Pierrot le fou
Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeois world behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: the tenth feature in six years by genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard is a stylish mash-up of anticonsumerist satire, au courant politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interview with actor Anna Karina from 2007
- A “Pierrot” Primer, a video essay from 2007 written and narrated by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
- Godard, l’amour, la poésie, a fifty-minute French documentary from 2007, directed by Luc Lagier, about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina
- Excerpts of interviews from 1965 with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Richard Brody, along with a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interview with actor Anna Karina from 2007
- A “Pierrot” Primer, a video essay from 2007 written and narrated by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
- Godard, l’amour, la poésie, a fifty-minute French documentary from 2007, directed by Luc Lagier, about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina
- Excerpts of interviews from 1965 with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Richard Brody, along with a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard
Cast
- Jean-Paul Belmondo
- Ferdinand Griffon
- Anna Karina
- Marianne Renoir
- Graziella Galvani
- Mrs. Griffon
- Dirk Sanders
- Fred
- Raymond Devos
- Man on pier
- Roger Dutoit
- Gangster
- Hans Meyer
- Gangster
Credits
- Screenplay
- Jean-Luc Godard
- Producer
- Georges de Beauregard
- Director
- Jean-Luc Godard
- Cinematography
- Raoul Coutard