His most commercially successful film was "Le Mépris" ("Contempt") (1963), starring Michel Piccoli and one of France's biggest female stars, Brigitte Bardot. A co-production between Italy and France, "Contempt" became known as a pinnacle in cinematic modernism with its profound reflexivity. The film follows Paul (Piccoli), a screenwriter who is commissioned by Prokosch (Jack Palance), an arrogant American movie producer, to rewrite the script for an adaptation of Homer's "Odyssey", which the Austrian director Fritz Lang has been filming. Lang's 'high culture' interpretation of the story is lost on Prokosch, whose character is a firm indictment of the commercial motion picture hierarchy. Another prominent theme is the inability to reconcile love and labour, which is illustrated by the crumbling of Paul's marriage to Camille (Bardot) during the course of shooting.