Pierrot Le Fou Review

Pierrot Le Fou (1965)

Classic Movies

5/5

Image Source: http://www.janusfilms.com/pierrot/pierrotlefouposter.jpg

Some film enthusiasts point out that Jean Luc-Godard is what Pablo Picasso is to fine art and that “Pierrot Le Fou” is his cinematic cubism.  If you are familiar with “Bonnie and Clyde” but haven’t seen this French New Wave classic, you might be missing out on an even better hit-and-run movie about two criminals that fall in love on their way through the French countryside to the Mediterranean

Godard’s work helped challenge conventional cinema to help show that the possibilities in the filmic language are limitless. Like many other French films in the 60’s, “Pierrot Le Fou” served as influential ground work for the modern film. The powerful jump cuts, colored filters, and non-linear structure challenged auteurs to analyze and critique them for their own personal growth as filmmakers. We see many American films following Godard’s in the 60’s like “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate” that are strikingly informed by the French New Wave style. “Pierrot Le Fou”, in particular, is  a summation of the French New Wave’s ideas, combining many of the themes we’ve seen in Godard’s past explorations: The feeling of contempt in “Contempt”, women’s desires in ”A Woman is a Woman”, and the sight that signifies identity and true love in “Breathless”.

Image Source: http://bennorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/pierrot-le-fou-scissors.jpg

Throughout Godard’s work, we see him explore the oppressive lifestyle of  his partner. Watching this close-up shot on Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina) holding a pair of scissors in front of the camera lens suggests of her fearlessness and strength.

Similar to “Contempt”, “Pierrot Le Fou” is one of Godard’s few Technicolor masterpieces of the 60’s. As a general rule, color serves as an extra layer to the visual arts, but it particularly helps Godard’s abstract, filmic language which is already difficult to analyze without it. This is why I believe his best work is in Technicolor; “Breathless”, is a black-and-white film that many consider to be Godard’s masterwork but I would argue that the black-and-white effect mostly restricts what Godard is truly capable of capturing on the screen given the pictorial extremes he reached for in “Contempt” and “Pierrot Le Fou”. Such convoluted and abstract storytelling in “Pierrot Le Fou” calls for thought-provoking visuals that challenge the narrative itself. 

One example of this challenge is a scene that he has Ferdinand Griffon (Jean‑Paul Belmondo) attending a party and the shots change colors every cut. Each color corresponds to the mood of Griffon’s conversations. Green is a color that symbolizes work, career, materialism, and money. Red is a color that symbolizes, re-birth, transformation, hatred and death, Blue is a color that symbolizes dreams, imagination, loneliness and sadness.

At the end of the scene, Griffon throws a piece of cake and the shot cuts to fireworks. He mentions "despair" and he associates Marianne Renoir with the word, foreshadowing the dark secret she reveals to him at the end of the movie. Pierrot Le Fou” is a visually stunning achievement that is often over-shadowed by the success of “Breathless” and “Contempt”. I do believe, however, that Godard is much more dynamic in color than he is in composition, and it is for this reason that “Pierrot Le Fou” and “Contempt” are my two personal favorites.

Favorite Reference in Pop Culture

Image Source: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1sBpz-32zEk/hqdefault.jpg

In Cowboy Bebop, there is an episode titled "Pierrot Le Fou" about a deadly robot whose name is also the title of the film. The episode shows off some of the best animation sequences in the series with its integration of CG and traditional animation. As with other 'Bebop' episodes, the robot doesn't draw any further reference to the film. The name is mostly used to strengthen the thematic nomenclature of the show.