But Japanese political predominance, and constant intercourse during three centuries, have almost japonised the island.

Jean-Luc Godard’s radiant, ambiguous, serenely perverse “Contempt,” 45 this year, is being revived again, in startling color and elegant, ribbony CinemaScope, for the second time in just over a decade, and it’s beginning to look like one of those movies we can’t do without for very long: a classic.

But howsoeuer, euer this is true, / You both repented what you vndertooke, / Thorough your eyes into your bossomes flew / VVounds vnrecurable: oft in your looke / VVhen paynted smiles lay publique in our view, / VVe might behold how much your ioyes forsooke, / Your vndisguised harts; for they sayd still, / The waking heauens will plague the sleeping ill.

The spirits entered the tunnel carrying treasures, but exited freehanded.