Pierrot le Fou - Criterion Collection

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DVD details

Actor: Anna Karina, Graziella Galvani, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre L?aud, Samuel Fuller
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Raoul Coutard
Composer: Antoine Duhamel
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 110 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion Collection

DVD Reviews of Pierrot le Fou - Criterion Collection

DVD Review: The Laurel and Hardy bit works everytime....
Summary: 5 Stars

There is something about this film that just pulls at your heartstrings. It is a difficult film to watch, not just via the subject matter (couple on the lam, stealing from everyone, bored relationship), but also the non-linear storytelling that Jean-Luc Godard uses. Yet it is this difficulty that makes Pierrot le fou more than just your average French New Wave film. There are vibrant colors, pop culture references (one of my favorite moments - the Laurel and Hardy bit perfectly placed at the gas station), philosophy, revenge, betrayal, and everything that you would want from a feature film put, should I say, artistically on the screen - and beautifully transferred by the infamous Criterion collection.

This probably isn't a film for everyone, and even I was hesitant when one of my voracious Criterion watchers said that they couldn't get through it. So I was suspicious, but Godard's work pulled me in, kept me seated, and pushed the limits for what I thought were cinematically possible. The individual scenes that he set up were brilliant. One that stands out especially is the burning of the first get-away car. The one strand of what could be a bridge with another car looking as if it just fell off that missing road. Amazing. I had to rewind just to watch that moment again. Wow.

I also loved the way that Godard uses the infamous film 4th plane. This is where he takes us away from the world that he is creating and has our characters speak directly to the camera. It keeps us focused and familiar with our actors. His use of this as well as our other senses, like sight (beautiful cinematography) and sound - we loose the radio when the car turns off - used poignantly for dramatic effect. The picture used to help me remind myself of this film speaks all on its own. Foreshadowing, 4th plane, intensity. It is all there.

Not much can be said for the acting, it was great - but it was the other elements pulled together that made Pierrot le fou work.

DVD Review: Are We All Talking About the Criterion Collection Edition?
Summary: 3 Stars

I'm reviewing the Criterion Collection edition, which looked like a fine transfer to me. If you are a Godard completist, I suppose this version would be on your list. Thee disc of extra is a good example of what the Criterion collection can be all about- a full disc of goodies- great if you are super into this movie or Godard. Personally, I don't like this movie, which is why the rating isn't higher, but it's a handsome piece to own. And it's the Criterion Collection so... what choice do you have?

DVD Review: the summation of the new wave
Summary: 5 Stars

Godard's first ten films are characterized as his most "new wave" of films (why Maculin/Feminin and Weekend aren't "new wave" is beyond me. Perhaps it has to do with Anna Karina and Godard's separation, though they had divorced before filming Alphaville). Anyway, if this indeed is his last new wave film, it serves as a sort of masters thesis of everything that he made before.

Ferdinand/Pierrot (Jean-Paul Belmondo, wonderful) lives an unsatisfying life of domesticity with his rich, vapid Italian wife. Marianne (the beautiful, amazing Anna Karina), a since forgotten fling of Ferdinand's appears in his life once again, and the two undertake a spree of murder, poverty, cunning, theft and isolation. One of the bonus features on the second disc describes Pierrot as the reverse Breathless (Godard's first full length), and it makes sense. Here, Godard is self-referential, making sly gestures and nods at his previous work. Some of my favorite lines of any Godard film are here: Pierrot glad he hates spinach and his old man's monologue on writing and Joyce. Raoul Coutard's filmography is, once again, stunning. The film is awash in blues, in comic book two-tones, which Karina's red dress stands out as an ode to non-conformity.

Of course this is a long film, and though its structure is completely linear, the odd sense of time in it may detract viewers (I for one love it). Different elements and characters seem to be thrown in at odd times, but eschewing the normalcy and heightening the artificiality of cinema was Godard's intentions. Some might see this as arty pretension, well it is. But as a film lover I'm rather tired of movies I watch once and everything is handed to me neatly. Anything demanding close repeated watching is the only thing worth watching, personally. But really, this movie isn't so over everyone's heads as to be unenjoyable to those unfamiliar with Godard's work. It's funny, sad, exciting, and most of all enigmatic.

Now, if you've seen Godard's previous nine films you'll want to see this, unless you didn't enjoy them, which begs the question Why did you watch them? Belmondo and Karina are at once very archetypal characters in the Godardian universe, but they're also very much distinct from the other characters they had played. For instance, they seem to be the complete opposites of their A Woman is a Woman roles. Karina here plays the feisty, un-containable murderess always on the move, whereas the earlier film all she wants is a kid. Belmondo here is a sensitive, artistic brooder, with a playful side to be sure, but in Woman he is a horny, egocentric, calloused hanger-on.

Also, the end of Pierrot is one of the most abrupt, unexpected, wonderfully humorous and disconcerting of any I have ever seen!

So, while I whole-heartedly recommend this to anyone interested, perhaps it'd be best to acquaint yourself with his earlier films to get a gist of Godard's intentions as a filmmaker. If you're new to his work, I suggest this order: Breathless, Band of Outsiders, A Woman is a Woman, Contempt, Alphaville, My Life to Live, Pierrot le Fou. And if you like those then watch Masculin/Feminin and Weekend. All the films mentioned above are outstanding, amazing, brilliant films worth a million Jurassic Parks, Mama Mias, Titanics and ET's.

DVD Review: Artsy-Fartsy
Summary: 1 Stars

It's beneath the artist to explain his work. You'll just have to figure out the meaning of my review's title on your own.

DVD Review: Well...
Summary: 3 Stars

I like Godard's early films A Bout de Souffle and Band Apart, but this is...I don't know what to say...too much? If you like Godard, the French New wave and so on, this Criterion DVD is made with excellent transfer and with some really good extras (like the documentary about Godard and Anna Karena). But the film is too playful for me to appreciate, it's more interesting as an idea than to watch. 2 stars for the film and 4 stars to Criterions package. If you haven't tried Godards films before don't start with this one, try A Bout de Souffle ("Breathless") instead, also on Criterion in a fantastic edition.

Description of Pierrot le Fou - Criterion Collection

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 bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard s tenth feature in six years is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, 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 one last frolic before Godard moved ever further into radical cinema

Special Features

* - SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
* - New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
* - New video interview with actor Anna Karina
* - A "Pierrot" Primer, a new video program with audio commentary by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin
* - Godard, l'amour, la po?sie, a fifty-minute French documentary about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina
* - Archival interview excerpts with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo
* - Theatrical trailer
* - New and improved English subtitle translation
* - PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Richard Brody, a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris, and a 1965 interview with Godard

Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a man who has married for money and is terribly disillusioned with his life. When forced to go to a dinner party he does not want to attend, he throws a temper tantrum and returns home early. When driving Marianne (Anna Karina), the babysitter, back home, they fall in love and decide to run away from Paris. They embark on a series of escapades that begins with running illegal arms for extra cash and runs the gamut: love, death, ennui, boat chases, murder, betrayal, revenge, lost cash, and almost anything else you can think of, and all with a sense of reality that is an interesting contrast to the typical American film. Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, Alphaville) blends different genres with great success and achieves moments of cinematic poetry in this quasi-epic of modern malaise. Also a cameo by the Hollywood director Samuel Fuller is something to watch for. Be aware that Godard is for people seriously interested in cinematic art. --James McGrath

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