| Pierrot le fou | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Written by | Jean-Luc Godard |
| Starring | Jean-Paul Belmondo Anna Karina |
| Music by | Antoine Duhamel |
| Release date(s) | November 5, 1965 (France) |
| Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $300,000 |
Pierrot le fou is a 1965 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo. The film is based on Obsession, a novel by Lionel White. It was Jean-Luc Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin. The title translates as Pete the madman, but the film is usually released under its French title internationally. The film was the 15th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,310,580 admissions in France. [1] The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 38th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.[2]
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Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job at a TV broadcasting company. After attending a mindless party full of shallow discussions in Paris, he feels a need to escape and decides to run away with his baby-sitter, an ex-girlfriend, Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), leaving his wife and children and bourgeois lifestyle. Following Marianne into her apartment and finding a corpse, Ferdinand soon discovers that Marianne is being chased by OAS gangsters, two of whom they barely escape. Pierrot (the unwelcome nickname Marianne gives to Ferdinand during their time together), 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 becomes strained. Ferdinand ends up reading books, philosophizing and writing in his diary. Marianne becomes bored of the Robert Louis Stevenson-ness of their living situation and insists they return to town, where in a night-club they meet one of their pursuers. The gangsters waterboard Ferdinand and depart. In the confusion, Marianne and Ferdinand are separated, with Marianne traveling in search of Ferdinand and Ferdinand settling in Toulon. After their eventual reunion, Marianne uses Ferdinand to get a suitcase full of money before running away with her real boyfriend, to whom she had previously referred as her brother. Pierrot shoots Marianne and her boyfriend, and, in the climactic scene, paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to his head. Regretting his decision at the last second, he tries to extinguish the fuse, but he is blinded by the dynamite and is blown up.
Like many of Godard's films, Pierrot le fou features characters who break the fourth wall by looking into the camera. It also includes startling editing choices; for example, when Pierrot throws a cake at a woman in the party scene, Godard cuts to an exploding firework just as it hits her. The film has many of the characteristics of the then dominant pop art movement,[1] making constant disjunctive references to various elements of mass culture. Like much pop art the film uses visuals drawn from cartoons and employs an intentionally garish visual aesthetic based on bright primary colors.
Pierrot le fou is sometimes seen as an early and paradigmatic example of postmodernism in film.[2] The film's postmodern elements include its parodic but affectionate attitude towards American pop culture, its deliberate mixing of high and low art, its frequent dissection of popular movie conventions, and its use of a decentered, collage-like (or paratactic) narrative structure. The central character of Ferdinand also embodies Jameson's notion of the postmodern citizen as a victim of "compensatory decorative exhilaration" or a mass media-addled mindset in which individuals lose the ability to distinguish truth from fiction or important issues from trivial ones.
Sylvie Vartan was Godard's first choice for the role of Marianne but her agent refused.[3][4] Godard considered Richard Burton to play the role of Ferdinand but gave up the idea.[4]
As with many of Godard's movies, no screenplay was written until the day before shooting, and many scenes were improvised by the actors, especially in the final acts 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).[4]
Jean-Pierre Léaud was an uncredited assistant director on the movie (and also appears briefly in one scene).
The American film director in the party scene is Sam Fuller as himself.
The Criterion Collection has released Pierrot le fou on Blu Ray in September 2008. It was one of its first titles released on blu-ray.[5] However, the Blu Ray was discontinued after Criterion lost the rights to Studio Canal.