Le Mepris - "Contempt"

I saw the Jean Luc Godard film, "Contempt" starring Bridgette Bardox and Jack Palance. Jack is an American, crude, wants to make a movie about Odesyus (written by Homer) and hires the great Fritz Lang to direct it. Lang has his own ideas about the picture, wants to make it a very romantic tribute to the greek gods. Palance is angry, the script isnt being followed, while watching the dailies he laughs at a nude scene, "the audience will like this!" he laughs, but hates what Lang is doing. Later, he gets Lang to put some more nude scenes in the movie. Bardox is the wife of the screenwriter. They live a petite bourgeoisie life, arguing about nothing, living an inconsequential life full of petty bickering. they are jealous of one another, and at times seem to want to flirt for seemingly no reason other than boredom. "Do you love me?" he asks Bardox, and she says, "I despise you!" Great line! I despise you. Godard does a great job with sets, colors, and Bardox - dear buddha, she has a perfect body, he shows her nude, face down many times, she is perfect (1963). The furniture is great, mod chairs and couches, deep blue (cold?) and bright red (hot, lust?). Godard of course was a leftist, anarchist, and had contempt for the bourgeoisie - the camera in the film within a film is often pointing to the audience as though to say, you are just as shallow as these people! The ending is a surprise - a let down? but Godard endings are often like that - I dont understand why his endings are such let downs. maybe I should study Godard more, maybe read a book on him. I saw a film of his called "Vacation" and I followed it until about 2/3 way through and then completely lost it - it was as though the film deconstructed itself before the audience's eyes. But Bardox was amazing, the mod sets were great, and the Italian locations were great too.