Try not to laugh during the absurd bits featuring a sailor who complains that he's had a song stuck in his head for several decades.

Try not to grin when Pierrot and Marianne "reenact Vietnam" for a group of American tourists. Pierrot is one of cinema's essential films, perhaps because it came at the precise moment when Godard hit his all-time peak.

Made in , it came during the eight-year period ''67 during which the man made a jaw-dropping fifteen films. Some of them work better than others -- no wonder, for he was experimenting with all of cinema's possibilities -- but many are masterpieces, and Pierrot is the crown jewel.

In many respects, Pierrot is flawless. In all others, it remains great art. Prime Video has you covered this holiday season with movies for the family.

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Alternate Versions. Rate This. Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria.

They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. Director: Jean-Luc Godard. Writer: Jean-Luc Godard. Available on Amazon.

Added to Watchlist. The Evolution of Keanu Reeves. Movies I've Watched-July The Yearbook. Share this Rating Title: Pierrot le Fou 7.

The film is based on the novel Obsession by Lionel White. The plot follows Pierrot, an unhappily married man as he escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria.

It was the 15th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 1,, admissions in France. Ferdinand Griffon is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job at a TV broadcasting company.

After attending a mindless party full of shallow discussions in Paris, he feels a need to escape and decides to run away with ex-girlfriend Marianne Renoir, leaving his wife and children and bourgeois lifestyle.

Following Marianne into her apartment and finding a corpse, Ferdinand soon discovers that Marianne is being chased by OAS gangsters, two of whom they barely escape.

They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. When they settle down in the French Riviera after burning the dead man's car full of money and sinking a second car into the Mediterranean Sea , their relationship becomes strained.

Pierrot ends up reading books, philosophizing, and writing in his diary. Marianne becomes bored by their living situation and insists they return to town, where they meet one of their pursuers in a nightclub.

The gangsters waterboard Pierrot and depart. In the confusion, Marianne and Pierrot are separated. He settles in Toulon while she searches for him.

After their eventual reunion, Marianne uses Pierrot to get a suitcase full of money before running away with her real boyfriend Fred, to whom she had previously referred as her brother.

Pierrot shoots Marianne and Fred, then paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to his head.

He regrets this at the last second and tries to extinguish the fuse, but he fails and is blown up. Like many of Godard's films, Pierrot le fou features characters who break the fourth wall by looking into the camera.

It also includes startling editing choices; for example, when Pierrot throws a cake at a woman in the party scene, Godard cuts to an exploding firework just as it hits her.

The film has many of the characteristics of the then dominant pop art movement, [4] making constant disjunctive references to various elements of mass culture.

Like much pop art, the film uses visuals drawn from cartoons and employs an intentionally garish visual aesthetic based on bright primary colors.

Sylvie Vartan was Godard's first choice for the role of Marianne but her agent refused. As with many of Godard's movies, no screenplay was written until the day before shooting, and many scenes were improvised by the actors, especially in the final acts of the movie.

The shooting took place over two months, starting in the French riviera and finishing in Paris in reverse order from the edited movie.

The director said the film was "connected with the violence and loneliness that lie so close to happiness today.

It's very much a film about France.