A new-wave whirlwind of politics, pop culture and colour. A journey through the mind of one of cinemas early revolutionaries as he broadens the boundaries of film and leads traditional narrative by a leash into wispy waters.
I saw Pierrot Le Fou for the first time as an undergraduate. My understanding of Godard's experimentation with narrative and audience perception was naive and I was unable to contrast his work with much else from the same period. It is only through researching French New Wave cinema and discovering the movement's impact on an international scale, that I can begin to understand what Godard was trying to achieve with this most unique production.
As with other projects that sport a similar style to Pierrot Le Fou, Godard is able to showcase his personal opinions on everything from American music to war and torture. However, the platform for Godard's ventilation is more to the tune of a canvas; bombarded with exquisite colour and tableaux, than it is a motion picture. But I think this is what I failed to understand about the film when I saw it first; the improvisation and sporadic script writing that was once difficult for me to swallow, seemed to overshadow the fantastic use of colour, drama and whit that Godard applies here. That combined with a delicious performance by Anna Karina and the classic cool composure of Jean-Paul Belmondo makes for a most insightful slice of French New-Wave.
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