Pierrot Le Fou (1965)

Jean Luc Godard is possibly my favorite filmmaker ever. He just has this style to his movies that is so original. Godard is a french director most famous for Breathless (also known as À bout de souffle.) Jean-Paul Belmondo stars in both. Breathless was made five years earlier. I think most people would characterize Godard as artsy. Too artsy for most people. He implements alot of color and repitition. His use of metaphors sometimes confuse from the plot but if you can understand the plot it is easy to see the depth in Godard's films. Pierrot Le Fou is about Ferdinand, a man in an unhappy marrige. He searches for meaning in his life and can't find any. One night he goes out with his wife and their friends. talking to them and the other people at the party they go to exhausts him. He returns home to find the babysitter, a woman he has had a past relationship with. The babysitter is played by Anna Karina. Her character, Marianna Renoir, and Ferdinand run off together.Throughout the movie Marianna calls Ferdinand Pete. He keeps reminding her yet she persists that is his name. Hence the title, Pierrot Le Fou, which means Crazy Pete. They run off, steal cars, and kill people in order to have enough money to live off of. The plot is similar to that of Bonnie and Clyde, (1967) in fact, Godard alsmot directed Bonnie and Clyde. Both films have a "heroic villain" theme. The protagonists are lovable people so the audience learns to love them except they do horrible and disturbing crimes. Another theme I have seen in a two of Godard's movies is a close up shot but full bleed. You can only see the sheet of paper someone is writting on, not the majority of the hand that is writting or the edges of the paper. It is shown in Pierrot as Ferdinand writes in his journal and in Tout Va Bien (1972) where the characters are talking and writing on sheets of paper talking about what it takes to make a movie. Godard also favors off camera voice shots. where you see a scene but the voice talking doesn't show up on the screen. I'm going to refrain from writing more because I can go on about Jean Luc Godard forever.