Possibly
Jean-Luc Godard’s most celebrated film, Pierrot le fou encapsulates
the essence of the Nouvelle Vague cinema whilst presaging the
anarchistic artistic excesses which would come to dominate Godard’s work
in subsequent years. It contains all the ingredients
which we associate with Godard’s unique blend of film-making and yet, at
the same time, has just enough humour and plot coherence to appeal to a
mainstream cinema audience. In this respect it occupies a unique
place in Godard’s cinema, revealing more about the director’s artistic
temperament and philosophy than any of his earlier
films.
The film's
title is a reference to the nickname of the famous post-World War II
gangster Emile Buisson, who has nothing to do with the film whatsoever
(other than Pierrot being the name by which Marianne refers to
Ferdinand).
As in many
of his films, Godard dispensed with the notion of having a pre-prepared
script and relied on his own and his actor’s inspiration to develop the
scenario during filming, making up dialogue on the hoof. The
approach worked well in Godard’s first full length film, A bout de
souffle, but it works even better here. The forced hesitancy
between Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina creates a shockingly authentic
sense of unease and tension between the two characters they play, whilst
the plot they are enacting seems to enfold with tragic
realism.
In its
simplest terms, the film is a ruthless deconstruction of the traditional
American pulp fiction gangster novel, although Godard actually goes much
further and uses it as a vehicle to promote his own personal
ideologies. The inspiration for the film was Lionel White’s novel
“Obsession”, which provides all the plot elements for the film. Told
as a conventional film, this would doubtless have been a very bland,
somewhat implausible film. But with the plot broken up and awkwardly
reassembled, punctuated with numerous bizarre distractions, enhanced with
luxurious photography and a haunting score by Antoine Duhamel, the film
acquires the status of a work of art. The overall effect is
profoundly unsettling, perhaps not entirely satisfying, but it is
nonetheless a film which leaves an enduring impression on the
spectator.
At the
1978 Césars ceremony, Pierrot le fou came sixth in a poll to
nominate the best French film of all time.
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