Pierrot le fou

Praised by critic J. Hoberman as “the epitome of New Wave pop art romanticism,” Jean-Luc Godard’s dazzling Pierrot le Fou stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina (Godard’s then-wife in their sixth film together) as a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde mainly on the lam in a sun-drenched south of France.

Nominally based on a piece of American pulp fiction, it boasts Godard’s most stunning use of color, plus stray musical numbers, direct addresses to the camera, and digressions on art history and resentment over the U.S. presence in Vietnam. Hollywood director Sam Fuller, as himself, clarifies what we seek when we go to the movies: “Love, hate, action, violence, death—in one word, emotion.” (110 mins., 35mm)