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