Pierrot Le Fou

But Godard loses touch by mere theatrical mishandlings. He obviously knows nothing of France's infamous clown, and even misspells the name of Mexico's greatest lucha libre rudo by deleting the "H" in the name. How can any artist call that brilliant? If directed by an artist, like Emilio Charles Jr, the Latin post-impressionist, this would be a work of sheer brilliance. Sadly, he tells one big lie on the silver screen, tarnishing it into a bitter dirty canvas. I weep when I think of the potential.


Excellent visual essay encouraging existential expressions   April 25, 2001
K. Brown (Walnut, Ca USA)
21 out of 41 found this review helpful

I first viewed this great work with Jose Fernandez, who was delivering a series of lectures here in Southern California, where he alleged that many film directors use archive footage of Popitekus for dermatophytic purposes. He highly recommended "Pierrot le Fou" as a key example of a director who strives to accomplish just the opposite. Jean Luc Godard presents a dithyrambic forage that successfully quenches any student's thirst for a portrait of jaspoid intrusion, brimful with jessant heraldry, yet not lacking in brilliant Manichean humor.

Don't get me wrong; Jean Luc-Godard is no Rene Cardonas. This bold attempt at cinematic brilliance merely mimics the magasame visions that Cardonas acheived from the late 1950s through 1965. While I must praise Godard for presenting a message in which the main protaganist strives for something greater than his mundane existence, certain portions of the film bear the propensity to contrive the real message. By throwing in the melodramatic suggestion of gangsters attempting to thwart the heroine's means, the thesis becomes overstated. I find it sad to think that perhaps Godard, deep inside, feels he lacks what great directors like Rene Cardonas and Doris Wishman possess. This film is well worth purchasing until the films of the late Cardonas become available on DVD. In the meantime, "Pierrot le Fou" is worth your time.


Brilliant film - terrible transfer   January 21, 2003
Karen M Martinez (London United Kingdom)
20 out of 20 found this review helpful

This is a great movie, probably Godard's best. But I'm afraid that the transfer to DVD by Fox Lorber is very poor. It's got a very soft, almost pixillated look with a lot of strobing on panning shots. At the cinema, Pierrot le Fou is one of the most colourful, vibrant films ever , but this DVD has a sad washed-out, de-saturated, dirty look and the sound level is also very low. All in all, it's a great shame that one of the classics of modern cinema has been treated with such a lack of care... I would recommend that you wait for a decent label to release this film properly. I have to say that it's made me wary of all titles on Fox Lorber now.


What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence   November 4, 2000
Jeffrey R Galipeaux (Aptos, CA USA)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful

At my local UC PIERROT is shown in the survey of film history class they offer. I was invited to sit in once. Normally the professor shows the film, then lectures. He screened PIERROT. When it was over, there was total silence. He started to lecture, but almost the entire lecture hall of students walked out. A good friend told me later that she had been profoundly moved, and she simply didn't want to understand why. She didn't feel it was respectful to what she had just seen. PIERROT is on of the few examples of true mystical cinema that we have. Yes, there are the references to Rimbaud, Hollywood musicals, gangster films.... The visual puns, the references to Godard and Karina's life at the time, the improvisations, the barbs about American commercialism, the Gish-rebeling-against-Grifith quality of Karina's amazing performance... But what do they matter?

Sunlight/love/color/the face/poetry/emotion/loss of love/slapstick/image/life: PIERROT LE FOU