Pierrot le fou is a film that showcases all of JLG's machinations: criticism of society's acceptance of the status quo, the impotence of revolution, the challenges of living life. What say you?
Of the Godard films we have viewed in class thus far, Pierrot Le Fou seems to be the most self-aware, critical, and contradictory (to the point of absurdity). Even from the point of the opening credits, in which the multi-colored letters randomly appear to show the construction of the title and names, the structure of cinema is exposed. The film opens with Pierrot reading aloud from a novel about the structural composition of art, emphasizing the constant focus on different mediums of expression and how they are manipulated to create different meanings. Many elements of cinema are exposed in a confrontational manner to the viewers, like color, light, image and sound. At a party, entire scenes are washed in different colors: red, blue, green, etc. There are often cuts to colored neon lights flashing words like “Cinema” or “Life.” Colored lights also reflect off the car windshield when Marianne and Pierrot are driving around, obstructing their faces as they talk. Images of paintings, pictures, and comic books are often cut between (or occasionally in the midst of) different scenes. Sometimes these images are favored over images of the film’s action, undermining moments the audience might otherwise consider important to the film’s story. Sound in the movie often switches from diegetic noise and dialogue to non-diegetic music to silence, often with no explanation. Overall, the film works in a way that makes it impossible to ignore the fact that it is a FILM. The film itself, as well as the characters involved, remains blatantly aware that it is part of a constructed entity, not real life. The characters emphasize this self-awareness by speaking directly to and about the audience, and by narrating phrases such as, “Real life is something else.” The characters then seem to play with the idea of being in a film through things like consciously changing genres (back and forth between musicals, gangster films, etc.). The story remains an unimportant element of the film at many times, and the characters even narrate together that this is “A story –All mixed up.” The chapters reflect this jumbled and incoherent narrative by repeating and changing (sometimes reversing) order.
Godard also seems to acknowledge the absurdity of attempting to limit and define things like war (Vietnam and Algerian), life, love, and death. His frustration with the structure and norms of society seems to be expressed through this absurdity as well. The film constantly introduces contradicting definitions and treatments of these ideas (life, love, war, death, etc.) and social norms, revealing the true complexity of each and the impossibility of reaching a single, definite conclusion about any of the ideas. The film is packed with contradictions of this kind, emphasizing the logic of “AND” discussed in class. As the characters debate each side of contradicting arguments (like words vs. things, feelings vs. ideas, music vs. literature), it becomes apparent that both sides are correct and must work together to create a kind of understanding. The poem Marianne writes about Pierrot explicitly juxtaposes contradicting ideas in an attempt to describe Pierrot. The contradictions presented in every element of the film exposes the medium of cinema, the absurd way in which traditional films attempt to limit abstract ideas, the impossibility to contrive a strict definition of these ideas, and the potential for different meanings and understandings to be realized through the simultaneous existence of these contradictions.
In the scene where Ferdinand and Marianne are talking about their relationship on the boat, she literally calculates the number of seconds they have spent together and says:
“I’ve only been with you a couple of million seconds out of the two hundred and fifty billion that go to make up your life.”
She then looks directly at the camera and says:
“That’s not much. So, I’m not surprised that I don’t know who you are, either.”
Marianne’s comment suggests that she will never know who Ferdinand is, just as he will never know who she is either. The various contradictions in characterization throughout the entire film prove this point. Godard establishes these characters from traits everyone contains, whereas Classical Hollywood merely focused on good and bad ones. Just as we discussed in class, Shindler makes the “good choice,” which justifies every bad thing he’s ever done and we now glorify him. In real life, everyone makes good and bad choices, and we just learn to accept them and move on. Classical Hollywood loves to glamorize these moments with emphasizing the emotion of the choices the characters make so the audience can connect with the character. In this film, it is hard to relate to both Ferdinand and Marianne, because they constantly change. Even further into the characters themselves, they seem at times to know what they want, then at others, they haven’t the faintest clue. Also, Classical Hollywood presents the typical love story, with one character in love with another and the pursuit one goes through to accomplish the goal. Since we have seen two films, including the clip from Alphaville, that all posed the question: What is love, it is important to note that Pierrot Le Fou does not come closer to answering the question, but instead pushing the audience to further question the question. At times, Ferdinand seems in love with Marianne, but others he doesn’t. At times, Marianne seems in love with Ferdinand, and others, she doesn’t, therefore in this film, love is shown as a battle or struggle for understanding. Towards the end, Marianne leaves Ferdinand. He pursues after her, and in the fashion of Classical Hollywood, she is shot and he romantically carries her inside and gently lays her down on a bed, however exclaims, “you brought it on yourself.” It questions if he in fact loved her, why did he go after her only to shoot her and have the last laugh. Perhaps Godard suggests love is indeed a battle – to the death.
This scene mentioned before with Ferdinand and Marianne understanding each other brings up another interesting discussion in that if we (the audeicne) get an almost two hour glimpse of the lives of Marianne and Ferdinand, can we really say we know them? Typically in classical Hollywood, and even in some of the films we have seen so far from the French New Wave, the story introduces us to characters and we follow them throughout the film and get to know them more and more as the film progresses. In Pierrot Le Fou, Godard takes that notion and breaks it up so much that the more the film progresses, the more we question the validity of the way the small timeframe of the medium is considered a justification for understanding characters. The truth is an audience will never really know who Marianne and Ferdinand are, because we only witness this window of time the film/Godard allows us to see. Godard shows this by having Marianne make this statement directly to the audience.
Of the Godard films we have viewed in class thus far, Pierrot Le Fou seems to be the most self-aware, critical, and contradictory (to the point of absurdity). Even from the point of the opening credits, in which the multi-colored letters randomly appear to show the construction of the title and names, the structure of cinema is exposed. The film opens with Pierrot reading aloud from a novel about the structural composition of art, emphasizing the constant focus on different mediums of expression and how they are manipulated to create different meanings. Many elements of cinema are exposed in a confrontational manner to the viewers, like color, light, image and sound. At a party, entire scenes are washed in different colors: red, blue, green, etc. There are often cuts to colored neon lights flashing words like “Cinema” or “Life.” Colored lights also reflect off the car windshield when Marianne and Pierrot are driving around, obstructing their faces as they talk. Images of paintings, pictures, and comic books are often cut between (or occasionally in the midst of) different scenes. Sometimes these images are favored over images of the film’s action, undermining moments the audience might otherwise consider important to the film’s story. Sound in the movie often switches from diegetic noise and dialogue to non-diegetic music to silence, often with no explanation. Overall, the film works in a way that makes it impossible to ignore the fact that it is a FILM. The film itself, as well as the characters involved, remains blatantly aware that it is part of a constructed entity, not real life. The characters emphasize this self-awareness by speaking directly to and about the audience, and by narrating phrases such as, “Real life is something else.” The characters then seem to play with the idea of being in a film through things like consciously changing genres (back and forth between musicals, gangster films, etc.). The story remains an unimportant element of the film at many times, and the characters even narrate together that this is “A story –All mixed up.” The chapters reflect this jumbled and incoherent narrative by repeating and changing (sometimes reversing) order.
ReplyDeleteGodard also seems to acknowledge the absurdity of attempting to limit and define things like war (Vietnam and Algerian), life, love, and death. His frustration with the structure and norms of society seems to be expressed through this absurdity as well. The film constantly introduces contradicting definitions and treatments of these ideas (life, love, war, death, etc.) and social norms, revealing the true complexity of each and the impossibility of reaching a single, definite conclusion about any of the ideas. The film is packed with contradictions of this kind, emphasizing the logic of “AND” discussed in class. As the characters debate each side of contradicting arguments (like words vs. things, feelings vs. ideas, music vs. literature), it becomes apparent that both sides are correct and must work together to create a kind of understanding. The poem Marianne writes about Pierrot explicitly juxtaposes contradicting ideas in an attempt to describe Pierrot. The contradictions presented in every element of the film exposes the medium of cinema, the absurd way in which traditional films attempt to limit abstract ideas, the impossibility to contrive a strict definition of these ideas, and the potential for different meanings and understandings to be realized through the simultaneous existence of these contradictions.
In the scene where Ferdinand and Marianne are talking about their relationship on the boat, she literally calculates the number of seconds they have spent together and says:
ReplyDelete“I’ve only been with you a couple of million seconds out of the two hundred and fifty billion that go to make up your life.”
She then looks directly at the camera and says:
“That’s not much. So, I’m not surprised that I don’t know who you are, either.”
Marianne’s comment suggests that she will never know who Ferdinand is, just as he will never know who she is either. The various contradictions in characterization throughout the entire film prove this point. Godard establishes these characters from traits everyone contains, whereas Classical Hollywood merely focused on good and bad ones. Just as we discussed in class, Shindler makes the “good choice,” which justifies every bad thing he’s ever done and we now glorify him. In real life, everyone makes good and bad choices, and we just learn to accept them and move on. Classical Hollywood loves to glamorize these moments with emphasizing the emotion of the choices the characters make so the audience can connect with the character. In this film, it is hard to relate to both Ferdinand and Marianne, because they constantly change. Even further into the characters themselves, they seem at times to know what they want, then at others, they haven’t the faintest clue. Also, Classical Hollywood presents the typical love story, with one character in love with another and the pursuit one goes through to accomplish the goal. Since we have seen two films, including the clip from Alphaville, that all posed the question: What is love, it is important to note that Pierrot Le Fou does not come closer to answering the question, but instead pushing the audience to further question the question. At times, Ferdinand seems in love with Marianne, but others he doesn’t. At times, Marianne seems in love with Ferdinand, and others, she doesn’t, therefore in this film, love is shown as a battle or struggle for understanding. Towards the end, Marianne leaves Ferdinand. He pursues after her, and in the fashion of Classical Hollywood, she is shot and he romantically carries her inside and gently lays her down on a bed, however exclaims, “you brought it on yourself.” It questions if he in fact loved her, why did he go after her only to shoot her and have the last laugh. Perhaps Godard suggests love is indeed a battle – to the death.
This scene mentioned before with Ferdinand and Marianne understanding each other brings up another interesting discussion in that if we (the audeicne) get an almost two hour glimpse of the lives of Marianne and Ferdinand, can we really say we know them? Typically in classical Hollywood, and even in some of the films we have seen so far from the French New Wave, the story introduces us to characters and we follow them throughout the film and get to know them more and more as the film progresses. In Pierrot Le Fou, Godard takes that notion and breaks it up so much that the more the film progresses, the more we question the validity of the way the small timeframe of the medium is considered a justification for understanding characters. The truth is an audience will never really know who Marianne and Ferdinand are, because we only witness this window of time the film/Godard allows us to see. Godard shows this by having Marianne make this statement directly to the audience.