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Ebert's review

posted 16 years ago by Mr_McLaurel
8 replies | jump to latest

In Roger Ebert's 2007 review of Pierrot Le Fou, his description of a certain scene makes me think he saw a different movie than I did. I'm talking about the scene in Marianne's apartment with the corpse. Here's the paragraph in question:

"First stop, Marianne's flat, when Ferdinand goes into the next room, sees a dead body and returns to the living room. Later, she passes the body, which Godard shows us only by filming Belmondo's eyes watching her. Nice touch."

What? I went back and watched that scene again and it isn't anything like what Ebert describes. On my DVD, we first see the corpse with Marianne, not Ferdinand, and it happens while Ferdinand is in bed. The first time we see Ferdinand see the corpse is after some time passes, as he is in a suit and Marianne, in a pink dress, pick the dead gangster's pockets. Am I missing something? Is my DVD missing a scene? Is Ebert losing it?

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] jgcole 16 years ago

No, your not missing anything. Hard to say why Ebert would mess this up. The "nice touch" is that the camera follows Marianne into the living room/kitchen and her eyes go two or three times to the unseen body on the bed. Then, as you said, she goes into the bedroom where Ferdinand is.

After going back to check the scene I saw that Marianne had used the scissors in the back of the neck to kill just as she did later. Also she had an impressive cache of automatic weapons in her flat. Quite a girl.

[–] Mr_McLaurel 16 years ago

Well, that's a relief. Thanks for the reply. I didn't notice the scissors in the first scene either - is that what Godard considered "foreshadowing?"

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] Tchoutoye 14 years ago

Also she had an impressive cache of automatic weapons in her flat. Quite a girl.

Too bad though that the way she caries them shows she's never touched a weapon in her life.

[–] Mr_McLaurel 15 years ago

I noticed that too - but Wikipedia (I think) told me that in fact some early prints of the movie did have the Fuller scene in normal color.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] Brude_Stone 15 years ago

The first time I saw this scene I thought the dead body was some sort of weird modern art piece in her apartment simply because they are so nonchalant about it being there and because nothing that comes before that scene would suggest they might wind up killing some dude. By the end of the scene I did realize it was in fact a real body, but the moment we first see it I was so off kilter already by this movie I had no idea what was going on.

[–] chris_moore2004 15 years ago

Ebert's definitely lost it. The man gave Knowing 4/4 stars.

[–] blue_socking 15 years ago

Ebert changes his opinions pretty easy....He disliked Contempt and criticised Godard in the Aria review,but now added Breathless to his 'Great Movies' list.
But he's still a better critic and person than Pauline Kael.

[–] 14 years ago

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