Nouvelles Femmes: Pierrot le Fou (35mm)
November 10, 2026
A husband (Jean-Paul Belmondo) flees his shallow Paris life with the babysitter (Anna Karina), to French Riviera escapades with gangsters, stolen loot, sunny hedonism, political commentary; a charming disorder, a reflection of director Godard's and Karina’s stormy marriage. It’s truly moving when he has her gaze into our/his camera’s eyes.
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Tuesday, November 10, 2026
A poet experiences the world and expresses it in words, images, emotions. Pierrot is Jean-Luc Godard’s free-form ode to “an artist and his girl in love, the last romantic couple,” made poignant because his seven-film relationship with Anna Karina, and their marriage, would soon be over. In the film they are personified as Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne (Anna Karina). Ferdinand, fed up with his life of oppressive bourgeois conformity, leaves his marriage-with-child for spontaneous road adventures with babysitter Marianne. In a euphoric rule-breaking rush, the couple speeds to an idyllic secluded island on the French Riviera. Ferdinand is now free to contemplate quietly and work on his book, with Marianne as his affectionate, inspiring companion. But she loves to sing and dance: “I’ve had it with nature, eating from cans, that’s it!” So its back to “civilization,” and what Marianne calls “a police novel, revolvers, nightclubs.” Ferdinand discovers that there’s more to Marianne’s story than he realized, and he responds accordingly, moment-to-moment: existential choice made profoundly literal. As Godard says, “The world between two flickers of the eyelids, the sadness between two heart-beats.” When Karina boldly gazes into Godard’s camera, at us, we feel both their hearts beating. In Godard’s deeply personal cinema, love can be both lost and eternal, the horizon where sun unites with sea.
- Director: Jean-Luc Godard
- Principal Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina, Graziella Galvani
- Country: France
- Year: 1965
- Running Time: 110 min.
- Producer: Anatole Dauman
- Screenplay: Guy de Maupassant
- Cinematographers: Raoul Coutard
- Editors: Françoise Collin
- Music: Antoine Duhamel
- Language: French
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- US Distributor: Rialto Pictures