Pierrot le Fou is a 1965 FrenchNew Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. The film is based on the 1962 novel Obsession by Lionel White. It was Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin. The plot follows Pierrot, an unhappily married man as he escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. It was the 15th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 1,310,580 admissions in France. 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.
Plot
Ferdinand Griffon 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 ex-girlfriend Marianne Renoir, 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. Marianne and "Pierrot" – the unwelcome nickname meaning "sad clown", which Marianne gives to Ferdinand during their time together – go on a travelling crime spree from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea in the dead man's car. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. When they settle down in the French Riviera after burning the dead man's car and sinking a second car into the Mediterranean Sea, their relationship becomes strained. Pierrot ends up reading books, philosophizing, and writing in his diary. Marianne becomes bored by their living situation and insists they return to town, where they meet one of their pursuers in a nightclub. The gangsters waterboard Pierrot and depart. In the confusion, Marianne and Pierrot are separated. He settles in Toulon while she searches for him. After their eventual reunion, Marianne uses Pierrot to get a suitcase full of money before running away with her real boyfriend Fred, to whom she had previously referred as her brother. Pierrot shoots Marianne and Fred, then paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to his head. He regrets this at the last second and tries to extinguish the fuse, but he fails and is blown up.
Cast
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand Griffon, a.k.a. "Pierrot"
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, 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.
Production
was Godard's first choice for the role of Marianne but her agent refused. Godard considered Richard Burton to play the role of Ferdinand but gave up the idea. 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. Toulon served as backdrop for the film's denouement, photography for which included footage of the storied French battleship Jean Bart. The director said the film was "connected with the violence and loneliness that lie so close to happiness today. It's very much a film about France." Jean-Pierre Léaud was an uncredited assistant director on the movie. The American film director in the party scene is Sam Fuller as himself. The Criterion Collection first released Pierrot le fou on Blu-ray in September 2008. It was one of its first titles released on Blu-ray before being discontinued after Criterion lost the rights to StudioCanal. In July 2020, Criterion announced the film would be given a re-release in both Blu-ray and DVD with a new 2K digital restoration. The 1962 Ford Galaxie that was driven into the water and sunk was Godard's own.
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film received an 85% "Certified fresh" approval rating, based on 39 reviews collected with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus: "Colorful, subversive, and overall beguiling, Pierrot Le Fou is arguably Jean-Luc Godard's quintessential work."
