Pierrot le fou (1965)
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor/2.35:1 110m
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina
Synopsis:
A bored parisian husband is seduced away from his complacent family and social life by an old flame involved in gun-running with her alleged brother. They steal and squat their way to the south of France, where he takes up writing and she renews contact with her criminal acquaintances.
Review:
Containing fore-echoes of Weekend in its errant couple and a casually observed road accident aftermath, not to mention a deus-like conclusion to its aimless ramblings, this much lauded film may well be the most attractively photographed after Le Mépris, but in Godard's world that is not saying a huge amount. It is also implausible, distracted and childish in its pseudo-intellectual gameplaying. Marianne represents restless consumerism, the 'take, take and give nothing in return' attitude that Godard so despised, quick to achieve boredom and look for new amusements; Ferdinand is the poet-lover, steadfast in spite of Marianne's complaints to the contrary, attempting to make sense of his feelings by writing them down, improving his mind with books, embracing their unencumbered exile into the wild as a route to the best enjoyment of each other. There are digs at the French petrol giant, Total, and the Americans' colonialist conduct of the Vietnam war, at the same time as the Ford Galaxy and Bogart remain adored cultural icons. Marianne calls Ferdinand Pierrot presuamably in evocation of the Commedia dell'Arte character, unhappy in love, who was most memorably incarnated by Jean-Louis Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis, but it is clear that the director's sympathies lie with this crazily impulsive, sensitive character. Others may find his self-absorption and indifference to the fate of his wife and children distasteful, not to say a passé embodiment of the anti-bourgeois feeling that ran through much sixties liberalism. For me, who find it hard to care either way, the best thing in it is the music by Antoine Duhamel.
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor/2.35:1 110m
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina
Synopsis:
A bored parisian husband is seduced away from his complacent family and social life by an old flame involved in gun-running with her alleged brother. They steal and squat their way to the south of France, where he takes up writing and she renews contact with her criminal acquaintances.
Review:
Containing fore-echoes of Weekend in its errant couple and a casually observed road accident aftermath, not to mention a deus-like conclusion to its aimless ramblings, this much lauded film may well be the most attractively photographed after Le Mépris, but in Godard's world that is not saying a huge amount. It is also implausible, distracted and childish in its pseudo-intellectual gameplaying. Marianne represents restless consumerism, the 'take, take and give nothing in return' attitude that Godard so despised, quick to achieve boredom and look for new amusements; Ferdinand is the poet-lover, steadfast in spite of Marianne's complaints to the contrary, attempting to make sense of his feelings by writing them down, improving his mind with books, embracing their unencumbered exile into the wild as a route to the best enjoyment of each other. There are digs at the French petrol giant, Total, and the Americans' colonialist conduct of the Vietnam war, at the same time as the Ford Galaxy and Bogart remain adored cultural icons. Marianne calls Ferdinand Pierrot presuamably in evocation of the Commedia dell'Arte character, unhappy in love, who was most memorably incarnated by Jean-Louis Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis, but it is clear that the director's sympathies lie with this crazily impulsive, sensitive character. Others may find his self-absorption and indifference to the fate of his wife and children distasteful, not to say a passé embodiment of the anti-bourgeois feeling that ran through much sixties liberalism. For me, who find it hard to care either way, the best thing in it is the music by Antoine Duhamel.
Country: FR/IT
Technical: Eastmancolor/2.35:1 110m
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina
Synopsis:
A bored parisian husband is seduced away from his complacent family and social life by an old flame involved in gun-running with her alleged brother. They steal and squat their way to the south of France, where he takes up writing and she renews contact with her criminal acquaintances.
Review:
Containing fore-echoes of Weekend in its errant couple and a casually observed road accident aftermath, not to mention a deus-like conclusion to its aimless ramblings, this much lauded film may well be the most attractively photographed after Le Mépris, but in Godard's world that is not saying a huge amount. It is also implausible, distracted and childish in its pseudo-intellectual gameplaying. Marianne represents restless consumerism, the 'take, take and give nothing in return' attitude that Godard so despised, quick to achieve boredom and look for new amusements; Ferdinand is the poet-lover, steadfast in spite of Marianne's complaints to the contrary, attempting to make sense of his feelings by writing them down, improving his mind with books, embracing their unencumbered exile into the wild as a route to the best enjoyment of each other. There are digs at the French petrol giant, Total, and the Americans' colonialist conduct of the Vietnam war, at the same time as the Ford Galaxy and Bogart remain adored cultural icons. Marianne calls Ferdinand Pierrot presuamably in evocation of the Commedia dell'Arte character, unhappy in love, who was most memorably incarnated by Jean-Louis Barrault in Les Enfants du Paradis, but it is clear that the director's sympathies lie with this crazily impulsive, sensitive character. Others may find his self-absorption and indifference to the fate of his wife and children distasteful, not to say a passé embodiment of the anti-bourgeois feeling that ran through much sixties liberalism. For me, who find it hard to care either way, the best thing in it is the music by Antoine Duhamel.