Every time I review a film by Jean-Luc Godard, I receive outraged letters from readers who hated it.
It is suggested that my reviews and myself join Godard on the trash heap of history. A common complaint is that Godard “made no sense.”
So let this be a warning: You probably won’t like “Pierrot Le Fou.”
One of Godard’s films, seen by itself, can be a frustrating and puzzling experience. But when you begin to get into his universe, when you’ve seen a lot of Godard, you find yourself liking him more and more.
“Pierrot Le Fou” marked the beginning of Godard’s current period. Before it came the black-and-white films – cool, quick and austere, with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships. After it came the Godard of color, wide screen and an increasing preoccupation with politics, American culture and violence.
“Pierrot Le Fou” was made in 1965 but only released in the U.S. this year. It seems to be a gangster picture: Jean-Paul Belmondo leaves his wife and goes to live with his former girlfriend, Anna Karina. She has apparently killed a man. They go on the lam in a stolen car, wind up on a deserted island, play the Robinson Crusoe bit for a while, and then go back to the mainland to face the music.
But Godard never sticks closely enough to this plot to make it important. He does a curious thing. He will have a scene that is perfectly conventional, like a scene in a Hollywood gangster movie. But it doesn’t come out of anything or lead into anything; it is important because of its tone, its texture and not because it advances the plot. Thus a Godard movie becomes a montage of pure technique; the parts don’t fit together, but they add up to an attitude.
Let me try an example. Belmondo wakes up in Karina’s apartment. She is in the kitchen. He is in bed, smoking. The camera follows her into the bedroom and back to the kitchen. She sings a song to him. A piano supplies a modest background. It is one of the most charming musical scenes in recent movies.
In passing, the camera notes a dead body. It is just there. Nothing is made of it, but its presence changes the tone of the scene. Godard goes into a series of three close-ups: of her, of him, of her again. Watch the movement of the actors’ eyes. Instead of moving his camera, Godard moves Belmondo’s eyes so that we “see” Karina moving. And we know she is going past the body again. This is an extraordinarily complex, effective scene: Not that it means anything, but it is a feeling, a mood.
Godard, a former film critic, once said that the only valid way to criticize a movie was to make one of your own. That is true of his own work, at least.
“Pierrot Le Fou”
NOT RATED | 1 hour, 50 minutes | DRAMA | Written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard; photography by Raoul Coutard; starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina | Opens today at Starz FilmCenter.
