Based on Alberto Moravia's novel Il Disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon), Godard's early masterpiece focuses on the breakup of a marriage as it delivers sharp commentary on the state of international filmmaking. A scriptwriter (Piccoli), conscripted to craft an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, is caught between the film's earnest director (Fritz Lang) and its crass producer (Palance), who imagines a vulgarization of the story. Marital and professional contempt reach a crescendo as the locale shifts from Rome to a modernist villa in Capri, where Godard places the moral choices into stark relief.