Pierrot le Fou (meaning "Pierrot the Mad") is a 1965 film by Jean-Luc Godard.
Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is an upper-middle class Parisian stuck in an unhappy marriage to a rich woman. One night he and his wife go out to a party. When they come back Ferdinand discovers that the babysitter, Marianne (Anna Karina), is an old girlfriend of his.
Quite impulsively, they run away together. Ferdinand is only mildly surprised to find out that Marianne is part of a group of gun smugglers. In fact, she double-crossed the OAS
, a right-wing terrorist group, and absconds with a bunch of their money. Ferdinand happily joins her in a life of crime.
Tropes
- The Artifact: The source novel describes a relationship between an older man infatuated with his teenaged babysitter. That idea had to be abandoned when Belmondo and Karina, only seven years apart in age, were cast as the leads—but when they run away together, Marianne is still wearing a student's uniform, and working as Ferdinand's babysitter.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The awful Vietnam War "play" that Ferdinand and Marianne put on for American tourists. His English dialogue basically consists of repetitions of "Oh yes...Hollywood...Communist", while she puts on Yellowface and babbles ching-chong nonsense.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: At some point, Ferdinand says "you see? All she cares about is having fun" to which Marianne asks who is he talking to. He answers "to the viewer".
- Briefcase Full of Money: Stolen by Ferdinand from the gangsters, at Marianne's behest, near the end of the film.
- The Cameo:
- At the weird party for his wife's parents, Ferdinand meets none other than Samuel Fuller, who is in Paris to make a movie. He says that cinema is about "emotion".
- Jean-Pierre Léaud appears briefly as "Young Man in Movie Theater".
- Faking the Dead: Ferdinand and Marianne come across a wrecked car on the road, and Marianne decides the two of them should do this, including setting fire to their own car.
- Fanservice Extra: The women at the boring party Ferdinand attends suddenly start appearing topless, because...breasts are nice to look at?
- Insistent Terminology: A running gag in this film. Marianne always calls Ferdinand Griffon "Pierrot" and he always responds: "my name is Ferdinand".
- Little People Are Surreal: The gangster that captures Marianne and demands his money is a little person, because presumably Jean Luc Godard wanted to make his film that much weirder.
- Look Behind You: A gas station attendant is angry at Marianne and Ferdinand for trying to get out of paying. Marianne simply points up, and when the attendant looks up, she pushes him over. She tells Ferdinand she learned the trick from Laurel and Hardy.
- Meaningful Name:
- Marianne Renoir - Marianne for the symbol of France and Renoir for also two symbols of France: Auguste Renoir the famed painter and Jean Renoir, his son, one of the greatest French filmmakers.
- Also Pierrot, of course. In the Commedia dell'Arte Pierrot is a sad clown who loves Columbine/Columbina, but always loses her to Harlequin/Arlecchino. Marianne's insisting on calling Ferdinand by that name is major Foreshadowing of how she betrays him in the end.
- Narrator: Both Marianne and Ferdinand narrate their story, usually finishing each other's sentences.
- Outlaw Couple: Marianne Renoir and Ferdinand Griffon aka "Pierrot" finally turn into the one.
- Relatively Flimsy Excuse: Marianne claims that fellow revolutionary Fred is her brother, but when they are re-united in the film's final act, they hug and kiss in a way that makes it clear they are not siblings but romantic partners, and they have been using Ferdinand all along to get enough money to escape the vengeance of the OAS.
- Shout-Out:
- Ferdinand justifies letting the kids go to the movies by saying, well, they were showing Johnny Guitar.
- Ferdinand looks around the harbor at Toulon and says it reminds him of Pépé le Moko. That's a movie about a jewel thief who tries to escape from Algiers by boat.
- Late in the film, Ferdinand likens his relationship with Marianne to a film starring Michel Simon in which he fell in love with a girl he knew was bad for him. The film in question is La Chienne, in which Simon plays a timid cashier who falls in love with a prostitute who, along with her pimp/boyfriend, is just using him for financial gain - which, we later learn, is also true of Ferdinand and Marianne (with Fred playing the role of the pimp/boyfriend).
- This Is Reality: When carrying out a getaway plan, Marianne tells Ferdinand, "This is not a film."
- This Means Warpaint: After killing Marianne, and right before killing himself with dynamite, Ferdinand paints his face blue. Why? Who knows?
- Untranslated Title: This film is generally known as Pierrot le Fou (literally: "Pierrot the Madman"; "Pierrot" is a diminutive form of "Pierre", the French equivalent of given name "Peter") in the English-speaking world.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Ferdinand is strangely calm when hanging out at Marianne's apartment, which contains 1) a dead guy, stabbed through the neck with a pair of scissors, and 2) a large cache of guns and ammo.
- Water Torture: Ferdinand is subjected to this by a couple of gangsters in an attempt to get him to reveal where Marianne is hiding; they put him in a bathtub, cover his head with one of Marianne's dresses so he cannot breathe, and spray him with the showerhead. It takes a few attempts before he caves.
- Who Shot JFK?: A joke. Ferdinand pulls a rifle out of Marianne's car and says it's the same make as the rifle used to kill Kennedy. Marianne cheerfully replies "Didn't you know that was me?"
