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.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.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.
- Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
- 2 wins & 2 nominations total
Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Ferdinand Griffon dit Pierrot
- (as Jean Paul Belmondo)
Aicha Abadir
- Aicha Abadir
- (uncredited)
Henri Attal
- Le premier pompiste
- (uncredited)
Pascal Aubier
- Le deuxième frère
- (uncredited)
Maurice Auzel
- Le troisième pompiste
- (uncredited)
Raymond Devos
- L'homme du port
- (uncredited)
Roger Dutoit
- Le gangster
- (uncredited)
Samuel Fuller
- Self
- (uncredited)
Pierre Hanin
- Le troisième frère
- (uncredited)
Jimmy Karoubi
- Le nain
- (uncredited)
Jean-Pierre Léaud
- Le jeune homme au cinéma
- (uncredited)
Hans Meyer
- Un gangster
- (uncredited)
Krista Nell
- Madame Staquet
- (uncredited)
Dirk Sanders
- Fred - le frère de Marianne
- (uncredited)
Georges Staquet
- Frank
- (uncredited)
László Szabó
- L'exilé politique
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDespite continual claims that Godard shot the majority of his films without scripts or preparation, actress Anna Karina has subsequently claimed that they were in fact very carefully planned out to the smallest of details, with an almost obsessive level of perfectionism.
- Alternate versionsOn the French Studio Canal Blu-Ray release, the green tinting is missing in the party scenes near the beginning of the film. It is intact on the American Criterion Collection Blu-Ray release.
- ConnectionsEdited into Bande-annonce de 'Pierrot le fou' (1965)
Featured review
"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.
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.
- spoilsbury_toast_girl
- Nov 30, 2005
- Permalink
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Pierrot the Fool
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $300,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $87,011
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $7,254
- Jun 17, 2007
- Gross worldwide
- $148,564
- Runtime1 hour 50 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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