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Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema

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Pierrot the Mad | Jean-Luc Godard

Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema

Some say that in this last decade, Godard was destroying the traditional format of cinema, both breaking the film's basic ideographic unit , action. A film without a complete action and coherent narrative is more likely to be a disaster and torture for ordinary audiences like us. So today I recommend a film that I personally believe finds the best balance between Godard's personal will, style expression and the audience's acceptability and interpretability - "Piero the Madman".

The plot of the film is not complicated (no spoilers here), but the complexity is Godard's approach. How to break the genre film routine under the framework and cloak of a genre film (gangster movie) and tell a story at the same time? How to break the boundaries of image expression and use the lens to be compatible with literature, painting, music and philosophical thinking without appearing obscure? How to show the techniques of color, editing, sound and painting in a game-like way, with an absolute aesthetic height? How to make a movie stand up to repeated viewing, one shot at a time? ...... There are answers in this film.

Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema
Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema

If you want to give a description of the style of Pierrot the Madman, it should be the best combination of poetic narrative expression, the philosopher's motif exploration, the artist's lens language and the ambition of the film madman.

A large number of obvious existential thinking in the film, the questioning and introspection of the essence of the film, the reshaping of editing and counterpointing techniques, and the destruction of traditional film-viewing relations are not only the germ of Godard's own film practice since then, but also leave a model for later film directors to innovate techniques and ideas. After watching "Piero the Madman" and then watching the works of later excellent directors, I will always see Godard's shadow from time to time.

#Exhausted | Jean-Luc Godard

Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema

Compared to Pierrot the Madman, "Exhausted" is undoubtedly much friendlier to audiences accustomed to the linear narrative of movies. This work, which is regarded as one of the prologues of the New Wave, predates Pierrot the Madman five years ago, when Godard had not completely abandoned the conventional film language, although there were a large number of jumping montages and unexpected long shots in the film, so that the plot sometimes presented a sense of compactness in an unnatural state of time, and sometimes like a raw image cut from the scene of life and unfinished, but the overall smoothness was still there.

Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema

"Exhausted" is also a film that combines crime and love themes, born out of genre films and anti-genre films. The male protagonist Michel, played by Jean Paul Bemon, an evergreen in the French film industry, is bohemian, completely unconstrained by moral rules and even laws, stealing, cunning and fierce, a genius criminal, but inexplicably loves Patricia, an international student who has only met several times. Patricia, played by Jane Silbo, combs a short elf head, has both an innocent and romantic side, and a rebellious spirit that is eager to try dangerous and unconventional things in her bones, this role has sent Siebel to the hot position of "queen of goods" and "lover of the masses" in that year, half a century later, the natural and flexible beauty and light and comfortable French fashion still stand up to scrutiny.

Pierrot the Madman | Jean-Luc Godard destroying the traditional format of cinema

Despite all this, Michelle and Patricia are still two unique characters in the history of cinema, and some people have commented that they are "not against morality, but completely indifferent to morality" two people. Personally, I feel that Michelle's immorality comes directly from Godard's rebellion against the mainstream, the conventional, and the tradition, which is not to say no to all existing objects, but to directly ignore, just like Michelle's classic image in the film - smoking a cigarette, pulling a contemptuous smile to the side of the corner of the mouth, and then walking by without squinting. Driven by the instincts, desires and passions of genius, the image of Michelle, who makes people love and hate, provides a template for a different protagonist in film history, and the male protagonists of many crime films such as "Cat and Mouse Game" and "Genius Ripley" have this kind of suspended moral judgment, highlighting the shadow of the setting of human instinctive impulses and emotional strength.

The core of "Exhausted" is also Godard's rebellious spirit and search for the meaning of life, which may still be existential and nihilistic, but as Godard said in "Pierrot the Madman" through the mouth of the American director - the film is a battlefield, full of love, hatred, action, violence, death, its essence can be summarized in one word, that is, emotion.

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