When wide-screen movies are shown on TV these days, they are often subjected to the annoying “pan and scan” practice, in which the sides are chopped off and then the camera moves back and forth to show two people who were originally meant to be seen at once. I can only imagine how the pan and scan process would look if applied to this movie [Contempt], in which Godard has built his own panning into the wide-screen compositions.
Roger Ebert, 5 Setembro, 1997