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Pierrot Le Fou



Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with his children's babysitter and 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 remains one of the high points of the French new wave, and one last frolic before Godard moved ever further into radical cinema.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• 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 (Blu-ray only) a 1969 review by Andrew Sarris and a 1965 interview with Godard
New cover by Steve Chow

DVD:
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Does anyone know if there's a story behind Jean-Pierre Léaud's cameo? I know he popped up in Alphaville also. Would audiences in 1965 have recognized him?

On another note, the subtitles of the new Janus print I saw have a yellow outline that I didn't care for and I think Khartoum was misspelled Kahrtoum. Other than those minor quibbles, it looked good.

Is this a new poster, or an old one?



This was at GreenCine Daily a few weeks ago. I haven't seen it elsewhere, but I love it.

dadaistnun wrote:Is this a new poster, or an old one?

Well, it might be a re-print of an old poster, but that version is definitely new. The Janus site provides a link to the image, but it doesn't appear to be available for purchase.

I love this poster!

Good news. The above poster will soon be made available, directly through Criterion's soon-to-be-launched web store, which is scheduled to be up within the next few weeks. I'm assuming we will be able to purchase a number of different posters from a variety of films in the Criterion Collection. Soon, every forum member can have their own Armageddon poster hanging in their home.

Andre Jurieu wrote:Good news. The above poster will soon be made available, directly through Criterion's soon-to-be-launched web store, which is scheduled to be up within the next few weeks. I'm assuming we will be able to purchase a number of different posters from a variety of films in the Criterion Collection.

Now that's product I can get behind. Never was too keen on walking around in a Janus shirt.

Soon, every forum member can have their own Armageddon poster hanging in their home.

Wait a minute, you guys don't? Matt told me it was a forum requirement!

-Toilet Dcuk

It's not worth creating a new thread for this, but for those who may have missed my post on the Lionsgate Godard box, according to Lionsgate, Criterion holds the rights to these films:

Made In U.S.A.
La Chinoise
Le Petit Soldat
Les Carabiniers

We know Criterion will be releasing Breathless soon, and we know Pierrot le fou and 2 or 3 Things will be coming after the theatrical runs, but I'm curious if anyone has asked Criterion about any of these titles recently. It could very well be that Lionsgate was mistaken, however, because they were unable to release the titles in their new boxset, SOMEONE is sitting on the rights to these titles and Criterion seems like the most likely suspect. Still, if anyone can confirm that this is true/not true, please post it.

La Chinoise is playing at Film Forum in NYC in October, but has "A Koch Lorber Release" in the calendar write-up.

souvenir wrote:La Chinoise is playing at Film Forum in NYC in October, but has "A Koch Lorber Release" in the calendar write-up.

Interesting. Thanks for the correction!

thank god it's already Academy Ratio, at least Koch Lorber won't be able to fudge up the aspect ratio... in theory.

domino harvey wrote:thank god it's already Academy Ratio, at least Koch Lorber won't be able to fudge up the aspect ratio... in theory.

That hasn't stopped New Yorker.

man has he lost it in the last fifteen years or what

Saw this last night, the print was excellent, and this maybe my new favorite Godard. I don't want to ruin the ending, but it may be up there with some of the greatest endings of all time. Too many great scenes like the reenacting of the Vietnam war (If us Americans make fun of the French all the time, why not the other way around), the whole musical bit, and the whole midget officer is too brilliant.

domino harvey wrote:man has he lost it in the last fifteen years or what

I expect that my perspective and opinions about movies will be somewhat different 40 years from now too.

Jeff wrote:

domino harvey wrote:man has he lost it in the last fifteen years or what

I expect that my perspective and opinions about movies will be somewhat different 40 years from now too.

And what's more, Godard's exactly the type of director who produces discord among even his most ardent supporters. I like Godard, but I've certainly wanted to chuck a few of his movies across the room.

kinjitsu wrote:Ebert back-peddles

Beat me to it, this is going on the long list of 'Ebert's Fuck Ups' alongside 'The Tenant', 'A Clockwork Orange', and 'Brazil'.

Probably just a little bit of revenge on the folks who criticized Bergman recently. ;~}

Geez, that review is enough to put me off reading Ebert from now on. It's not because he's changed his mind about the film (just as he did with Eloge de l'amour after Cannes) but that his reasons for dismissing it now display such an oddly simplistic view of what Godard is doing, and of what is possible in cinema.

Oedipax wrote:Geez, that review is enough to put me off reading Ebert from now on. It's not because he's changed his mind about the film (just as he did with Eloge de l'amour after Cannes) but that his reasons for dismissing it now display such an oddly simplistic view of what Godard is doing, and of what is possible in cinema.

I disagree. Looking at all that Godard was able to accomplish after Pierrot le fou such as Weeked, Tout va bien, Numero Deux, Sauve qui peut, Carmen, King Lear, Woe is Me.... Pierrot is good, but not as good. Even in terms of Godard's new wave period, Pierrot le fou is maybe merely a greatest hits piece of the 9 films he made before. It's amazing and fun and a statement about cinema, and for any other filmmaker it's brilliant, but for Godard it isn't as special. I agree with Ebert.

I agree that the film is a sort of "Godard's Greatest Hits" package, in fact I've sold it as such to many people in the past, but I fail to see how that makes it less of a film. To me, it is the greatest of not only Godard's films, but all films.

Andre Jurieu wrote:Good news. The above poster will soon be made available, directly through Criterion's soon-to-be-launched web store, which is scheduled to be up within the next few weeks. I'm assuming we will be able to purchase a number of different posters from a variety of films in the Criterion Collection. Soon, every forum member can have their own Armageddon poster hanging in their home.

In the past I've found a fair number of StudioCanal/Rialto rerelease posters on eBay, including Elevator to the Gallows, Diary of a Chambermaid, A Woman is a Woman, and Band of Outsiders.

domino harvey wrote:In the past I've found a fair number of StudioCanal/Rialto rerelease posters on eBay, including Elevator to the Gallows, Diary of a Chambermaid, A Woman is a Woman, and Band of Outsiders.

You can also usually purchase their re-release posters from Posteritati, though I've avoided doing so because their prices are slightly excessive. I actually picked up the Pierrot poster for around $10 from my local art-house theatre, though it wasn't in the greatest condition. Hopefully it will look a bit more crisp once it's mounted and framed (the place I've gone to in the past does a pretty good job at covering up damage).

I'm pretty sure my friend bought me that Band of Outsiders poster for ~$10 off eBay. I know I paid around that much for the others I listed above. What a ridiculous ripoff, you can buy a lot of these in original release condition for these prices.