Pierrot le fou

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Pierrot le fou
Directed by	Jean-Luc Godard
Written by	Jean-Luc Godard
Starring	Jean-Paul Belmondo Anna Karina
Release date(s)	November 5, 1965 (France)
Running time	110 min.
Language	English/French
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Pierrot le fou (English: Crazy Pete or Pete Goes Wild) is a 1965 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo. This film is based on Obsession, a novel by Lionel White. This is Jean-Luc Godard's tenth feature movie, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Themes 3 Behind the scene 4 Influence 5 Notes

[edit] Plot

Ferdinand Griffon aka Pierrot (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job in an advertising firm. After a boring party in Paris, he decides to leave his wife and children for his baby-sitter, an ex-girlfiend, Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina). Following her into her apartment to find a corpse, Ferdinand soon discovers that Marianne is being chased by Algerian gangsters, two of which they barely escape. Ferdinand (which Marianne decides to call Pierrot) and Marianne go on a traveling crime spree from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea in the dead man's car.They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. Settling down in the French riviera after having burnt the dead man's car (full of money) and sunk a second car into the Mediterranean Sea, their relationship gets worse and worse. Ferdinand does not understand nor wish to understand the adventure into which Marianne brought him and ends up reading books, philosophising and writing in his diary. Marianne gets bored by Ferdinand's settled life and drive him into a night-club where they meet one of their pursuers. In the climatic end scene, Pierrot, after having shot Marianne, paints his face in blue and decides to blow himself up with red and yellow dynamite. Regretting his decision, he tries to extinguish the fuse, but, blinded by the dynamite, he ends up exploding.

[edit] Themes

Godard confronts his doubts about the possibilities of cinema in this startling dissection of cinema, politics, Marxism, literature, music and pop culture. Like much of Godard's work, the film carries much of the characteristics of pop art, making constant disjunctive references to various elements of mass culture. However, this is done in a very satiric vein, whereas pop art often celebrates mass culture.

This movie makes also numerous references to the Vietnam war and the Algerian war. For example, Marianne and Pierrot entertain American tourists on a beach, miming war scenes where Pierrot is an US soldier and Marianne a vietnamese girl. Pierrot is also tortured by being drowned in a bathtub, a technique often used by French during the Algerian war.

But overall, Pierrot le fou deals mostly with the impossible love between Marianne and Ferdinand. A large section of the film is dedicated to Marianne and Ferdinand's secluded life in the French riviera and the deterioration of their relationship.

Another particularity of this movie is that the actors sometimes address directly the camera/viewer, breaking the narration and plot.

[edit] Behind the scene

• Sylvie Vartan was at first chosen by Godard to play the role of Marianne but her agent refused.^[1][2] Godard considered Richard Burton to play the role of Ferdinand but gave up the idea.^[2]
• As for most of Godard's movies, no scenario was written until the day before the shooting (at best) and the part of improvisation was fairly large, especially for the last section of the movie. The shooting took place over two months, starting in the French riviera and finishing in Paris (in reverse order from the edited movie).^[2]
• Jean-Pierre Léaud was an uncredited assistant director on the movie.

[edit] Influence

• Mathieu Kassovitz's first short movie is called Fierrot le pou (Fierrot the louse).
• The twentieth episode of Cowboy Bebop is entilted Pierrot le fou.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Interview of Sylvie Vartan in French
2. ^ ^{a b c} Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le fou ed. David Wills, Cambridge University Press, 2000 (first 20 pages)