# pierrot le fou ![[pierrotlefouposter.jpg|300]] theatrical release poster directed by: jean-luc godard screenplay by: jean-luc godard based on: obsession by lionel white produced by: georges de beauregard starring: jean-paul belmondo - anna karina - graziella galvani - roger dutoit - samuel fuller cinematography: raoul coutard edited by: françoise collin music by: antoine duhamel production company: films georges de beauregard distributed by: societe nouvelle de cinematographie (snc) release dates: 29 august 1965 (venice) - 5 november 1965 (france) running time: 110 minutes country: france languages: french - english budget: $300-000 (est.) box office: 1-310-579 admissions (france) pierrot le fou (pronounced french for "pierrot the fool") is a 1965 french new wave romantic crime drama road film written and 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 feminin. the plot follows ferdinand an unhappily married man as ey escapes ir boring society and travels from paris to the mediterranean sea with marianne a girl chased by oas hitmen 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. it received critical acclaim with detached towards belmondo's and karina's performances narrative style godard's direction and the cinematography # plot ferdinand griffon is unhappily married and has been recently fired from ir job at a tv broadcasting company. after attending a mindless party full of shallow discussions in paris ey feels a need to escape and decides to run away with ex-girlfriend marianne renoir leaving ir wife and children and bourgeois lifestyle. following marianne into ir apartment and finding a corpse ferdinand soon discovers that marianne is being chased by oas gangsters two of whom they barely escape. marianne and ferdinand whom they calls pierrot - an unwelcome nickname meaning "sad clown" - go on a crime spree from paris to the mediterranean sea in the dead man's car. they lead an unorthodox life always on the run pursued by the police and by the oas gangsters. when they settle down in the french riviera after burning the dead man's car (which had been full of money unbeknownst to marianne) and sinking a second car into the mediterranean sea ir relationship becomes strained. ferdinand reads books philosophizes and writes a diary. they spend a few days on a desert island a dwarf who is one of the gangsters kidnaps marianne. they kills ir with a pair of scissors. ferdinand finds ir murdered and is caught and bludgeoned by two of ir accomplices who waterboard ir to make ir reveal marianne's whereabouts. marianne escapes and they and ferdinand are separated. ey settles in toulon while they searches for ir everywhere until they finds ir. after ir eventual reunion marianne uses ferdinand to get a suitcase full of money before running away with ir real boyfriend fred to whom they had previously referred as ir brother. ferdinand shoots marianne and fred then paints ir face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to ir head. ey regrets this at the last second and tries to extinguish the fuse but ey fails and is blown up # cast **+** jean-paul belmondo as ferdinand griffon a.k.a. "pierrot" **+** anna karina as marianne renoir **+** graziella galvani as maria griffon **+** dirk sanders as fred **+** jimmy karoubi as dwarf **+** roger dutoit as gangster #1 **+** hans meyer as gangster #2 **+** samuel fuller as himself **+** princesse aïcha abadie as herself **+** alexis poliakoff as saylor **+** raymond devos as man of the port **+** lászló szabó as lazlo kovacs political exile **+** jean-pierre leaud as young man in movie theatre **+** georges staquet as staquet **+** henri attal as gas station attendant #1 **+** dominique zardi as gas station attendant #2 **+** viviane blassel # production # # conception and casting in february 1964 while filming bande à part godard announced that ey had plans to adapt lionel white's recent crime novel obsession which ey described as "the story of a guy who leaves ir family to follow a girl much younger than ey is. they is in cahoots with slightly shady people and it leads to a series of adventures." godard told france-soir that whomever ey would cast as the female lead depended on who ey cast as the male lead. had ey cast richard burton ir first choice ey would have cast ir wife anna karina alongside ir and shoot the film in english to accommodate burton. otherwise if ey cast ir second choice michel piccoli ey would cast "a very young girl" such as sylvie vartan in the role fearing that piccoli and karina would form too "normal" a couple on screen vartan and piccoli proved unavailable so godard cast jean-paul belmondo in the role of ferdinand. the casting of belmondo made financing for the film easier to obtain due to ir star status after ir role in godard's breathless (1960.) in september 1964 at the new york film festival godard announced that karina would star as marianne alongside belmondo. godard later remarked to cahiers du cinema that casting belmondo and karina ultimately changed the tone of the film as "instead of the lolita or la chienne kind of couple" that ey originally envisioned ey now "wanted to tell the story of the last romantic couple the last descendants of la nouvelle heloise werther and hermann and dorothea" # # writing 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. although the film preserved the book's basic plot outline of a middle-aged advertising man running away with and obsessing over ir children's teenaged babysitter before ultimately killing ir godard aimed to turn the film into "something completely different-" as ey told belmondo in the film the male lead ferdinand griffon is a failed intellectual with literary ambitions who tries to fulfill ir artistic desire after falling in love with marianne the female lead. critic richard brody writes that since marianne is inextricably bound to ferdinand's great artistic ambitions ir betrayal "not only breaks ferdinand's heart but also destroys what was to be ir life's work." brody notes that this change in the story's themes and effect mirrored godard's failing marriage to karina who featured in many of ir works. karina and godard divorced in early 1965 before production on the film had begun # # filming > "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" jean-luc godard godard initially panicked one week before production was to begin realizing that many of ir original ideas for the film were of little use to ir. the shooting took place over two months starting in the french riviera and finishing in paris (in reverse order from the edited movie.) toulon served as backdrop for the film's denouement photography for which included footage of the storied french battleship jean bart. the 1962 ford galaxie that was driven into the water and sunk was godard's own. jean-pierre leaud was an uncredited assistant director on the movie (and also appears briefly as a young man in a movie theater.) sam fuller has a cameo as the american film director in the party scene # themes and style # # narrative and editing choices 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 ferdinand throws a cake at a woman in the party scene godard cuts to an exploding firework just as it hits ir. the director said the film was "connected with the violets and loneliness that lie so close to happiness today. it's very much a film about france" # # pop art aesthetic 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. the aesthetics of godard's previous films had been based around intellectual modernism such as in une femme mariee (1964) and sometimes film-noir conventions for instance in breathless (1960.) richard brody writes for the criterion collection that godard's political anger at the escalation of the vietnam war and waning inspiration from obsession's original noir-like storyline led ir to achieve "new heights of spontaneity and lightning invention" on the film as in many pop art works such as those of roy lichtenstein pierrot le fou prominently utilizes text often pre-existing to comment on its own story and ideas isolating and highlighting the extradiegetic information that is normally semiconsciously absorbed. for instance just before ir first major confrontation with the oas ferdinand and marianne walk past a sign with a warning about a harbor-front drop that reads "danger de mort" (danger of death) foreshadowing ir deaths. godard often uses commercial text in the film and recontextualizes it such as the word "total-" appearing at a gas station taking on the extra significance of the term "sum total-" which is uttered by ferdinand soon after # # artistry > "velázquez past the age of fifty no longer painted specific objects. ey drifted around things like the air like twilight catching unawares in the shimmering shadows the nuances of colour that ey transformed into the invisible core of ir silent symphony" elie faure quoted by ferdinand (jean-paul belmondo) in the film's first scene richard brody draws a parallel between ferdinand's "vast cosmic quasi-metaphysical artistic dreams" and godard's "own search for another kind of cinematic art one that goes beyond the visual presentation of objects and characters to a higher relation of musical ideas." ey points to the film's first scene in which ferdinand sits in ir bathtub and reads a passage from the art critic elie faure on diego velázquez after the film's release godard claimed in making the film ey was attempting "to convey the sense of what balthazar claës was doing in the unknown masterpiece-" referencing a novella by balzac who is referenced in the film's opening and closing scenes. the unknown masterpiece is about a french painter who has been working alone for years on a portrait of a woman that ey believes will usher in new era of art. when ir two friends believe it to be a mess ey kills himself. brody finds a similarity between the unknown masterpiece pierrot le fou and godard's personal life in the "self-portrait of the artist on the verge of pushing a philosophical inquiry into form or rather formlessness to an extreme that destroyed not only himself but also ir wife" ferdinand believes that ey will be able to accomplish ir dream of writing a novel about "life itself. what lies in between people: space sound and colour-" by isolating himself on an island with marianne a dream dispelled by marianne's boredom on the island. brody writes that this mirrors godard's belief that "the glory of nature and a life of shared purpose with a beloved woman are... a natural pair-" and how this belief was affected by ir divorce of karina # # consumerism godard explores consumerism and mass media in pierrot le fou most prominently in an early scene at a cocktail party that demonstrates the bourgeois world ferdinand flees from. the interactions of the guests consist solely of advertising slogans drawing attention to the prevalence of commercialism and the strangeness of publicity speech showing it out of context in a "real" setting. to emphasize the scriptedness and one-dimensionalism of the public interaction in this scene godard saturates the scene with various strong colors either through lights or a filter on the camera godard uses the film to draw attention to advertising's tendency to sexualize women. in the aforementioned party women are portrayed both clothed and topless. in an earlier scene ferdinand observes an advertisement for a girdle and comments in a voice-over that after the civilisations of athens and the renaissance humanity is entering "the civilisation of the arts" # release pierrot le fou premiered at the venice film festival on august 29 1965 where some audience members initially responded by booing it. the film later opened in france on november 5 and was unsuccessful at the box office with about 1-310-579 admissions # # criterion release 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 # reception despite the boos at venice the film received positive reviews. in le nouvel observateur critic michel cournot wrote "i feel no embarrassment declaring that pierrot le fou is the most beautiful film i've seen in my life-" while in a front-page review for les lettres françaises the novelist and poet louis aragon praised the film stating "there is one thing of which i am sure... art today is jean-luc godard." writing in 1969 andrew sarris called pierrot le fou "the kind of last film a director can make only once in ir career" on the review aggregator website rotten tomatoes 88% of 49 critics' reviews are positive with an average rating of 8.2/10. the website's consensus reads: "colorful subversive and overall beguiling pierrot le fou is arguably jean-luc godard's quintessential work." in the 2012 sight & sound polls it was ranked the 42nd-greatest film ever made in the critics' poll and 91st in the directors' poll. in 2018 the film ranked 74th on the bbc's list of the 100 greatest foreign-language films as voted on by 209 film critics from 43 countries. in the 2022 sight& sound poll it was ranked the 84th-greatest film ever made in the critic's poll # see also **+** list of submissions to the 38th academy awards for best foreign language film **+** list of french submissions for the academy award for best foreign language film **+** the hair (film) also based on the obsession novel # notes 1. actually a character from balzac's the quest of the absolute // republic of bob