Pierrot Le Fou Symbolism
Pierrot le fou is a French-Italian film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and released in 1965.
The film is about the story of Ferdinand Griffon, a man who lives a wealthy life in Paris. He is married to a rich Italian woman who gave him a child. Unsatisfied with his Parisian life, he decides to flee away with Marianne, an ex-girlfriend of his, whom he meets again by chance, while she has been called on to baby-sit his child.
Ferdinand decides to give a radical turn to his life pursuing a criminal career with the girl. After committing a murder, the two are forced to run away; thus a long and seemingly aimless journey with psychological connotations begins.
At a first view the plot appears to be quite weak and almost sterile. However, watching the …show more content…
The characters are constantly changing their clothes because they reflect their emotional situation. At night the gleams of traffic lights and neon signs create strange phantasmagoria, the brightness of the Mediterranean landscapes, including sun rays filtering in the forest, is the backdrop to a reality that is just a collage of coloured objects. A coloured parrot appears here and there, a white boat with red edges, a red dress with white hems, all of these images contribute to give the impression of a kaleidoscope. Even death is made of colours. Indeed Ferdinand, before taking his own life, paints his face in blue. The film becomes a kind of real kaleidoscope, both for this continuous play of colours, and , as we said above, for its strange structure, made of unstable equilibrium, heterogeneous, and continuously crumbling and overlapping fragments.
I am convinced that the use of colours and the beautiful choice of locations, make Pierrot le fou quite similar to Le Mépris (1963). The shades of blue of sky and sea and the warm sun of the South of France recall to me the set of the film that Fritz Lang directs in Capri. Even the blue in which Ferdinand paints his face is very similar to the make-up of the actors of the
The film is about the story of Ferdinand Griffon, a man who lives a wealthy life in Paris. He is married to a rich Italian woman who gave him a child. Unsatisfied with his Parisian life, he decides to flee away with Marianne, an ex-girlfriend of his, whom he meets again by chance, while she has been called on to baby-sit his child.
Ferdinand decides to give a radical turn to his life pursuing a criminal career with the girl. After committing a murder, the two are forced to run away; thus a long and seemingly aimless journey with psychological connotations begins.
At a first view the plot appears to be quite weak and almost sterile. However, watching the …show more content…
The characters are constantly changing their clothes because they reflect their emotional situation. At night the gleams of traffic lights and neon signs create strange phantasmagoria, the brightness of the Mediterranean landscapes, including sun rays filtering in the forest, is the backdrop to a reality that is just a collage of coloured objects. A coloured parrot appears here and there, a white boat with red edges, a red dress with white hems, all of these images contribute to give the impression of a kaleidoscope. Even death is made of colours. Indeed Ferdinand, before taking his own life, paints his face in blue. The film becomes a kind of real kaleidoscope, both for this continuous play of colours, and , as we said above, for its strange structure, made of unstable equilibrium, heterogeneous, and continuously crumbling and overlapping fragments.
I am convinced that the use of colours and the beautiful choice of locations, make Pierrot le fou quite similar to Le Mépris (1963). The shades of blue of sky and sea and the warm sun of the South of France recall to me the set of the film that Fritz Lang directs in Capri. Even the blue in which Ferdinand paints his face is very similar to the make-up of the actors of the