Contempt
Art film producer Jeremy Prokosch, unhappy with the work of his director, hires Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb, he brings in a screenwriter to energise the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
Critics Sentiment
Paul and Camille argue at length in their Rome apartment as she withdraws love
Camille refuses to recant and leaves Capri with Prokosch for Rome
The film surges from its most inert stretch (Camille's departure with Prokosch, score 6.0) to the quietly devastating and thematically celebrated ending with Lang filming on alone (score 8.5), a swing of 2.5 points in the final ten minutes.
Contempt opens with strong critical enthusiasm for its self-reflexive meta-cinematic gestures and Bardot's deliberately unerotic nude scene, builds to its most celebrated peak in the extended Rome apartment sequence where the marriage visibly disintegrates, then settles into a slower, more divisive middle section in Capri before recovering with the elegiac and thematically rich ending. The overall arc is one of sustained intellectual and aesthetic admiration punctuated by frustration at the film's glacial pacing, with reviewers consistently praising Bardot's enigmatic performance, Lang's moral authority, and Delerue's score even when the drama itself feels withholding.
Crew
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