Call him self indulgent, call him pretentious, call him elitist, but Jean-Luc Godard was a titan of his time. A spearhead of the French New Wave that made movies feel alive with their experimentation with the form itself and a youthful, rebellious style that defined Godard’s cinematic generation. Essential to his method was a running theme of love of films themselves, Contempt being the absolute personification. Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is writer whose marriage is on the rocks, hired by emotional film producer Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) to rework a screenplay being shot by Fritz Lang (playing himself). Javal agrees and returns to his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot) to try to recover what’s left of their relationship. Easier said than done. A criticism of the how difficult movie making can be paralleling the delicate nature of staying happily married, this is also easily one of the New Wave’s best.

7pm // Harvard Film Archive // $9 General/$7 Seniors, Students