Pierrot le fou (1965)

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writer:

Jean-Luc Godard (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

8 January 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.

Plot Keywords:

On The Run | Mediterranean Sea | Party | Smuggling | Babysitter

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Jean-Paul Belmondo	...	Ferdinand Griffon, 'Pierrot' (as Jean Paul Belmondo)
Anna Karina	...	Marianne Renoir
Graziella Galvani	...	La femme de Ferdinand
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Aicha Abadir	...	Herself (uncredited)
Henri Attal	...	Gasstation-attendant #1 (uncredited)
Pascal Aubier	...	Second Brother (uncredited)
Raymond Devos	...	L'homme du port (uncredited)
Roger Dutoit	...	Le gangster (uncredited)
Samuel Fuller	...	Himself (uncredited)
Pierre Hanin	...	Third Brother (uncredited)
Jimmy Karoubi	...	Dwarf (uncredited)
Jean-Pierre Léaud	...	Young Man in Movie Theatre (uncredited)
Hans Meyer	...	Gangster (uncredited)
Krista Nell	...	Mme Staquet (uncredited)
Dirk Sanders	...	Fred, le frère de Marianne (uncredited)
Georges Staquet	...	Franck (uncredited)
László Szabó	...	Political exile (uncredited)
Dominique Zardi	...	Gasstation-attendant #2 (uncredited)

Directed by
Jean-Luc Godard

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Jean-Luc Godard		writer
Lionel White		novel "Obsession" (uncredited)

Produced by
Georges de Beauregard	....	producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Antoine Duhamel

Cinematography by
Raoul Coutard

Film Editing by
Françoise Collin

Production Design by
Pierre Guffroy		(uncredited)

Production Management
René Demoulin	....	production manager (uncredited)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Philippe Fourastié	....	assistant director (uncredited)
Jean-Pierre Léaud	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Antoine Bonfanti	....	sound
René Levert	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Georges Pierre	....	still photographer
Jean Garcenot	....	camera operator (uncredited)
Georges Liron	....	camera operator (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Films Georges de Beauregard
• Rome Paris Films
• Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC)
• Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica (co-production)

Distributors

• Janus Films (2007) (USA) (theatrical)
• Amuse Soft Entertainment (2002) (Japan) (DVD)
• Criterion Collection, The (2008) (USA) (DVD)
• Pathé Contemporary Films (1969) (USA) (subtitled)
• Silver Screen Collection (2008) (Brazil) (DVD)
• Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie (SNC) (France)

Also Known As:

Pierrot le fou (UK) (USA)
Crazy Pete
Il bandito delle 11 (Italy) (alternative spelling)
Il bandito delle ore undici (Italy)
Il bandito delle undici (Italy)
Pierrot Goes Wild
A bolond Pierrot (Hungary) [hu]
Elf Uhr nachts (West Germany) [de]
Hullu Pierrot (Finland) [fi]
O Demônio das Onze Horas (Brazil) [pt]
O daimon tis 11is oras (Greece) [el]
O trelos Pierrot (Greece) (reissue title) [el]
Pedro o Louco (Portugal) [pt]
Pierrot le fou (Argentina) [es]
Pierrot, den tokige (Finland: Swedish title) [sv]
Pierrot, el loco (Spain) [es]
Tokstollen (Sweden) [sv]

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French | English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Films Georges de Beauregard

Trivia:

One of the witnesses who notices Ferdinand and Marianne in Nice is called Lazlo Kovaks. This is the alias of Michel Poiccard in "À bout de soufflé" and also the name of Belmondo's character in À double tour (1959).

Quotes:

Ferdinard: I wonder what's keeping the cops. We should be in jail by now.
Marianne: They're smart... They let people destroy themselves.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Sin City (2005)

Soundtrack:

Jamais je ne t'ai dit que je t'aimerai toujours

Crime Story and Musical, Melodrama and Grotesque Comedy

"Film is like a battleground", tells Samuel Fuller Ferdinand in the beginning of this film: "Love, hate, action, violence, death. In one word: emotion." 'Pierrot le fou' is a 110 minutes film by Godard and his tenth feature. It's roughly based on a crime novel written by Lionel White. Tho, don't expect a linear adaptation. In fact, Godard and his actors mostly improvised and therefore deliver a dodgy 'surrealeperiment'.

The plot summary therefore must be given a little superficially: It's about a wannabe writer, Ferdinand Griffon (Belmondo) who escapes his every day life and runs off with his mistress Marianne (Karina) to the Mediterranean Sea. Far away from his family, he lives for the moment, reads books and tries to work on a diary. Meanwhile, the police and Algerian killers are chasing Marianne because she has committed a murder.

Godard assembles philosophical texts with shots of posters and screens, sets in musical elements and achieves to encode his film in a very inspiring way. Sometimes the imagery is fair and beautiful (i. e. Belmondo and Karina are running along a silhouette like forest which is photographed in front of a white, flat background), sometimes odious and angry (i. e. Belmondo finds an Algerian murdered with scissors and he keeps on raking in the wound), sometimes stirringly artistic (i. e. Karina takes the murder instrument, the scissors holds it in front of a wide-angle-lens and creates an unbelievably coherent effect of distortion).

Those who take the film with a living mind will experience a fascinating, beautifully filmed love story with two protagonists who do everything within the power of their tremendous acting potential. Concerning the contents, it is a cinematic toying with the duality of the characters (Ferdinand and Pierrot or Ferdinand or Marianne) or rather with schizophrenia. Belmondo plays a mad crackpot who first has a pretty martialistic based life as a husband and father whose world view staggers because of upcoming converse feelings - personated by Karina. She, married with Godard at that time, plays the character Marianne with wit, depth and anarchic charme. Her role is the symbolic enlightenment in Ferdinands being. While he strives melancholically for wisdom and always throbs on the importance of the arts, Marianne is a lackadaisical playgirl and swinger who wants to be instead of having. Belmondo as Ferdinand shows in all of his agility a vulnerability that hides behind the same gruffness of 'Une femme est une femme'.

'Pierrot le fou' is a film that dines from various influences, having some sort of private, economic, cultural or political natures. More than every other 'auteur' Godard manifests himself once more as the chronologist of his time.