Contempt · reception & legacy

How Contempt has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

In 1963 it was widely read as Godard's compromised 'big-budget' picture — a star vehicle awkwardly saddled with Brigitte Bardot — and reviews were mixed. Its 1997 restoration and rerelease sealed the reversal: it's now routinely called one of Godard's supreme achievements, with critic Colin MacCabe famously dubbing it 'the greatest work of art produced in post-war Europe.'

What's debated

The perennial fight: is this the ideal entry point where Godard is at his most emotionally direct, or a gorgeous, glacial film about filmmaking that only lands if you already care about Godard?

Its footprint

Georges Delerue's aching 'Camille' theme has a whole second life — Scorsese lifted it for Casino — and the images of Casa Malaparte's rooftop on Capri and Bardot in that blue-shuttered apartment are among the most referenced in all of cinephilia. Fritz Lang's on-screen quip that CinemaScope is only good for 'snakes and funerals' gets endlessly quoted.

Where it stands

A cornerstone of the art-house canon and a Letterboxd favourite for its colours alone — the consensus 'accessible Godard' that even Godard sceptics tend to allow.

Named by the director

Influences Jean-Luc Godard has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• Voyage to Italy (1954) — Godard acknowledged Rossellini's film as the model for a marriage disintegrating on an Italian journey — and hangs its poster in Contempt itself.