I was thinking more of Godard's comment elsewhere on being a film director as one job where you can legitimately get women to take off their clothes/ ask this without getting slapped. No doubt an element of tongue in cheek (if you'll pardon the expression). Anyway, it's true he deliberately avoids pressing the usual Hollywood box office sexiness buttons in that Bardot sequence but there's still an overall sensuality, with the colours (e.g the rich red of the scene) and setting; a sense of warmth alongside the intellectual coolness, which especially appeals to me in Pierrot le Fou (when asked about the unrealistic look of the blood in that film, he replied it's not blood, it's red).

Do try and see Voyage to Italy- a very different kettle of fish to the neo-realist classics of the 40's; Contempt clearly pays homage to it, again as the antithesis of crass commercial cinema.