Line #34 Film/PierrotLeFou


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pierrot_le_fou.jpg]]
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3	''Pierrot le Fou'' (meaning "Pierrot the Mad") is a 1965 film by Creator/JeanLucGodard.
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5	Ferdinand (Creator/JeanPaulBelmondo) is an upper-middle class Parisian stuck in an unhappy marriage to a rich woman. One night he and his wife go out to a party. When they come back Ferdinand discovers that the babysitter, Marianne (Creator/AnnaKarina), is an old girlfriend of his.
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7	Quite impulsively, they run away together. Ferdinand is only mildly surprised to find out that Marianne is part of a group of gun smugglers. In fact, she double-crossed the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_arm%C3%A9e_secr%C3%A8te OAS]], a right-wing terrorist group, and absconds with a bunch of their money. Ferdinand happily joins her in a life of crime.
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9	----
10	!! Tropes
11	* TheArtifact: The source novel describes a relationship between an older man infatuated with his teenaged babysitter. That idea had to be abandoned when Belmondo and Karina, only seven years apart in age, were cast as the leads--but when they run away together, Marianne is still wearing a student's uniform, and working as Ferdinand's babysitter.
12	* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The awful Vietnam War "play" that Ferdinand and Marianne put on for American tourists. His English dialogue basically consists of repetitions of "Oh yes...Hollywood...Communist", while she puts on {{Yellowface}} and babbles ''ching-chong'' nonsense.
13	* BreakingTheFourthWall: At some point, Ferdinand says "you see? All she cares about is having fun" to which Marianne asks who is he talking to. He answers "to the viewer".
14	* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: Stolen by Ferdinand from the gangsters, at Marianne's behest, near the end of the film.
15	* TheCameo:
16	** At the weird party for his wife's parents, Ferdinand meets none other than Creator/SamuelFuller, who is in Paris to make a movie. He says that cinema is about "emotion".
17	** Creator/JeanPierreLeaud appears briefly as "Young Man in Movie Theater".
18	* FakingTheDead: Ferdinand and Marianne come across a wrecked car on the road, and Marianne decides the two of them should do this, including setting fire to their own car.
19	* FanserviceExtra: The women at the boring party Ferdinand attends suddenly start appearing topless, because...breasts are nice to look at?
20	* InsistentTerminology: A running gag in this film. Marianne always calls Ferdinand Griffon "Pierrot" and he always responds: "my name is Ferdinand".
21	* LittlePeopleAreSurreal: The gangster that captures Marianne and demands his money is a little person, because presumably Jean Luc Godard wanted to make his film that much weirder.
22	* LookBehindYou: A gas station attendant is angry at Marianne and Ferdinand for trying to get out of paying. Marianne simply points up, and when the attendant looks up, she pushes him over. She tells Ferdinand she learned the trick from Creator/LaurelAndHardy.
23	* MeaningfulName:
24	** Marianne Renoir - Marianne for the symbol of France and Renoir for also two symbols of France: Creator/AugusteRenoir the famed painter and Creator/JeanRenoir, his son, one of the greatest French filmmakers.
25	** Also Pierrot, of course. In the CommediaDellArte Pierrot is a sad clown who loves Columbine/Columbina, but always loses her to Harlequin/Arlecchino. Marianne's insisting on calling Ferdinand by that name is major {{Foreshadowing}} of how she betrays him in the end.
26	* {{Narrator}}: Both Marianne and Ferdinand narrate their story, usually finishing each other's sentences.
27	* OutlawCouple: Marianne Renoir and Ferdinand Griffon aka "Pierrot" finally turn into the one.
28	* RelativelyFlimsyExcuse: Marianne claims that fellow revolutionary Fred is her brother, but when they are re-united in the film's final act, they hug and kiss in a way that makes it clear they are not siblings but romantic partners, and they have been using Ferdinand all along to get enough money to escape the vengeance of the OAS.
29	* ShoutOut:
30	** Ferdinand justifies letting the kids go to the movies by saying, well, they were showing ''Film/JohnnyGuitar''.
31	** Ferdinand looks around the harbor at Toulon and says it reminds him of ''Film/PepeLeMoko''. That's a movie about a jewel thief who tries to escape from Algiers by boat.
32	** Late in the film, Ferdinand likens his relationship with Marianne to a film starring Michel Simon in which he fell in love with a girl he knew was bad for him. The film in question is ''Film/LaChienne'', in which Simon plays a timid cashier who falls in love with a prostitute who, along with her pimp/boyfriend, is just using him for financial gain - which, we later learn, is also true of Ferdinand and Marianne (with Fred playing the role of the pimp/boyfriend).
33	* ThisIsReality: When carrying out a getaway plan, Marianne tells Ferdinand, "This is not a film."
34	* ThisMeansWarpaint: After killing Marianne, and right before killing himself with dynamite, Ferdinand paints his face blue. Why? Who knows?
35	* UntranslatedTitle: This film is generally known as ''Pierrot le Fou'' (literally: "Pierrot the Madman"; "Pierrot" is a diminutive form of "Pierre", the French equivalent of given name "Peter") in the English-speaking world.
36	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Ferdinand is strangely calm when hanging out at Marianne's apartment, which contains 1) a dead guy, stabbed through the neck with a pair of scissors, and 2) a large cache of guns and ammo.
37	* WaterTorture: Ferdinand is subjected to this by a couple of gangsters in an attempt to get him to reveal where Marianne is hiding; they put him in a bathtub, cover his head with one of Marianne's dresses so he cannot breathe, and spray him with the showerhead. It takes a few attempts before he caves.

Context Film / PierrotLeFou