Cinema: Wanton Flow

Between major works Jean-Luc Godard, like Graham Greene, composes entertainments. Pierrot Le Fou, made in 1965 but just released in the U.S., has little of the celebrated Godardian resonance. There are no impalements of the future, as in Alphaville or Weekend, nor is there much of the mordant social satire of La Chinoise or Les Carabineers. Godard himself feels that the film is merely "life filling the screen as a tap fills a bathtub that is simultaneously emptying at the same rate."

Godard is partly right; wanton flow is the film's main source of...

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