Pierrot le Fou

UPC: 715515027823

Studio: Criterion

Summary: Pierrot le fou (1965) is Jean-Luc Godard's sixth film staring Anna Karina, his first wife. It is the story of Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Karina). They meet when Ferdinand's wife hires Marianne as a baby-sitter. As he drives Marianne home, Ferdinand decides to run away with her. The couple get caught up in a mysterious gun-running scheme involving Marianne's brother (Dirk Sanders). With Pierrot le fou Godard returns to the story of A bout de souffle (Breathless): the tale of a couple on the run. But in the six years between the two films Godard developed a more complex and often difficult style. Pierrot le fou incorporates musical numbers, references to the history of cinema and painting, and quotations from literature. The film features Godard's most extended use of color to that point, as the shots are filled with blocks of bright primary colors. Pierrot le fou is a catalogue of cinematic inventions and of gestures made by couples in love. ~ Louis Schwartz, Rovi

Category: Avant-garde / Exp

Features: Disc 1:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
New and improved English subtitle translation
Disc 2:
New video interview with actor Anna Karina
A "Pierot" Primer, a new video program with audio commentary by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
Godard, L'amour, La Po?sie, a fifty-minute documentary, by Luc Lugier, about Jean-Luc Godard and his life and films with Karina
Archival interview excerpts with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Melmondo
Theatrical trailer
Plus: a booklet featuring a new essay by critic Richard Brody, a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard

Pierrot le Fou

Format: DVD

Release Date: 02/19/2008

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 110 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) French

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Pierrot Le Fou
1. Ferdinand [5:39]
2. Cocktail Party [4:45]
3. Marianne Renoir [4:43]
4. Breakfast in Bed [4:07]
5. "A Story, All Mixed Up" [3:14]
6. Laurel and Hardy [4:15]
7. Stories and Accidents [5:14]
8. Crossing France [2:25]
9. '62 Ford Galaxie [6:20]
10. Riviera [3:50]
11. Perfect Happiness [6:57]
12. Sick of It [4:24]
13. Play for the Americans [:27]
14. "My Fate Line" [2:29]
15. Small World [5:38]
16. Call From Marianne [4:20]
17. Despair [6:57]
18. The Princess and the Pierrot [3:41]
19. Going to Meet Fred [5:42]
20. Crazy Setup [4:51]
21. "Do You Love Me?" [7:18]
22. Eternity [5:54]
23. Color Bars [6:51]
Disc #2 -- Pierrot Le Fou
1. "Like a Gift" [1:51]
2. "We Knew What He Wanted" [4:46]
3. Singing in Films [2:39]
4. Big Cheese and Bowling [3:06]
5. A Modern Film [1:24]
1. "A, B, and C of It" [1:10]
2. Quotes [2:49]
3. Conjugation [2:05]
4. Godardian Cool [2:08]
5. Exposition and Graphics [2:19]
6. Classicism [2:20]
7. The Pierrot Machine [2:50]
8. "An Impossible Scene" [2:51]
9. Punctuation [2:02]
10. Voodoo of Childhood [1:43]
11. Musical Design [2:01]
12. Time Suspended [5:57]
13. Homage to Anna Karina [2:58]
14. "Expect the Unexpected" [2:15]
1. Godard Before Karina [8:53]
2. Anna [1:40]
3. Le Petit Soldat [9:04]
4. A Woman Is a Woman [4:58]
5. My Life to Live [8:17]
6. Contempt [7:17]
7. Alphaville [3:58]
8. Pierrot Le Fou [8:44]

Lucia Bozzola

Based on Lionel White's novel Obsession, Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou (1965) transforms a story about a couple on the run into an existential romance and an essay on the possibilities of film. With no script, Jean-Paul Belmondo's and Anna Karina's flight to southern France becomes a spontaneous series of incidents that reflect on romance, aesthetics, story-telling, and art as an antidote to alienation. Equating men with the intellect and women with the body, and using the widescreen frame to emphasize the couple's psychic division, Godard unites them in romantic moments and musical numbers, but these gestures cannot prevent their final, explosive separation. Stylized colors and compositions celebrate art for art's sake (even though the colors also carry potential meaning), as in the repetition of the couple's response to a murder in three different shooting styles. Allusions to other films, the brief appearance of Hollywood tough-guy director Samuel Fuller, and references to writers, writing, and painters all emphasize Godard's concern with the meaning of cinema and art, and their place in life. Though not as popular as its predecessor Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou won the Critics' Prize at the 1965 Venice Film Festival, and it was a key precursor to his most radical 1960s film, Weekend (1968). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Pascal Aubier  Actor 
Pierre Hanin  Actor 
Samuel Fuller  Actor 
Jean-Pierre Léaud  Actor 
Princess Aicha Abidir  Actor 
Krista Nell  Actor 
Jimmy Karoubi  Actor 
Hans Meyer  Actor 
Laszlo Szabo  Actor 
Alexis Poliakoff  Actor 
Antoine Duhamel  Composer (Music Score) 
Jean-Luc Godard  Director 
Jean-Luc Godard  Screenwriter 
Georges de Beauregard  Producer 
Jean-Paul Belmondo  Actor 
Anna Karina  Actor 
Dirk Sanders  Actor 
Raymond Devos  Actor 
Graziella Galvani  Actor 
Roger Dutoit  Actor 

Country: France,Italy