pierrot le fou analysis

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Exploring Life, Exploding Life -

Analysis of Godard’s Pierrot le fou

Kai TölleI6002205

UCM Film Art

Final PaperCoordinator: Jack Post

Tutor: Marteen Michielse



In the following I will analysis Pierrot Le Fou (1965) by Jean Luc Godard from various

perspectives. It is about Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who flees from his

social life, to escape with his new (and former) lover Marianne (Anna Karina) to the

Mediterranean Sea. Far away from his family, he lets the days pass, reads books and

works on a diary. Marianne however is wanted for murder, which is why police and

Algerian killers seem to follow tehm. Marianne manages to escape them but also leaves

Ferdinand behind. When they meet again, she is with Fred, which she presented as her

brother, but who in fact is her lover. Ferdinand kills them both for her betrayal and in the

end commits suicide.

By pointing on the formalistic and stylistic elements, I will use Peter Wollen (2002)

concept of Counter Cinema, of which he claims Godard to be the creator, as a guide to

place the characteristics of this film into a context. Wollen defines Counter Cinema as the

conscious application of the 7 deadly sins of classical cinema, which are summarised

briefly in the following overview:

Narrative Transitivity vs Narrative Intransitivity: Instead of a clear narrative causality

Godard builds an episodic construction and prevents a clear sequence of action.

Identification vs Estrangement: Instead of an emotional involvement with characters,

the figures in Godard‟s film appear incoherent, fragmented and contradictory.

Transparency vs Foregrounding: Instead of being immersed by a fictional product

Godard makes apparent the fictional construction.

Single Diegesis vs Multiple Diegesis: Instead of a homogeneous film world, Godard

introduces sometimes several storylines.

Closure vs Aperture: Instead of one self-contained and harmonised film world,

Godard‟s films are inter -textual and self-reflective.

Pleasure vs Un-pleasure: Instead of entertainment, Godard wants to provoke and create

reactions.

Fiction vs Reality: Instead of acting a fictional story, characters might play themselves.

(Wollen 2002, 74)



However, as Wollens framework looks mainly on Godard‟s way to deconstruct classical

cinema, whose principles have been in film theory defined as the established rules of

Hollywood since the 1920s, the aim of this analyse will be to show a way to construct

meaning in this overly ambiguous film. It has been pointed out that the “fragmentary

nature of stories, the mixture of genres and complexity of the inter-textual references all

render Pierrot le fou a postmodern film before postmodernism was invented.” In the

following analysis I shall related to these characteristics and how they express post-

modernism, but my main goal will be to point on what I perceive as the purpose of this

film is: To show “life as a thing in itself” in all its f acets and that “what lies between

people”.



The Party – The Shallowness of Society

“I'm tired.

I've got a mechanisms to see with, called eyes.

To hear with, I've got ears. To talk with, a mouth.

But they feel disconnected, They don‟t work together .

A person should feel like he‟s one individual.

I feel like I'm many different people.”

The first remarkable scene of the movie in terms of visual distinctiveness is at the party

of Monsieur and Madame Espresso, the parents of her wife. Ferdinand first does not want

go there and when the film introduces the first scene of the event we learn why. In most

of the shots the guests just repeat advertisement slogans. It is exactly the world “of

sadness” that he was reading about during the first four shots of the film. Here we find

the “handful of clownish freaks dressed up as princes, whose function it was to laugh at

themselves”, “in the meshes of etiquette plots and lies”.

There are several remarkable elements in this scene, the most obvious stylistic

one is the use of coloured filters and light. The party is displayed with 7 shots, while each

shot uses a different flashy filter or light. The first scene has a firm red filter, for the next

a green, then yellow and a blue. He continues using a white harsh light from the left for

one rather short shot and then builds in the next shot that starts with a blue filter a jump

cut, after which a green filter is applied. In the next shot again a blue filter is used and in

the final scene a red light from the left and a blue from the right are again applied. The

extreme use of these colours in this scene is representative for the overall film and even

Godard as filmmaker. In the following shall elaborate on some functions they fulfil

bearing in mind that they are a perfect example of Foregrounding, thus making us aware

of the fact that this is a film and not a story in the first place.

First of all, are they in this particular fragment reinforcing the depicted people and

their topics. Strong and flashy colours stand then for a society that is through and through

spoiled by commercialism. Their words actually lost all their meaning and the only thing

they actually stand for is the fanciness of the products they are promoting.



While the colours express the shallowness of society, they are also an important

stylistic element that runs through Godard‟s oeuvre. Since his first colour film Une

Femmes Est Une Femme red, blue and white have been dominating in his works of the

1960s, creating with yellow and green an overarching theme. On the one hand stands the

tricolour use of blue, red and white for him as a French filmmaker, who has in his time as

movie critic always criticised the way French cinema is heading at. The colours then

symbolise the transformation of French cinema by him and his filmmaking colleagues of

the Nouvelle Vague. On the other hand is this reflecting him as a true film-„auteur‟, who

emphasised already as a critique at the Cahier du Cinema the importance of the director‟s

creative and personal vision that should, like a handwriting of a writer, be consistent

through all the filmmakers works. The colours as a reference to his filmmaking are only

one of many references to his prior or even upcoming films. Just in this fragment we can

detect further hints to films of his.

The first one is the conversation with the real American director Samuel Fuller, who

playing himself in this party-scene a reference to Godard‟s two years earlier film Le

Mepris. In this film not only the director Fritz Lang plays himself, but also an American

film director (this time fictional) is constantly using a female translator to communicate

to the male protagonist, like in the party-scene in Pierrot Le Fou with Samuel Fuller. His

presents is introducing a second diegesis, the story of a real director, who is spending

time in Paris.

Secondly, is the jump-cut, which was mentioned above, a reference to himself, as

he is regarded as the inventor of this film-technique, and to his first feature film À Bout



de Souffle, where he plays with this cutting technique as a conscious style element, which

was before that regarded as a sign for bad filmmaking. Also, several other reference to

this movie appear several times in Pierrot Le Fou, which shall also pop-up at later point

of this analysis.

Now, how can we understand these references, in a scene where the colours that

characterise his filmmaking are overemphasised and taken to an extreme, in respect to the

commercialism, shallowness and corruption of the people presented at the party? One

approach lets us read it as an affiliation with the pop-art movement that itself promoted

consumerism but often with a sarcastic undertone and worked mostly with strong,

recurring colour themes. But in this respect we can carry that thought a bit further.

Having presented already two of countless examples in Pierrot Le Fou in which Goddard

refers to his and also others filmmaking we can take the presence of Samuell Fuller and

expand the idea of Godard as a self-conscious and hence postmodern filmmaker.

Ferdinand asks for instance Fuller “I‟ve always wanted to know exactly what cinema is”.

The idea of a movie about movies is the fundamental concept behind postmodern cinema,

and by placing such a question at the beginning of the film, shows that Godard‟s film

incorporated this concept (Cook, 2007, p. 547). We shall see later some of many more

examples of inter-textual quotations, the concept that Wollen refers to as aperture

(Wollen 2002, 74).

But it is not that these references stand there without any meaning, it is just left to

viewer to construct it for him or herself. For instance, Godard‟s cinema has been since its

beginning said to be a reference to classical Hollywood and American B-Movies. The

knowledgeable viewer thus will read the choice of Fuller again as an example of his self-

consciousness film-making. As the plot is as well based on a novel by the American

writer Lionel White, who became known for his hard-boiled crime fiction it is not

surprising that it again, like in many Godard films imitates 1940s film-noir films, with

“ordinary people tempted into crime” , gangsters, “a seductive femme-fatale that lures the

protagonist into a dangerous scheme for hidden purposes of her own” and an “outlaw

movie involving young criminals on the run” (Bodrdwell & Thompson, p. 409). We

could read then the main plot of Pierrot Le Fou as a translation of Fullers simple answer



Get-Away – Breaking up into New Spheres

“What do you see?

- A man about to drive over a cliff at 60 mph.

I see a woman in love with the man

about to drive over a cliff at 60 mph.

- Then less have a kiss”

Before Ferdinand‟s and Marianne‟s escape out of Paris there is a symbol, a dead body in

Marianne‟s apartment, that stands for the break between Ferdinand‟s old and new life in

an ambiguous way. We don‟t see the face of this body but from its clothes and its statue

we could assume it could stand metaphorically for Ferdinand‟s old life. The duality of

Ferdinand is throughout the movie sustained by Marianne calling him Pierrot and him

insisting that his name is Ferdinand. However, if we want to read this body as the duality

of Ferdinand-Pierrot, we have to bear in mind the matter of fact that we cannot construct

a clear logical relation to other symbols, like for instance Marianne‟s scissor as the cause

of his dead and the other actions that are performed in the apartment. This ambiguity

stands for the multilayered reading of the story. In the end a dead body gives also in a

classical get-away movie a strong causal

motive for the narrative, as the characters

have to escape from it. In the following I

will analyse the getaway scene from

Paris, which abandons narrative clarity

for the sake of aperture, estrangement, foregrounding and narrative intransitivity.

The sequence is framed by very short shots boldly edited and a long-take just in between

those montage elements. It starts by showing short close-ups of four different painted

faces by Picasso and Renoir, amongst others. This a strong application of aperture as

they are not only famous paintings, but also have already occurred in other Godard films

and thus, are loaded with various forms of meaning. The latter one is also indicated in the

next shot when again another short medium close-up is depicting two revolvers next to a



book about Al Capon. And after the next quick close-up one another gun, we have

already in a few very short shots the opposition between beauty and violence, in a film

that is able to combine and mingle art and literature with motives from American B-

movies and the Gangster-genre.

In the following a long-take shows how the protagonist Ferdinand and Marianne knock

out Frank, a friend of Ferdinand, which also appears to be a lover of Marianne, and their

subsequent escape from Marianne‟s apartment. Although the events of this long-take are

very hectic and full of action, we as audience become hardly immersed through the

suspense of the narrative, which sets the tone for the rest of the movie. In the scene the

staging of Marianne and Ferdinand rather resemble that of a dance-choreography than it

is coming close to realistic movements.

What is shown in this way is a sort of hide-and-seek game from Frank until Marianne

beats him down with a bottle and removes him from the apartment. Several

cinematographic elements make this playful experience visible. The camera for instance

is in a way positioned and moved through the apartment that supports the characters

grotesque vanishings and reappearances on the screen.

We see Marianne after Frank‟s arrival hiding behind the refrigerator. After Franks enters

the Balcony on which the camera is positioned it is panning to the left and following

Frank, shooting him from behind in a slow tracking movement. At this point it is for us

almost as surprising as for Frank that Marianne is turning up on the Balcony. This

surprise was achieved by the camera just following Frank, while Marianne must have run

through 3 different rooms to appear there. Exactly the same effects have Ferdinand‟s

appearances and disappearances on the screen in this scene. Although the staging in

combination with the camera's movement is meant to confuse the viewer, the deep focus

makes sure that all the different layers of the misé-en-scene are visible to the audience, as

on all of them relevant actions for the deliberate confusion are displayed.

Cinematography also expresses the distance that we feel not only towards the action but

also to the characters, an effect of estrangement. The camera tries to stay away from the

characters, as for instance there are no close-ups on a character‟s face. Although,



Marianne looks two times quite worried, the effect of these moments could be much

more intensified through a stronger focus on the facial expressions.

After Frank has encountered Marianne, her action is the central element that the camera

is paying attention to, until the end of the long take. By showing for instance how she is

knocking Frank down, she is providing the causal material and the motivation for their

escape. This also reflects her character, which is always striving for change in the entire

movie. The need for escape is explicitly expressed by the camera‟s pan and tracking

movements following her on the balcony capturing her worried look on the city and the

horizon. The shot ends just before we would have followed her back into her apartment,

thus leaving her with the horizon in the background as a meaningful message to the

audience. The deep focus makes sure that the depth of the field of the horizon is visible

on the screen.

While Marianne is presented as the active part, cinematography is presenting Ferdinand

as passive counterpart. After he has been in the frame for about 40 seconds walking

without any particular through the room, he is only for brief moments in the frame after

Frank has arrived. As mentioned above the camera is then following Frank and Marianne.

Besides the point that it nicely balances the focus on the characters, his absence during

the some critical parts of the action has the function of creating a distance to his

character. We don‟t perceive him as the classical hero, who is in control of what is

happening. We know that his accustomed life is turning upside down in this moment, but

neither do we have any sign of excitement, nor of frustration, which lets him appear to be

fatalistic and indifferent to what happens.



While the immersion with the narrative, as well as the identification with the characters

have been actively distorted in the long shot, the following montage-sequence plays even

more with this effect. The fast, rhythmic cuts, which manipulate the logical order of

events, stand in direct opposition to the long-take and create the hectic that is appropriate

for a getaway scene, however as they are edited together in seemingly random order they

distort the story leading to an overall narrative intransitivity. Giving less room to tell

the causalities instead a very distinct picture of departure is created and a break up into

new spheres is implied. This gets even more in the last shot of this sequence where there

is an extreme long shot on the Statue of Liberty from the moving car, with the comment

of Ferdinand: “the Statue of Liberty gave us a friendly wave”.

An essential element to create the above described effects is the sound track, as there is

no diegetic sound at all. On the one hand this enhances powerfully the disintegration of

the narrative. What we hear instead of the of the on-screen action is the narrator‟s voices

in a similar staccato and fragmented style as the shots are assembled together with longer

passages of silence and fragments of score in between. As “Marianne” and “Ferdinand”

start to tell a “story all mixed-up” it introduces the theme of the rest of the movie. Here

we see an example of foregrounding, as the audience is reminded that the on screen

might be just acted to the story both tell. On the other hand the soundtrack acts as an

integrating element for the shots out of direct context to the action in the beginning and

the shots that mix up the order of events at the end of the sequence.

Struggle – In the Sphere of Ferdinand

“I've got an idea for a novel.

Instead of being about people's lives,

it would be about life, life as a thing in itself,

what lies between people... space, sound, and colours.

That would be something worthwhile.”



There is a longer episode in Pierrot Le Fou, where Marianne and Ferdinand spend around

one month in the French Riviera offside in the nature. The events are displayed in about

23 minutes screen time. Approximately in the middle of this episode there is one point in

which Marianne reveals to the audience through her movements that she will separate

from Ferdinand later in the film, one of many elements that foreclose the dramatic

ending. This event is followed by a highly symbolical scene which enlightens a bit the

hardly related and often seemingly randomly edited scenes and the sometimes mysterious

and puzzling dialogues of that episode.

In between the scenes in which Ferdinand and Marianne spend their time in a little house

in the nature on the seaside, speak to each other through the quotes from literature and

quarrel about whether this place and their time there is worthwhile, we hear Ferdinand

asking: “You‟ll never leave me?” while there is a close up shot on the face of a little fox,

which stands symbolically for Marianne. We hear her answering “Of course I won‟t”.

What follows is a close-up on Marianne‟s face that is a pproximately 30 seconds long, and

which is also the moment in the entire film where we are the closest to her face. As the

whole sequence is shot on location at the Riveria only the sun seems to be used to

enlighten her face. It seems to be noon as there are some little shadows coming straight

down from her hair.

It is rather a moment of intimacy between the audience and Marianne than between her

and Ferdinand. Ferdinand repeats from off-screen the “of -course?” of her sentence while

Marianne is looking at him melancholy answer ing “Yes, of course”. First she looks down

and after a while she turns her face straight onto camera, breaking the fourth wall.



Besides the point that this is an essential element of postmodern cinema it is also a

psychological game. By looking down we think that she is lying and by looking straight

into the camera we realise that she knows that we think she is lying. By repeating the

exact same movements and the phrase “Yes, of course” just with a different tone of

voice, she is emphasising her lie, but also her willingness to end the relationship, not

without putting her sorrow across, though.

The next shot is on Ferdinand‟s notebook , which is often used in this episode to separate

the timely and spatial distance to a prior scene. This is also the case for the following

sequence which is not only outstanding for it‟s before mentioned symbolic clarity, but

also the surprisingly balanced Misé-en-scene in comparison to the often expressive

movements of the two characters. The sequence consists of two shots again interrupted

by a short shot on Ferdinand‟s notebook , this time however just to squeeze in a short

question and to introduce a shift in their discussion. The end of their discussion is marked

by another shot.

The first of the then in total four shots shows Marianne wading in the water, coming

towards the camera, while shouting 3 times “What am I to do? I don‟t know what to do“.

The camera is panning to the right, as she would have otherwise left the frame and thus is

kept in the centre of the picture. Through this Ferdinand appears from the right side in the

frame, sitting on some kind of stone pedestal, with the blue seaside in his back. As he

reacts to her shouting by requesting her to be quiet he becomes the focal point of this

medium long shot in which Marianne is in the foreground, the seaside in the background

and him in-between. The deep focus makes sure that every layer appears of equal



importance. Marianne continues to walk until she is out of the frame. The camera remains

in this position where Ferdinand is filling the left part of the frame, while reading for

Marianne until she is entering again from the right and sitting on the pedestal next to him.

By this movement the camera pans a bit to the left, so that both are now in the centre of

the frame. This time a Parott is shown on the knee of Ferdinand which stands for

Ferdinand.

But there is more to say about the symbolising power of this scene. Since blue is

the colour of Ferdinand (his suites and shirts make this clear), the blue water and the

horizon belongs to the sphere of Ferdinand. This relationship was already established

before, when Ferdinand was leading Marianne through a river with a flat river bed and in

another scene when he purposely drove their American car into the sea, a remarkable

moment, which was also the kick-off for their time in this environment. These are already

to examples of how Ferdinand took the lead in their journey to “his” place the nature and

the seaside. At some point it is referred to as “Mystery Island”, on another occasion it is a

referred to as a “Dream”. For Marianne, however, is this place where you just exist and

“no fun”. While he is looking for a world of ideas and abstraction she is actually attracted

by the worldly things, talking for instance about Money, “Las Vegas”, “f un” and the high

life in general. Her theme is red, the wild and lively colour and her sphere is the town, in

which she is regularly vanishing. While she is inventing songs, buying records and is

going dancing, he is absorbed by his books, writing in his notebook and demanding from

her to bring him books out of town.

It is exactly this clash of spheres which is represented in this scene. Marianne is throwing

stones in the sea while asking what she is supposed to do. Ferdinand is seems to be

surrounded and sitting above his element the water, not able or willing to respond to it.

Too much absorbed is he in his world, in the writing. Too abstract are his words that

Marianne or the audience would construct directly a meaning. Nevertheless, she is

coming and joining him on the pedestal, similar to the time he spend with him in „his‟

environment, which for her is like hell.

Exactly this struggle of theirs is a central theme in their following discussion. As already

mentioned before, a short shot on his notebook is edited in-between, in order to introduce

this discussion. The camera has repositioned itself slightly to the left, which not only



reveals that Ferdinand is sitting on a dock but also gives both characters equal space.

More importantly the camera is now showing both in a medium shot, which aligns with

the fact that they discuss their problems.

Throughout the discussion they talk about their above mentioned problems. Marianne

sums it up “You speak to me in words, I look at you with feelings”. This is also the

reason for her sadness. Ferdinand however is discontent about her lack of ideas. He is

trying to discredit her feelings. The conversation is getting a philosophical shape when

Marianne answers that there are ideas inside feelings. It seems to be about the long hold

dispute whether reason is superior to feelings. In the end their verbal exchange leads to a

par between reason and emotion. But it means a defeat for Ferdinand who thought he

could challenge Marianne.

The next shot is expressing exactly this. It shows the dock on which Ferdinand was

sitting so sublime and surrounded by the full blue now from the side in it‟s perspective. It

turns out to be quite shabby and ruinous, while the water looks rather shallow. The

camera perspective change is also in anticipation of Marianne‟s departure. While both are

placed in a long shot at the right end of the picture, in order to integrate the dock as a

whole, the camera is starting to pan to the right as soon as Marianne is starting to leave.

When the camera has come to stop, Ferdinand is at the very left of the frame, while on

the right side, Marianne‟s sphere is depicted, including their house with a little red

window. She is walking at the borderline of water and beach, just on the other side of the

dock, which is a continuation of the movement before. In the end she is walking away of

from the water while Ferdinand is still looking at the sea; a strong visualisation of their

upcoming separation.

In the end this scene is not all about quarrelling and disagreement. Marianne suffering is

expressed as she walking along the waterside, but she does not “know what to do” with

Ferdinand and while they have their dispute she is actually petting his Parrott (how silly

this might sound). She is showing affection and the feelings, they were talking about, but

Ferdinand is passive, remaining at his place and putting his world of ideas above

Marianne‟s ideals. This is representative for their relationship, when he is for instance

claiming “Music after Literature”. Or his overall passivism is constantly placed against



heading at. Also the fact that Marianne and Ferdinand have been framed sitting together

in a close-up just before that scene and now are seen at maximum in a medium shot is

striking. The role of Marianne is again after a long time the leading one again, a sign that

we have come into here sphere. She is hurrying, she is going in front, she is talking to the

gangsters. Ferdinand is offering to beat them up, but Marianne prefers to talk and “lie” to

them. At the end of this shot we don‟t how much she has actually lied to Ferdinand and

particular in this key scene.

Although in the following 08:30 minutes of screen time the causal material for

Marianne‟s departure is taking place, Godard is rather playing with symbols than creating

narrative clarity resulting again Unpleasure, Aperture, Estrangement and Narrative

Intransitivity. In the following I shall concentrate on 3 shots, which are screened in 6

seconds and analyse them in relation to the 3:48 minute before and 4:52 minutes after

Ferdinands notebook appears in the screen, which as stated before often acts as a framing

element in the movie, like in this sequence. The eight shots before are already a virtuous

combination of uncommon techniques which create a tension, that is at its height in the 3

shots which I am analyzing. In the end of this scene Marianne has separated herself

symbolically from Ferdinand in an act of cruelty. What is happening in terms of narration

is that Marianne gets threatened by the gangsters, who are looking for her and is able to

call Ferdinand, who starts to run to help her. When he arrives Marianne has killed one of

the gangster (which is also midget) with a scissor in the neck and is gone.

The killing is expressed in these 3 shots, which stand in rhythmical relation to each other,

as all are 2 seconds long. At first, we see the midget gangster in a medium shot directing

from the right to left, his straightened arm with the gun in the hand towards the audience

in. The wide-lens makes the gun appear bigger and more dangerous. The same holds for

the midget, who has appeared to that point smaller but through the lower camera height is

now filling the whole frame. The next two seconds show again with the use of a wide-

lens a relatively tall apartment complex in an extreme long shot. The following shot is

graphical match to two shots before as Marianne is making a similar movement as the

midget with his gun, just that she cuts with her scissor in the air, from the left to right



with her left hand. Another difference is that

there a two paintings in the back of her, which

we have already seen in a shot before in the

living room of the gangsters apartment,

suggesting that they stand opposed to each

other in that room.

As the two shots are divided by the shot of the

apartment complex, this connection is not

directly evident, though. It fulfills several

other functions instead. In relation to two shots

before, it is also the place Ferdinand is running

to, as he was shown surrounded by similar

buildings and then pointing somewhere off-

screen. Hence, it is also implying that the

midget-gangster and Marianne opposing each other in this building. The fact that it is

dividing the blue sky in two parts is not only emphasising the idea of the opposition, but

also supporting the idea of Marianne‟s cutting movement. In the end the latter is also one

of the pictures that sticks in your mind the most after you have watched the film. Thus, it

makes sense to prevent the Kuleshov-effect and let it somewhat stand for itself,

emphasising rather Marianne as last shot instead of the confrontation.

For the understanding of the story this method is not helpful, as it is like in the rest of this

sequence leaving crucial elements out. It‟s a technique that fragments the plot and is

representative for the elements that cause the narrative disintegration in this sequence.

Instead of showing what is happening it is creating a puzzle that we won‟t even solve

when we look closely one the scenes. This has happened several times in the sequence,

for instance when during the meeting with the gangster Ferdinand has been shown

waiting inside a bar for Marianne, instead of Mariannes meeting with the Gangster.

There is however one crucial scene before from which we can derive a reason

why Marianne has left, although she called Ferdinand to help her out in that bar. After

this call we see in a long low-angle shot Ferdinand, running along the beach from the left



to the right sight out of the frame. After that a there is a fast zoom out and short rest, after

which the camera slowly continues to zoom further out and pans to the left showing the

seaside and the horizon. Although Ferdinand has already left the screen, he is symbolised

by the blue of the sea. The camera tilts upwards to a straight angle short, while panning

further to the left. For a short time we have seen the wide of the sea-side and the ocean

until Marianne comes from the left into screen and we realise that she and the camera are

positioned on a balcony. Her look is quite focused on the direction of Ferdinand, while

she is stabbing two times with the scissor she is holding in her hand on the balustrade of

the balcony. This gives her not only a dangerous look, but also implies that she is

stabbing Ferdinand. The camera has also revealed that the midget gangster is with her on

the balcony, which is on to the left centre preparing his gun next to her. She starts

pretending to cut her hair in a very girlish way, making clear that she is not worried about

him, as she told Ferdinand on the telephone. At the end of the scene the gangster is

directing the gun at her, making clear that she is still her hostage. But she seems not

afraid is again stabbing with her scissor while looking in the direction of Ferdinand.

Thus, we can derive from this scene that she has two motives: Getting rid of the gangster

and Ferdinand at the same time. This however, has a very strong implication for their

relation and also for the overall story. However, while deteriorating the plot this scene

increases instead the symbolical meaning on much larger extend.

The reason why these three shots are so powerful is that almost the entire movie is shot

with deep focus. Using then a wide lens for all three motives for the only time in the

movie, gives you a feeling of being sucked into the screen. The conscious use of lighting

stands in opposition to the often on screen light of the sun and creates a rather artificial

impression, which underlines the symbolic power that these shots express. There at least

three levels of meaning conveyed in this picture.

First of all, is the cut symbolising her separation of Ferdinand. With respect to the

beginning of their getaway, where there was also a murdered man in an apartment this

frames their story as a couple. Although we see Marianne later again, she is then together

with Fred and using Ferdinand to get him associated with a murder Fred wants to



commit. In this respect we can understand the scissor also as a cut in her attitude towards

Ferdinand.

The scissor and movement itself embodies a duality, which is an important theme

in the movie. It is the sphere of ideas of Ferdinand and the worldly sphere of Marianne

already discussed above, which are again in a powerful opposition. The gangster-midget

wears a blue jacket and Marianne her red dress, which both are an eye-catcher due to

white background. Thus their clash of spheres has resulted now in a separation of them.

Lastly, it should be kept in mind that Pierrot le fou is conglomeration of

references to Godard‟s filmmaking. In this respect we can see the movement of

Marianne, which is visually so outstanding in the film, even as a symbol to the way

Godard is breaking with conventions. Although, the concept of the Counter Cinema is a

concept that has been later constructed to categorise Godard with regard to the old

cinema, the movement can be read exactly as a self-awareness of his rule breaking.

Death – An End With Different Meanings

“I wonder what‟s keeping the cops.

We should be in jail by now.

-They‟re smart.

They let people destroy themselves.”

To put the end of Pierrot le fou into perspective we have to take two further moments of

the movie into consideration.

One hint upon how we can construct the film

around the perception of Ferdinand-Pierrot,

who is torn between fantasy and reality,

writing his own story during the getaway

action. After Marianne had left him and

Pierrot-Ferdinand is spending his afternoons in the cinemas of Nice sleeping. There is

this the moment, at one of these days that Jean Seberg, the main character of Godard‟s



first feature film is appearing on the screen of the cinema, holding a camera herself and

filming the camera that is shooting her. This is already quite remarkable also when we

appreciate Pierrot Le Fou as Postmodern film. While I don‟t know where this reference

is taken from it is nevertheless Godards first Femme-Fatale so-to-say, which is “filming

through” the screen of the cinema in which Ferdinand is sitting in, the protagonist of

another Godard film that just has been left by another Femme-Fatale. More remarkable

however for the understanding of the story is what she is saying: Your story ends there. -

yes he turned away leaving me bewildered. We were looking carefully for the moment

when we had abandoned the fictional character to return to the real one, if he ever

existed.

The second moment to understand the ending is just before Ferdinand is jumping

on the ferry that brings him to the island on which he is killing Fred and Marianne. There

he has an encounter with the French comedian Raymond Devos, who is telling about a

mysterious love song that only he can hear. This surreal encounter is an example for a

second diegesis, as it is completely out of context and more a stand-up comedy then part

of the story. However, it has an influence on how we can interpret Ferdinand in context

to the story. Devos, who is similar dressed as Ferdinand asks him at the end: “Tell me:

Am I crazy (fou)?” and Ferdinand answers: “You are crazy (fou)?”

These are two hints on how to read the overall narrative intransitivity.

Nevertheless, they are also not meant to give clear-cut answers or to reveal the logic in

the illogic. Therefore, they are presented in a plot that is almost entirely restricted to

Ferdinand, who is throughout movie named Pierrot by Marianne and countlessly often

called different French words for crazy. So in the following I shall analyse the last two

minutes and 36 seconds before the credits appear to see how these and other several loose

elements of the film connect together in the end, also with respect to Ferdinand‟s

craziness.

The 4th

last shot shows Ferdinand on the island of Fred‟s house after he had k illed him

and Marianne with a blue painted face and two chains of Dynamite in his hand constantly

screaming desperately. The shot lasts about 30 seconds and while the camera is

positioned above him, showing him with a low angle long shot, going up the steep path.



When he has passed the camera is following him in a panning movement to the left to a

place where one has a good outlook on the island and the seaside. In this movement the

shot that started as a long shot, transitioned to a medium and then to a long-shot again As

Ferdinand has walked up as steep path the camera has come to an almost regular angel.

This is usefull in order to show Ferdinand in perspective to the blue sea that is

surrounding the island and the top of the hill he is standing on.

By his wild shouting it is actually the first time we see Ferdinand, who is also “Pierrot le

fou”, so Crazy Pierrot, doing something that might be crazy in the sense of being

mentally disorientated. After killing Marianne this might be a reasonable reaction of

desperation but it also introduces a new and more obvious form of craziness, if he has

ever been crazy before.

In the last moment of this shot Ferdinand spreads his arms open while holding in

both hands the long dynamite batches. When he starts running down the hill, we get

reminded of a Paraglider that starts his flight. This gives us for a short moment the

impression of glory, preparing the moment of his “glorious” death.

After the cut we have a long close-up shot of almost two minutes in which he prepares

the dynamite for his suicide, followed of short close-up shot of only two seconds in

which see only the blasting fuse. It is obvious that the length of the shot is there in order

to build up tension, as he is preparing his suicide and the short shot is used to show that

his insight of the uselessness of this death is actually too late. What is happening here in

terms of giving meaning to and taking meaning away of the narrative is also quite

remarkable.

First he starts to explain himself: “What I wanted to say…” and after all the poetic

comments on his action we expect something profound. But he resigns: “What‟s the

point”, starting to put the dynamite batches around his head. The meaning of the entire

film is purposely deteriorated by this and even reinforced with the short shot in which

Ferdinand is trying to put the blasting fuse out in the next short shot. One could argue that

there is a cheat between the two scenes. While Ferdinand is lightening the fuse standing,

it is lying in the short shot on the ground. The two shots are however connected through

the voice-over of Ferdinand, who is saying: “What an idiot! Shit! A glorious death”.



We can interpret this as the awareness of Ferdinand that he is actually the hero of

a film with a dramatic ending. Fiction is then replaced by Reality, where a suicide is

never glorious. We can also read it as an element of Godard‟s postmodern cinema. Even

in the most dramatic point of the film the Protagonist has the awareness of himself being

in a film and by that highly comical deconstructs not only the film and its meaning but

almost any classical drama that uses the hero‟s or heroin‟s death as grand final.

Further the way he prepares his suicide, wrapping the two dynamite batches

around his head, is a reference to the party scene at the beginning when he explains why

he is leaving: “I‟m tired. I‟ve got a mechanism for seeing called eyes, for hearing called

ears, for speaking called mouth. But they feel disconnected. They don‟t work together. A

person should feel like he‟s one individual. I feel like I am many different people.” By

enclosing all these different mechanisms he tries to unify all his separate elements that

confuse not only him but also Marianne, who often calls him crazy and the audience, as

they often cannot make sense out puzzling verses he writes and quotes he uses. We can

infer that he succeeds with the moment he lights the fuse, but then it is already too late.

On another level we can interpret Ferdinand‟s awareness also as his confusion,

whether he is experiencing reality or fiction. Ferdinand‟s encounters in the cinema and

with comedian suggest together with the title of the film the reason for the narrative

intransity is “Pierrot‟s” craziness. We can then read Pierrot Le Fou also as a story about a

man who is caught up in a state between fantasy and reality, trying to develop a story

when he is together with Marianne. At this point he realises that it is stupid to waste his

own life just for the sake of a story. While we as viewer are then restrict to how

Ferdinand-Pierrot experiences or even creating the narrative, we experience him now in a

moment of self-awareness. He realises that the dream is gone and he is actually messing

up with his life. But when he has the insight it is too late and he dies. Then the actual

craziness of Ferdinand, who calls him in this moment an “idiot” himself, is that he wastes

his life for the sake of giving an interesting ending to his story. Marianne is then right

when they talk together in their first car scene: “lif e is so different from books. I wish it

were the same: clear, logical, organized...Only it isn't”. Ferdinand answers “Yes it is... a

lot more than people think.” but we and he have learned something different. Not only

did he waste his life for the story but also failed with an organized and logic plot.



The last shot starts by showing in an extreme long shot one part of the island where we

expected Ferdinand to have stood before his suicide, as it shows directly the explosion of

the dynamite. The direct explosion after the two seconds where he tried to put the fuse

out, emphasises even more that he did not had time to correct his mistake. However there

are two other themes picked up. At first, it refers back to the beginning of the film.

Ferdinand‟s outbreak and journey started with a firework and it ends with an explosion.

The second one refers to the sphere of Ferdinand, as the camera is panning slowly

to the right, revealing the blue of the sky and the seaside. It is important to note that just

before his suicide Ferdinand painted his face blue, making clear that death is an essential

part of his sphere. And if we look closely at the film we can find other signs of

Ferdinand‟s morbidity. Not only can we interpret the body in Marianne‟s apartment this

way, but also his idea to throw himself in front of a train, after Marianne had left him.

But the same holds for Marianne although it is a different kind of affinity with the dead.

Not only is she a scrupulous killer, but also have the bodies she leaves behind artificially

red blood spots.

At one point in Pierrot Le Fou Marianne tells Ferdinand what he should write his novel

about: “Someone is walking around Paris...and suddenly he sees Death. So he goes south

to avoid running into him, because he figures his time hasn't come yet. He drives all night

at top speed, and the next morning, when he reaches the sea-shore, he has a crack-up and

dies... just when he thought Death had lost his trail.” So in the end a unifying principle



between the two are not only their struggle over the right way of living, represented

through the two spheres, but also death. And they reach this unity (not to confuse with

narrative unity) in the final moment of the film, when the camera is slowly panning to the

sea and the horizon, stopping when the sun is above the frame. From the off we hear the

voice of Marianne starting a short exchange of words with Ferdinand: “It is our‟s again. -

What is it? – Eternity – That‟s just the sea, gone… - With the sun”. At this point we can

also guess where the Narrators voices came from that supported the action from the

undiegetic soundtrack.

Conclusion

“I‟m just a huge question mark

hanging over the Mediterranean.”

If we assume Godard wanted to make a movie about life, like Ferdinand wanted to write

a novel about “life as a thing in itself” and about that “what lies between people... space,

sound, and colours”, as this “would be something worthwhile” than it is interesting that it

ends with the death. While having presented a balanced and ambigious struggle of two

concepts of life, it is somewhat following the logic that it is has to end with the death,

like the life itself. Death is creating in the unity that was not possible before, of the two

principles, which are symbolised by the sun and the water, which are also two essential

elements of our life. By linking together death with eternity even a spiritual element is

suggested, creating even more ambiguity in the struggle over life. The elements of

Godard‟s counter cinema are promoting rather the uncertainty and struggle of real life

stand in sharp contrast to the always perfect suits and dresses the two protagonists are

wearing. In the end we can also not be sure of what auto-biographic reality is and what

fiction in this movie is, as Godard‟s ex-girlfriend Anna Karina is playing Marianne.



References

Cook, P. (Ed.). (2007). The Cinema Book. London: BFI Publishing.

Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2009). Film art : an introduction. New York: McGraw-

Hill Higher Education. (Ninth edition)

Forbes, J. (2011). Pierrot le fou and post-new wave french cinema. In W. Higbee & S.

Leahy (Eds.), Studies in French Cinema: UK Perspectives, 1985-2010 (pp. 27-43).

Bristol: Intellect Books.

Godard, Jean Luc. (1965). Pierrot Le Fou. Prod. George de Beauregard. France.

Wollen, P. (2002). Godard and counter cinema: Vent d'est. In C. Fowler (Ed.), The

European Cinema Reader (pp. 74-82). New York: Routledge.

pierrot le fou analysis

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