In Italy, Fritz Lang is filming The Odyssey. Along with him are his producer (Jack Palance), assistant director (Jean-Luc Godard), screenwriter Paul (Michel Piccoli) and the latter's wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot). As preparations for shooting commence, Paul and Camille enter into a crisis in their marriage: contempt. And as the shooting starts, the viewer enters into a crisis in relation to the cinema: contempt. Fritz Lang comments, “There are two monsters in this picture. One is Jack Palance, who plays a producer. And myself: I play Fritz Lang” (in Take One). But there is a third monster: “the eye of the camera watching these characters in search of Homer replaces that of the gods watching over Ulysses and his companions” (Godard). The same “eye” that makes Contempt a compelling experience - its colors, its compositions, its ruins in Italy, its vistas, and especially its movement - strips it continually of its façade, leaving dialogue as flat and emotionless as Jack Palance's face; a stituation as void as Paul and Camille's marriage (which is dissected as they, we, are trapped for thirty minutes within the walls of their apartment); and finally, simply the filming of a film within a film. (JB)