Pierrot the Fool (1965) User Reviews

Just because he's deliberately awkward doesn't mean Godard can escape from all the criticism

[ElMaruecan82 · 6/10 · 20 August 2017]

"I've never been able to appreciate any of his films, nor even understand them... I find his films affected, intellectual, self-obsessed and, as cinema, without interest and frankly dull... I've always thought that he made films for critics." That's Ingmar Bergman openly expressing his opinion about Jean- Luc Godard's movies, his 'contempt'… to play on words.

For a novice, this statement might sound awkward from a director whose movies aren't exactly devoid of intellectual material, except that Bergman and Godard don't play in the same league, the oeuvre of Bergman is far more monumental… and substantial. Bergman approached in cinematic terms and hypnotic cinematography the human condition with a constantly questioned involvement of God, a brainstorm that spanned four decades of cinematic creation. What Godard offered is a questioning of cinematic (and storytelling) conventions, which he's entitled to do after all, except that by doing so, he confines his movies into the very cinematic medium they're supposed to free themselves out. Godard strikes like the rebellious teenage son of cinema, trying so hard to be different that it actually conditions him.

That's Godard's paradox; the man who denounced the traditional cinema is perhaps the most cinematic of all directors, always indulging to a trick, a false connection, a disenchanted voice-over, a sudden change of color and many outbursts of spontaneity within the script, to prove that he exists, that he wouldn't let any cinematic requirement affect his work, that this movie we're watching is a movie, and he's the director. Many shots are creatively done and "Pierrot le Fou", for all its craziness, is a beautifully shot movie, in fact, Godard IS a talented film-maker and some scenes are absolutely mesmerizing, I especially love the little dance between Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, it captures that idle casualness, that nonchalant free-spirited charm of youth in the 60's. But for one masterstroke like this, you have countless moments where you're just wondering "what the hell am I watching?".

I know Godard is being deliberately awkward, sometimes for the sake of a gag (the film can be labeled as a comedy to some degree) or because of the "forbidding is forbidden" philosophy. But just because you do something deliberately doesn't make it any immune to criticism, it's only fair to determine to which extent the freedom of the director affects the appreciation of the story. And that's a parameter you wouldn't ignore unless you're wrapped up in a huge ego. To Godard's defense, I don't know if he held himself in such high esteem or if the cohort of fans didn't simply build the colossal monument out of his "Breathless" making any movie he'd make a masterpiece. Well, in 1965, I guess French youth was in demand of newness, something that would echo their rebellious spirit, something post- modern, and yes, I concede that "Pierrot le Fou" is far more interesting than "The Sound of Music", but that doesn't say much.

Indeed, isn't it the height of irony that the post-modern masterpiece is now stuck to its era and became the true embodiment of the "Nouvelle Vague"? To be honest, I've never been a fan of the New Wave in the first place, I thought the movies that predated its beginning like "Bob le Flambeur", "Elevator to the Gallows", "400 Blows" were more interesting than the revolution itself, but when you look retrospectively, the New Wave was only the occasion for self-absorbed directors to prove how 'different' and modern they were. Time did justice to the French popular cinema of the 50's and 60's, and people would rather watch "The Sicilian Clan", "The Wages of Fear" or any gangster flick with Gabin and Ventura than these pseudo-intellectual, flashy movies. "Pierrot le Fou" exemplifies how hard creativity could damage credibility, it's Godard at its most intrusive, and it's a shame because the story had elements to grab the viewers.

It's one of these romances on the lam with Ferdinand, a man struck in typical bourgeois ennui takes the control of his life, and escapes from his condition with Anna Karina, Belmondo has fun playing Ferdinand aka Pierrot, a role that allowed him to make a fool of himself, but Godard want to steal the actors' thunder instead of letting the two of them run the show, he uses them as puppets to the very statements he wants to make, or non-statement. I maintain that the New Wave's greatest achievement was to inspire the New Hollywood generation and when you look at "Bonnie and Clyde", "Badlands" or even "Sugarland Express", you can measure the differences between French and American cinema, one school is entrapped in its obsession with originality, another is busy telling the stories, one rejects the classics, another explores them and makes something fresh of it. Finally, one feels like cinema, one gets so experimental it's boring.

And believe me, I gave it a third chance, I put it with the commentary on, with Godard's number-one fan talking, maybe he'd tell me things I couldn't see but he actually confirmed my suspicion, in every shot, it was "Godard did", "Godard defied", "Godard changed". Godard is the real star of the film, "Pierrot le Fou" proves that he's an iconoclast, twisted and certainly talented director, he just forgot that the essence of a movie is to plunge you in a world, tell you a story and make you forget it's movie, except if the self-referential aspect is central to the plot. Not a chance with Godard, he epitomized what's wrong with the New Wave, self-awareness, self- obsession confining to intellectual masturbation, self-selfism I want to say.

The film isn't boring for all that and possesses a few moments of genuine tenderness and creativity, but Godard, once again, is being his worst enemy and destroys the very edifice he's building, for one scene that works, you have five or six leaving you scratching your head or wondering if you won't going to watch "Predator" instead.

Challenging...

[Xstal · 7/10 · 10 February 2023]

Ferdinand is a.k.a. Pierrot, but just to Marianne, as he's her beau, though he starts off with his wife, but cannot take the married strife, so he deserts her, and they form a new combo. Together they evade the OAS, it's not the first time she's been caught in such a mess, heading south to towards the sea, committing crimes, they run and flee, a small island gives them time, for their sad tryst. Marianne puts a dwarf terrorist in his place, the lost loves re-find each other, and a suitcase, it goes to pot, there are some shots, it's a Godard type of plot, and it blows up in Pierrot's sullen face.

Two great actors talking in the directors tongue but not able to communicate as legibly as you might like unless you're prepared to pay multiple visits, and I'm not really sure it's worth the time and energy.

"...film is like a battleground..."

[elvircorhodzic · 8/10 · 27 September 2017]

PIERROT LE FOU is a romantic crime comedy film that, through a parody treatment to the American gangster film examines human relationships and the existence in an imperfect society. This is a film that, in a messy way, shows to us a series of murders, thefts and disagreements, through a crazy love story. It is based on the 1962 novel "Obsession" by Lionel White.

It is the story of Ferdinand and Marianne. He is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job. She is a student and his ex-girlfriend. Marianne is being chased by gangsters. They become a crazed couple on the run. He reads books, philosophizing and writing his diary. She wants to sing, dance and act. Although it seems that they are crazy in love, their relationship becomes very tense...

On one hand, the protagonists are intelligent madmen who are isolated in an imperfect world, on the other hand, they are young people who do not know what they want in life. The film is full of references to the history of cinema and painting, quotations from literature, music and political situation. Mr. Godard has drew a thin line between tension and impatience, which includes lies, deceit, sex and ultimately tragicomic end.

The scenery is striking, characterization, which includes introverted protagonist, is quite good and the soundtrack is very pleasurable.

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand Griffon,"Pierrot" and Anna Karina as Marianne Renoir are charming and eager young people in love who want to be together, but constantly flee to themselves. Their characters lack patience and calmness. In that case, a fraud and a suicide have a different meaning.

This is, perhaps, the most amusing wandering in an universal patchwork directed by Mr. Godard.

Go Crazy with Pierrot

[mscheinin · 11 August 2000]

Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou begins with a montage that features some of the most beautiful images ever caught on film. (Tellingly, the only other '60s film to feature such lush photography was Godard's Contempt). But even before these images appear, we've been captured by the soundtrack. Some of the most creative exposition ever follows and things only get better from there on in.

To summarize Pierrot is to betray its essence -- it's as much about its own making as any story -- but here goes nothing: Pierrot, a bored man stuck in a bourgeois marriage, runs off with his children's babysitter, Marianne, herself hiding from gangsters. Bizarre musical numbers and hilarious conversations with no relevance to the plot sometimes break up the story. Characters talk to the camera, and Pierrot yells "Mais, je m'appele Ferdinand!" ("But I'm named Ferdinand!")

Still, plot hardly seems to matter while watching the film. Godard is often called elitist or inaccessible. That's not true, however, and Pierrot is, above all, wild, anarchic fun. Try not to laugh during the absurd bits featuring a sailor who complains that he's had a song stuck in his head for several decades. Try not to grin when Pierrot and Marianne "reenact Vietnam" for a group of American tourists.

Pierrot is one of cinema's essential films, perhaps because it came at the precise moment when Godard hit his all-time peak. Made in 1965, it came during the eight-year period ('59-'67) during which the man made a jaw-dropping fifteen films. Some of them work better than others -- no wonder, for he was experimenting with all of cinema's possibilities -- but many are masterpieces, and Pierrot is the crown jewel.

In many respects, Pierrot is flawless. In all others, it remains great art.

Godard Clowns Around, Creates Masterpiece

[jay4stein79-1 · 10/10 · 23 November 2004]

Artists are often remembered more for their brasher, earlier work - films, novels, paintings, etc. that pushed the boundaries of their medium to create something bold and unique. Sometimes, though, we ignore the faults of those earlier works, while more mature, more perfect later works are ignored because they lack the visceral shock of the new inherent in the artist's first pieces.

Godard strikes me as an artist of which this occurrence is particularly true. His Breathless ushered in the Nouvelle Vague of French cinema and has long been held as not only a classic, but also his masterpiece. As wonderful and fun as Breathless is, I find it much slighter Godard's later work, most notably Vivre Sa Vie, Le Mepris, Bande A Part, Weekend, and, of course, Pierrot Le Fou.

Breathless represents more technical innovation than anything else. It is a terrific story, but one that lacks the thematic depth of those other films. Godard touches upon the ideologies that will concern him later, but he does not delve into the plight of woman, the pitiful nature of the bourgeoisie, or the nature of film as much as he would in a couple years.

For me, the greatest achievement of Godard is Pierrot Le Fou. In it, he combines comedy, the road picture, extreme pathos, a scathing indictment of Capitalism, and a critique of contemporary society in an unimaginable way. The film moves along, following Ferdinand and Marianne, but any semblance of a normal narrative gets lost along the way. This is, of course, welcome. You do not come to Godard expecting the ordinary.

Though it lacks the photographic beauty of Le Mepris, Pierrot nevertheless represents one of Godard's most brilliant uses of color. The use of color filters in an early scene, reminiscent of Ivan the Terrible II's final scenes, is quite arresting and the overall use of the eastmancolor pallet is gorgeous. This is a very, very colorful film, which is appropriate for such a playful narrative.

The acting is similarly brilliant. Belmondo gives a more nuanced and more demanding performance here than he did in Breathless, and Karina matches him. Like one of the great starlets of the 40s and 50s, she bestows a grace, beauty, and elegance to her scenes. It helps that Godard's camera absolutely adores her (not quite as much, though, as it adored Brigitte Bardot's rear in Le Mepris), but much of what she does in this film derives from her talent rather than Godard's.

Again, though, I must warn that Pierrot is not a film for everyone.

Yes, it's a funny, brilliantly acted, and beautiful film, but it's also Godard, one of the most acquired tastes in the history of cinema.

That said, if you've not seen this film and consider yourself a fan of this director, see it soon - you'll not be disappointed.

Godard le fou

[kkarakondjull · 9/10 · 1 December 2012]

We often overlook the flaws of an artist's earlier work and then ignore their later, more perfect and mature pieces because they lack the daring boldness and innovation evident in the first ones. This is especially true in Godard's case. Breathless was new, fresh, fun and stylish; it was and still is considered a classic and his masterpiece. But as great as it is, Breathless is mostly about technical innovation and lacks the thematic depth of its creator's later work. Godard only brushes along subjects such as class division and the nature of film which, among many others, he will devour in films to come, in our case, Pierrot le fou.

I said 'perfect and mature' but those are qualities not typical of Godard. His films are always 'a work in progress' and he's not afraid of taking risks. That's why his work is usually considered ugly, childish, pretentious etc. But one should always be open-minded and never expect the ordinary when going to a Godard film. To begin with, it's impossible to confine Pierrot le fou to a particular genre as it doesn't adhere to a single form or convention but is, instead, a blend of comedy, romance, political thriller, noir, musical and so on. It is a road picture that is able to follow a straight narrative as much as a car is able to follow a straight road with Ferdinand behind the wheel. The director confesses that when he began working on his movie "one week before, I was completely panicked, I didn't know what I should do. Based on the book, we had already established all the locations, we had hired the people... and I was wondering what we were going to do with it all."

Godard has been criticized time and again for the purposeful disorientation of his audience. On top of a discontinuous plot he employs a wide array of 'sensorial techniques that serve to fragment the cinematic narrative.' Some of his trademark stylistic devices, including loud colors, obtrusive voice overs, rapid jump shots, out of sync sound etc. along with the abrupt interchanges between tones (e.g. comic – serious) constitute for a greater alienation of the viewer. The film opens with the voice of Ferdinand reading a passage, "Velázquez, past the age of fifty, no longer painted specific objects. He drifted around things like the air, like twilight, catching unawares in the shimmering shadows the nuances of color that he transformed into the invisible core of his silent symphony". Similarly, Godard is on a quest for another kind of cinematic art, one that isn't concerned with visual presentation of objects and characters as much as with "what lies in between people: space, sound and color."

With Pierrot le fou, Godard wanted to break away from conventional cinema's chains, go beyond any forms and formulas and attain something out of the ordinary clichè. At one point in the movie Ferdinand is at a social gathering and meets an American director. When asked for the definition of cinema, he responds: "A film is like a battleground. It's love, hate, action, violence, and death. In one word: emotions." This explains precisely what Godard sought to achieve. He wanted to transfer emotions directly onto the viewer - not through actors and their characters but by means of style. Abandoning all conventional drama and substituting it with flickering prime colors, godlike voice overs, eerie music etc. in the ultimate search for an instant, sublime surge of feelings was a chance Godard was willing to take. He considered this destruction of old rules and creation of new as something natural and necessary. As he himself asserts, "literary critics often praise works like Ulysses or Endgame because they exhaust a certain genre, they close the doors on it. But in the cinema we are always praising works which open doors."

Godard has created a film in the free form. A film deprived of structure. One that does not make any promises to the viewer but the assertion that love is beyond human control. Just like with love, nothing makes linear sense and every moment is more important than the last. Pierrot le fou is not an easy film to take in. It places great demands on its audience. Some might find them overwhelming, not worth the effort. But others, those that manage to let go and keep going forward into Godard's chaotic but passionate exploration of reality, might just enjoy the ride.

Highly regarded by some; overrated in my opinion

[Andy-296 · 6/10 · 28 February 2007]

This 1965 movie by Jean-Luc Godard is considered by some as among his masterpieces. I think, though, most people (with the exception of Godard cultists) will be disappointed by it. The plot has a couple (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina) fleeing Paris in a car for the French Riviera, but as in almost all Godard films the plot matters very little. What matters is the nonsensical situations the couple has to go through, the musical interludes, his comments on the political situation of the time (Vietnam war included), his take on American genre films. Still, I can't say the movie isn't thought provoking: when I saw it, what crossed my mind is that while the couple are two young adults, in their twenties, they really behave as if they were 8 year old. Spoiled by their parents, who wanted to protect them from the horrors they witness in World War II, the children of the 60s were really children.

My favorite thing

[gogobangbang · 10/10 · 19 May 2007]

I was fifteen when I saw this movie for the first time. I didn't knew much about cinema at this time. I didn't knew much about art either, nor music, nor nothing. But I will never forget the shock it was for me to discover that movie. This was pure poetry, it was the first time in my life I ever saw blue color, red and yellow. You don't have to be intellectual to love this movie, just a free child.

About some strange English subtitles I have on my DVD:

At the end of the movie, we can hear in French the first lines of a poem by Arthur Rimbaud (L'Eternité, 1872):

(Here I wanted to write the original french lines, but I'm not allowed. Curious world.)

English subtitles:

It's ours again / what is ? / eternity / No that's just the sea And the Sun

It should have been:

It is found again./ What is ? Eternity/ It is the sea/ Gone with the sun./

Minute 41. Ferdinand and Marianne are watching the man on the moon.

English subtitles:

F: - He thinks your legs and your breasts are very moving/ M: - Be quiet

But I can hear in French:

F: - I find your legs and your breasts very moving/ M: - Fcuk me

One of Godard's Most Tedious

[eshaines_zuke · 6/10 · 21 April 2014]

I found very little about this film's plot personally appealing. During the course of the set-up of the film, there is little justifiable reason provided by the filmmaker for the viewer to *want* to follow these characters' lives together as the film does, in such dull and aimlessly detailed dialogue.

Of course, Anna Karina is, as usual, stunning. The close-ups on her face are truly magnificent. As is the gorgeous Jean-Paul Belmondo, with his artistically perfect features.

On a positive note, the sequence in which Karina's character's boyfriend is killed by the two protagonists in their apartment is very interestingly shot and edited, and did provide Godardian interest. Beyond that, it became difficult for the film to hold my attention fully. Maybe I am getting old, and New Wave films simply do not have the effect that they had on my once elitist heart, but I much prefer other New Wave Films to this one. I think Breathless is a much more enjoyable film directed by Godard, and other than the fact that this movie is part of the Criterion collection, which makes it halfway decent at a bare minimum, as well as stylistically interesting, plot-wise, much of the film leaves me wanting.

top stuff from a top man

[duffcon · 10/10 · 18 January 2005]

The previous commentator criticizes Pierrot Le Fou as a movie that cannot be classified.The fact that a movie cannot be pigeon-holed is surely a plus,as it doesn't conform to a single cliché as Godard achieves a synthesis of many genres :noir,gangster,political thriller,love story and musical to name a few.The film is a history not only of cinema but of art and civilization, what Proust or Joyce attempted with the novel Godard does with the camera.

Another criticism is the use of loud colors,this was intentional as he uses the primary cinematic colors in addition to the recurring theme of red,white and blue- France's national colors as well as those of imperialist Russia,United Kingdom and America.At the time recent history in Europe was one of grainy monotone austerity, death-camps and ration-books, the use of loud colors was a celebration of life and reaction against this.

The next criticism leveled is that it is too personal, indeed this is cinema-auteur at it's best and it is intentional.Just as in Pulp Fiction the Travolta/Jackson dialog about the cultural nuances between America and Europe(Royale with cheese/Didn't go into burger king) is basically Tarantino's travelogue of his time on the other side of the pond.

The film is deeply political and still relevant today.Take Pierrot's explanation of the Man on the the moon's suffering at the expense of Soviet and American expansionism as they vie for control of the heavens(the space-race) "He is trying to escape in a hurry, the Russians tried to stuff his head with the complete works of Lenin so he sought refuge with the Americans but Uncle Sam stuffed a bottle of Coca Cola in his mouth,having forced him to say thank you beforehand." Indeed a parallel could be drawn with the ungrateful Iraqis who don't appreciate their liberation.

Another criticism is the disorientating effect of the voice overs and out of sync sound effects.Pierrot himself refers to this at the party at the start of the film "A machine to see:my eyes, to speak :my mouth, to hear :my ears but instead of having the impression of being a single person I feel like many." Which conveys modern man's fragmentation and dislocation while reminding us of the power of image and sound to disorientate for the purposes of political propaganda.

As for no trace of beauty, my god are you blind? As the entire film is one continuous flirt between the foxy Marianne and the camera.

"Why does Pierrot paint his face blue?" .Well why does Travis Bickle shave himself a Mohican's hair do in Taxidriver? These may seem rather arbitrary at first but then again so are all the other thousand and one clichés in cinema such as the man offering the femme fatal a light for her cigarette,wanna take in a movie? wanna grab a coffee? What in the name of God are they all about?A cliché has too start somewhere, unfortunately the lead man painting his face blue didn't catch on.Mores the pity.

A very interesting movie, but beware

[lectrick · 6/10 · 12 April 2011]

I'm not a film critic, but I love movies. That said, this is my first Godard flick, it was a recommendation. This film felt more like observing a painting than watching a traditional film due to the lack of much of a plot. It is essentially a collection of impressions... song, sights, beauty, color, romance, adventure, noir. You should approach this movie with your right brain more than your left one. It's also very introspective so if that is not your cup of tea, you may not enjoy it as much. I didn't particularly like the ending, but I suppose there was nowhere else for it to go... All in all, this is the movie to check out if you are bored with the usual cinema formats. I give it 6/10 because I do feel it can be rather inaccessible at times; then again I may not be the ideal target market (I was born long after this film hit the theaters).

The further adventures of Franz and Odile

[lqualls-dchin · 10/10 · 22 June 2007]

At the end of Godard's "Band of Outsiders" (1964), it's promised that the next film will be the further adventures of Franz and Odile in South America, in Cinemascope and color. Well, maybe they didn't get as far as South America, but "Pierrot le Fou" begins with Anna Karina dressed in her school girl outfit (with matching braided buns) from "Band of Outsiders": this film gets as far as the Riviera, but it is in Cinemascope and color, as Ferdinand and Marianne try to escape from the trappings of the bourgeoise world (as exemplified by the cocktail party, in which Ferdinand meets the American director Samuel Fuller, who tells him "What is Cinema?"). For Godard, "Pierrot le Fou" represented an important milestone in his career: in it, he would document the end of his relationship with Anna Karina. It is the most agonizingly romantic of his films: there are constant reminders as the narration insists on the ultimate mystery, the inability of one person to know another (there is the moment when Anna Karina is seen in close-up, as the narrator wonders when she says it's a nice day, does she really mean it's a nice day?), and the desolation of romantic desire.

Yet the brilliant color, the rapid rhythms, even the song-and-dance numbers (there are three) color the unhappiness, making this a vibrant tragicomedy. The film veers between exuberance and exhaustion, yet for all its free-wheeling formal invention, this is one of Godard's most emotionally direct films, a piercing lament on the perils of love.

(Godard would make two more films with Karina, the short "Anticipation", and "Made in USA", both films far more "formal" and less emotionally engaged; the end of the Godard-Karina marriage, the subtext of "Pierrot le Fou", would also inspire Jacques Rivette's "L'Amour Fou".)

Can't say I like it but it is still well made.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 22 September 2012]

Man, those French filmmakers must have thought they could get away with just about everything. Jean-Luc Godard movies are just too weird, even for my taste.

Make no mistake about it, Godard movies are more art than movies really. This means that you have to interpret most of the stuff that is happening in this movie on your own, since the movie makes no attempt to clearly lay out everything for you and you constantly need to invest yourself into this movie, which is I guess something that lots of people like to do but I just prefer a bit of a more straightforward told story, that gets you involved with its writing and acting and not just with its images.

That doesn't mean I can't appreciate this movie on some level though. Like I said, it's not like I don't understand it but I just don't like it very much. I can see exactly what this movie was trying to do and say with all of it satire and this is also why I'm still being mostly positive toward this movie. After all, it simply works out in the way it wants to, so how could I be negative about it. I can also see some people liking this kind of movie and go back to it, since you'll probably catch new little things every time you watch it.

Sometimes these sort of movies indeed could work out well for me but this movie just never clicked with me on any level. In essence it had a good and interesting story but the way it got told made this a too hard to follow and far from pleasant viewing experience. It's just a bit too artsy and too busy trying to say- and make a point about things, without telling a good, interesting and involving enough story.

It's a thinking man's movie, that constantly forces you to use your mind and own imagination to fill in certain blanks and to interpret certain images and pieces of dialog. IF this sounds like your type of thing, go ahead and watch it. If it doesn't, than simply stay away from it, as far as possible!

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Old Art-house that does not stand the test of time

[badajoz-1 · 2/10 · 7 October 2013]

Godard gets 2 for trying to be different, but this early sixties, experimental, existential (it has to be, doesn't it?), barely plotted, inexplicable jumble of ideas, off the cuff meanderings, and comments on what was happening in the world at the time just does not stand the test of time. It now looks mannered, pretentious, tedious, pseudo-philosophical (as if made for an in-crowd seminar critique by Jean Paul Sartre and his Left Bank Gitanes-smoking cronies), experimental colour-laden because the Director could fiddle about in homage to his European contemporaries mess of a film. Yes, Godard was revered, but 'Alphaville' and 'Breathless' were fit for cinema - this only bores you to tears with his self-indulgence masquerading as 'IMPORTANT' cinema. Belmondo survives everything, and he does here, effortlessly reading philosophy at the same time as coolly romancing an out-of-reach femme fatale. Some of the sixties cinema was crap on reflection - and this is prime off-colour rump.

Cool and funny

[Dockelektro · 11 June 2001]

Perfect movie, which passes its message like no other film ever did. An incredible first part, in Paris, where the people are taken by capitalism and consumist habits, shows us that society is corrupted in an unique way, as Belmondo's Ferdinand drifts by the various colors which reflect only the emotionless. When Marianne gets in his way, he finds an escape and lets go his mad feelings, and they both run away. This story is told by Godard by the means of the fantastic, depicting madness and foolishness as a true art form, making two unlikely characters enjoyable and engaging. This one goes to the podium of the pictures that stand out and will never age, acting also as an influence to everyone who sees it.

My favorite Godard film

[seandchoi · 9/10 · 8 September 2001]

Pierrot Le Fou represents Jean-Luc Godard at his best: it is a film that is extremely episodic and spontaneous, often maddening and frustrating, but always interesting, and ultimately awesome. The lovely Anna Karina plays Marianne, a girl who is on the run from a bunch of hitmen, and the charismatic Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Ferdinand (but she keeps calling him "Pierrot"), who escapes with her to the Mediterranean Sea, where they lead a kind of "Bonnie and Clyde" style of life filled with car chases, romance, robbery, and ultimately death (Pierrot's life ultimately comes to a (literally) explosive ending). It is said that Godard worked without a script (he just based Pierrot Le Fou loosely on a book called "Obsession") and just made up scenes as he went along! But it is a true confirmation of his genius that he's able to pull it off and to make a film that is consistently dazzling to look at, and which feels fresh and alive even after all these years. This film is a true masterpiece and a very fine example of what the French "New Wave" was all about.

Superb! Aloof love story/biting social commentary. Very refined.

[anthonymyint · 10/10 · 31 July 2001]

This film may not be for everyone, but it is extremely accessible as far as Godard goes. Overall, Pierrot le Fou is a lighthearted romp through the French Countryside, starring two mainstays of Godard's work. Belmondo and Karina are brilliant as a couple that love and need each other, but are too cool to mean it. They are on the run from arms dealers, but the setting and their misadventures are as flighty as the occasional musical numbers and the villains pursuing them (including a rather menacing midget). Throw in some haphazard philosophical references and you have a film that intellectuals, hippies, couples, etc. can all enjoy.

Pierrot le fou

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 24 January 2023]

Remember the old days of vinyl when you'd put the stylus on, and it would just slide across the disc? Well, despite the number of times I have watched this film, it does the same as that stylus. I just don't really get it. It centres around the slightly Bonnie and Clyde existence of the married and recently unemployed television executive "Ferdinand" (Jean Paul Belmondo) and his flighty ex-babysitter "Marianne" (Anna Karina) as they travel across France trying to make a Bohemian sort of living whilst she avoids some Algerian gangsters from whom she has worked smuggling guns. Now we know from the start that these two have a bit of history - she continuously calls him "Pierrot" - much to his chagrin, but different as they are, and rather despite themselves, together they must remain as their escapades become more perilous, quirky and their personalities emerge stronger and clearer. I get all of that, it's a road movie - a colourful, occasionally entertaining one - with a certain, though not overwhelming - degree of chemistry between the two handsome stars. The scenarios though, are all a bit repetitive and too much of the significance of the film seems attached to the former relationship (off screen) between Karina and Jean Luc Godard. Perhaps it is based on their own life, but what has that to do with what we are watching on the screen now? Sure, it's a well photographed and flee flowing story, but too much of the significance of the plot and the characterisation is reserved to those "in the know" and so I just found it, increasingly, a rather unremarkable semi-comical romp. It's highly rated, so I am probably just out of kilter - but for me this is really nothing much to write home about.

It all makes perfect nonsense

[StevePulaski · 9/10 · 27 March 2014]

There is a scene I simply love in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot Le Fou, so much so that I'd say it's one of my favorite scenes I have yet to see in any Godard film next to the lengthy tracking-shot in Weekend. The scene comes early on in the film and shows our two criminal leads Ferdinand (nicknamed "Pierrot," played by Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Anna Karina) driving along with news on one-hundred and fifteen guerillas being killed. It is then that Marianne states how inherently dehumanizing that statement is to the one-hundred and fifteen victims simply because we don't think of them as one-hundred and fifteen different people but just an empty statistic. We forget that some of those men had families, some even children, and all had their own thoughts and feelings as well as opinions and viewpoints on certain things. A simple statement attempting to collectively include them all can effectively make them less humane and less reminiscent of people.

Marianne doesn't stop there. She continues on to say that even photography, albeit interesting, is a bit dehumanizing in its own right. It freezes a moment of time on a simple piece of paper, but the simple caption usually provided at the bottom doesn't do enough justice to the man's personality. In addition, who knows what he was thinking at that moment? He could've been thinking about his life, the world, politics, basketball, etc at that one very moment in time. We'll never know and that heightens the mystery and enigma provided by a photograph.

Pierrot Le Fou possesses some of the most incredible observations about the world in any Godard film I have yet to see. Its first hour provides for rousing comedy and drama, revolving around two charismatic and violent criminals that drop everything in their boring life one day and take up a life of crime and unpredictability. Throughout the film's course, it's evident that these characters are (a) completely careless of their actions against the world, (b) could never be with anyone else and are pretty much each others only vice, and (c) have seen way too many films, mostly ones from mainstream Hollywood.

Godard uses both Ferdinand and Marianne as people with personalities probably not far off from his own ideas, portraying two characters disgusted by the pop art, commercialist culture America has greatly emphasized. After Ferdinand attends a party where people talk empty philosophy and speak in what sounds like infomercial dialog - beautifully articulating shallowness and the effective of commercialism - he visits his babysitter and ex-girlfriend Marianne, whom he eventually runs away with, abandoning his wife and children in search of a purer life off the land.

Ferdinand and Marianne carjack, harass innocent people, and do hugely contemptible things. Their actions remind a seasoned Godard viewer of his first feature film Breathless, which involved two vigilantes, in addition to the previously-mentioned Weekend. Godard clearly has a fascination with the rebel culture, usually following the creative escapades of two dapper cinephiles who, like the film they're currently in, love to defy convention. This is totally fine by me, speaking as someone who has loved each film Godard has made that focused on rebels.

All the usually Godardian elements are on display here, from the crisp cinematography of Raoul Coutard that beautifully emphasizes color, the often intrusive but simultaneously fascinating words that pop on screen with no forewarning, the soft and poetic narrations that don't always make a lot of sense, and title cards offering quotes or disjointed fragments of what are either poems or simple musings on life. These elements really get kicked into high-gear during the last fifty minutes of the film. By then, the film begins to have more fun with itself and its premise, rather than assuming a more straight-forward sense of plotting, which is carried throughout the entire first-half.

The final observation I can make about Pierrot Le Fou is its dialog, which, for a Godard film, is more prevalent here than any other type of narrative device like narration, literary, etc. Despite lots of talking, little sense or impact is made on these characters. They hear what they want to hear. As Ferdinand states, Marianne speaks entirely in emotion while he speaks entirely in directionless little musings. One wonders how these people could stay together for so long, but as we come to realize, they can't be loved by anyone else but themselves.

Pierrot Le Fou strings along numerous, brightly-colored visuals of blood, oceans, and the countryside of France with many scenes of our two leads talking in a subversive manner that really shouldn't work as well as it does. With Godard behind in the camera, and when a pen in his hand, anything goes, but here, he has concocted a masterpiece in observations and societal criticism that doesn't feel burden by too many half-baked ideas.

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.

60's Cool Semi-Ironic Gangster Doomed Romance Flick

[veramkaufmann · 7/10 · 5 March 2016]

Ferdinand, played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, is out of work, bossed around by his rich wife, and bored with his consumerist bourgeois social circle. He is interested only in literature and art, and feels unable to change his life. He falls into an affair with an old flame, Marianne, played by Anna Karina, who turns out to be mixed up in crime, and the two flee across the country. Ferdinand is bookish, self-involved, romantic, and sees everything through the lens of culture; Marianne is practical and given neither to pangs of conscience or intellectual rumination, driven by a love of adventure. They are both driven to each other and unsuited for each other. Ferdinand's running off with her from the beginning exhibits a self-destructive element, a desire to burn down his boring bourgeois life, by killing himself if necessary.

Like many of Godard's movies, the movie is the epitome of fun and cool. Both leads are charismatic, photogenic, and make life on the run seem like a desirable state. Even though the plot is basic and even archetypal, the distancing techniques and experimental aspect make it seem fun and fresh. There are musical numbers that are both fun and appropriately dramatize themes, and the same is true of, for example, the random vignette of the sailor obsessed by a tune. The use of primary colors in the set design and the images of the French Riviera are beautiful. If you like Celine, Rimbaud, etc, you may enjoy the extensive reference dropping throughout the movie.

The downside of this is that fifty years later the ironic distanced of the movie is no longer such a fresh or promising idea, when nowadays every children's animated movie uses it as an excuse to recycle material that is seen as no longer really relevant by this vagueness as to whether one is serious or not. Even though both characters are unlikable but sympathetic, nevertheless the ending lacks emotional pay-off because how detached one is from the movie that is always presented as a movie. Furthermore, do the extensive cultural references really have a pay off? I think the point might be that all these narrative models we have available to us like gangster movies, love stories, etc, have become trite, but if so, then why would making an escapist movie commenting on them at a meta-level be any better, especially when you could just not make any movie at all? Then, too, the standard French left sixties political posturing feels superficial and unsubtle.

Still, this is a fun film and has a feeling of great freedom and spontaneity to it. It is also a nostalgia film now for a bygone era where there were people who felt they were reinventing film and life, that gives one a sense of vicarious optimism and energy.

Fresh even after 55 years

[Ema21 · 10/10 · 2 September 2020]

I enjoyed rewatching this recently and even though it's 55 years old, it's the freshest thing I've seen in a while. Godard at his best.

Probably Godard's Most Accessible Work

[bkrauser-81-311064 · 7/10 · 28 March 2016]

Director Jean-Luc Godard has always been a baffling and enigmatic figure to yours truly. Considered one of the most important figures in film history, Godard's reputation doesn't help when many a film student sits down to watch Breathless (1960) for the first time. While I have only seen three of his films, each one showcases the talent of an artist, very purposely engaging with his audience in new and interesting ways. While his projects may be alienating to most, you have to admit his imagery sticks with the viewer long after the credits roll. Whether it be the shuttered, moody apartments of Alphaville (1965) or the extended chaos of the "carmageddon" in Weekend (1967), there's just something both literate and literal that immerses the curious mind to play along if only to see where he's going.

Pierrot le Fou is said to be one of Godard's last early-career masterpieces, before going off the radical deep-end. It brings to the screen the auteur's wry suspicion towards bourgeois complacency, an eye towards the garish, and an almost giddy sense of humor. French star Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Ferdinand the Pierrot (roughly translated to Ferdinand the sad clown). Unhappy with his trite existence as an obedient husband, doting father and successful ad man, Pierrot runs away with his mistress Marianne (Karina). The two make their way to the south of France, borrowing and stealing their new found life from those absent enough to be taken advantage of. Meanwhile the two are being chased by a duo of mobsters who are hoping to recover money the couple have stolen.

The film is very roughly based on the novel "Obsession" by Lionel White. Known for stylized pulp fiction, Lionel White's book is about as American as Pierrot le Fou is French. The book is straight- forward, the film is eclectic; the film is intellectual in nature, the book satisfies baser instincts. We've seen this kind of uneasy cross-cultural pollination in many of Godard's work from Breathless hero Michel sporting a Bogart-esque fedora to the Dick Tracy comic- strip pop permeating through Alphaville. In the case of Pierrot le Fou, Godard's love of American iconography is most obvious with a very brief cameo by American auteur Samuel Fuller.

As with all of Godard's work, the specifics of the plot are not important or entirely necessary. It is the mode to which the director makes the themes of his story clear. The first thing that grabs the viewer's attention is the color. Pierrot le Fou is Godard's first feature-length color film. In it, he uses a triadic palette to add a layer of pop art sensibility. Almost everything in the film is drenched in loud pigments of red and blue making the entire film resemble a live-action cartoon. Only instead of inviting the viewer into it's colorful world, it purposely alienates you.

Godard increases this alienation with elliptical almost Lynch-ian editing and constant character asides that are often political in nature. In one cringe-worthy scene the young Anna Karina yabbers and tongue-clicks while wearing Vietnamese yellow-face to entertain a group of American sailors. While the scene aptly lampoons the Vietnam conflict, it does so in such an aggressively buffoonish way that even audiences of the time likely would have looked on with puzzlement. Then there's the collage-like structure of the film itself, which often goes on long tangents on mass media, socialism, pop culture, violence and the cinematic art form. It's all quite fascinating and Godard wisely infects his high art concepts with a lowbrow sense of humor. The balance reaches a boisterous crescendo when Marianne and Pierrot ditch their car in a mock wreckage...then the film continues for another hour.

Out of all the film's I've seen by the master of the Nouvelle Vague, Pierrot le Fou is the best work I've seen, though I'm not sure it's because Godard is an acquired taste or it's truly a better film. It's certainly filled to the brim with awe-inspiring visual ideas and influential storytelling techniques that have become common among the American film intelligentsia. Godard's imaginative use of wordplay, puns and portmanteaus adds yet another layer of sophistication that upon repeated viewings (and a rudimentary understanding of French) can make anyone smirk with satisfaction. Pierrot le Fou is also the director's most accessible film, though certainly not a movie for novices.

Godard for Dummies or: How I Learned to stop complaining and love free cinema.

[axapvov · 10/10 · 30 January 2018]

First of all, this film includes the best definition of cinema I´ve ever heard: "Film is like a battleground. Love, hate, action, violence and death, in one word: emotions". Then, "Pierrot le fou" is the best realization I´ve seen of Godard´s ideas. Until now, I had enjoyed his interviews more than his films. His filmography seems to be reaching for an ideal he doesn´t quite ever fulfill. As Pierrot, sorry, Ferdinand says, "Film shouldn ´t be about the lives of people, it should be about life itself". Therefore, he tries to get rid of a traditional plot to focus only on space and movements; and emotions. Of course, that´s just too abstract and he constantly needs to come up with some kind of vague plot, even if it´s just a mere excuse. He isn´t attached to it, though, and changes it or completely forgets about it anytime he´s able to, which drives so many people mad.

The pointless plot always has to do with crime because that´s what americans do. Fellini said "I come from a country and a generation to which America and movies are almost the same thing". That is probably hard to imagine for an american but it´s true and back then it was even more true. From there comes the fascination with gangsters and outlaws present in so many french movies. It´s just an idea, like everything else in Godard´s films. That´s why there´s no need to take it too seriously and you should be ok with scenes like the one at the gas station (that is also why Godard kicks Melville´s ass any day). His films can be seen as a series of episodes rather than a whole. He goes from one thing to the next in a playful sequence of ideas. Despising structure allows him total freedom of expression. That´s a hit-or-miss risk and it obviously doesn´t work all the time but when it does it´s really special, not to mention how inspiring it can be.

"Pierrot le fou" starts a bit off and kind of lost me in the last act (with the exception of the "est-ce que vous m´aimez" monologue, which is absolute genius). I´m not a big fan of the ending either but everything in the middle might be the closest he ever got to his ideal of free cinema. It´s a masterful celebration of life, love, freedom and movies.

Anna Karina

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 27 November 2022]

Chapter Eight: Anna Karina. Her face, her body, her voice. Her ever-changing outfits! I'd join the Navy for her. Surprisingly good musical number. Replayed it three times. The line of fate versus the line of thigh. Belmondo prefers the second. Belmondo = charisma. Karina with a gun = poetry. The other poetry in the film....and the epigrams....and the code words....where is my codebook? Oh, look! The French South looks sooooo beautiful and inviting. The sea, the sun, the trees, the colors. Eastmancolor so vibrant. Godard is playful. And indulgent. He thinks of something he likes, he will put it in. A line, a shot, a character, anything. Anything goes. Marx Brothers without the jokes? Groucho talked to the audience too. Monty Python before Monty Python? If you thought you had seen weird before, you hadn't. The purpose? Escape from boring existence? Romantic Utopia? Never Trust a Woman? An unfinished bridge in the middle of nowhere. Sea = Eternity. Go, go, go, we'll see where later. Ratings are obsolete.

Godard le Fou

[reasonablyniceperson · 1/10 · 25 December 2015]

Regardless of what you will hear from pompous leftist professors in your Film Studies classes, kiddies, Jean-Luc Godard's "Pierrot le Fou" is really nothing more than an egotistical exercise in cinematic masturbation. That would be acceptable for a movie made for private viewing at home, but when it is released in public theaters it also becomes exhibitionism. Of course if you enjoy this kind of voyeurism it might be right up your alley, so to speak. All others should be warned.

'Ooh, look at me,' Godard seems to be saying. 'I'm an artiste, and a philosopher too! Not only can I juxtapose reality with surreality, I can be absurdist as well, with doses of deep Marxist commentary thrown in for good measure! Isn't that like, so cool, and revolutionary?" Uh, no. Not really, Jean-Luc.

It is movies like this that give so-called "art house" films and filmgoers a bad name. When I overheard a couple of obnoxious self-styled cineastes analyzing and deconstructing the film afterwards with references to Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida I almost wanted to puke.

The best directors do not purposely draw attention to themselves, their craft or their directing style because they realize that, aside from documentaries, good filmmaking is primarily about one thing - telling a story in the best possible way. If you have to sit through this movie in Film Class bring a barf bag and some NoDoze. To cleanse your cinematic palate when you get home enjoy a movie made by directors like Frank Capra, Preston Sturges or even Clint Eastwood with a bag of popcorn or a box of Raisinets.