Contempt
Dont get in the car! But the fateful decision of an ambitious screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) to let his young wife (Brigitte Bardot) ride in a red Alfa with a lecherous movie producer (Jack Palance) bodes poorly for their marriage. Jean-Luc Godards 1963 classic Contempt is about many things: moviemaking satire, Homers Odyssey, lost idealism, and the interrelationship between art and life (with cinema always the valance between). But through the Mediterranean colors and CinemaScope lenses (in a restored new print), its the gradual, ineluctable dissolution of marital trust that haunts you. Youve changed since this morning, Piccoli protests, but as Bardot points out, the same could be said of him. She got in the car, but he took the producers money. Note: Kim Thompson of Fantagraphics provides an introduction. (NR) BRIAN MILLER
Wed., March 23, 7 p.m., 2011
