shuffling around with hat and cigarette, quoting
Howard Hawks rather than actually living. Onto the story of a writer
whose wife becomes disgusted with him and runs off with a Hollywood
producer, Godard grafts the whole of western culture - from the Odyssey
to Fritz Lang - and the fear that it's all slipping away. But Le Mepris is
itself a magnificent arriere-garde work, full of Mediterranean light
and melancholy music, one of Godard's most accessible if saddest
films.
