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Win French New Wave goodies from the BFI
Wed, 13 May 2009
News of the latest opportunity from our friends at the BFI giving film fans the chance to take a look back and learn lessons from cinema’s back catalogue. Currently embarking on a two-month celebration of the pioneering work of the critics-turned-filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague (Chabrol, Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer and Rivette), the BFI is now re-releasing Pierrot le fou which will be on screen at BFI Southbank and in cinemas nationwide from 22 May. Apart from letting you know about this excellent season we also have a host of goodies on offer – a copy of the excellent book The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks plus a pair of tickets for Pierrot le fou for one lucky winner, and an additional two pairs of tickets which can be claimed against any of the films in the Nouvelle Vague season for two equally lucky runners up.
For a chance of winning simply tell us the name of the magazine that many of the French New Wave filmmakers wrote for.
Answers by 12 noon on 20 May to general@scriptfactory.co.uk - and please put FRENCH NEW WAVE in the subject line.
For a taste of Pierrot le fou see the trailer at www.bfi.org.uk
Godard’s exuberant, infinitely playful tale of lovers on the run Pierrot le fou stars Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo at the height of their seductive charm. It’s a magnificent climax to the first phase of Godard’s filmmaking career and is re-released in a new restoration that does full justice to its breathtaking beauty.
Ferdinand (Belmondo) is a world-weary Parisian TV executive who has recently lost his job. Bored with his rich Italian wife, but too apathetic to seek a divorce, he returns home one evening from a mind-numbing cocktail party to a revitalising encounter with the babysitter who happens to be none other than his old flame Marianne (Karina). Following a night together in her apartment, which contains a crate of guns and a bloodstained corpse, the two hit the road in a series of stolen cars, heading south in flight from bourgeois existence and in search of a romantic utopia.
Pierrot Le Fou Based on Lionel White’s novel Obsession – and inspired, too, by the script for Bonnie and Clyde (which Godard had been sent in 1965) – Pierrot le fou was shot, in Godard’s words, ‘like in the days of Mack Sennett … the whole last part was invented on the spot, unlike the beginning which was planned. It is a kind of happening, but one that was controlled’.
‘What upsets me is that life is so different from novels,’ says Marianne at one point, a problem that the couple seek to remedy by constantly envisaging themselves as characters from a film or a novel, telling each other stories and imposing a fictional structure on their adventure. With cultural references ranging from Renoir to Rimbaud, Velázquez to the Vietnam War, and Lorca to Laurel and Hardy, Pierrot le fou is a brilliant exploration of different narrative genres, mixing crime thriller, adventure film, musical and comic strip elements with autobiography (diary entries) and news clips. It is also a rapturous ode to mad love and a lyrical lament on the impossibility of such love and is still one of the most energising, exhilarating experiences the cinema has to offer.