- Francois Truffaut's Day for Night dares to ask the question: are movies really any good for us? It takes a director as thoughtful and introspective as Truffaut to even consider such a potentially disruptive question, but of course the fact that he embedded said question in a movie also indirectly tells us his opinion. Specifically, Truffaut seems most worried about the fact that every movie lies to its audience -- most famously through editing, but also with constructed sets, makeup, and even written scripts. Film never depicts the way the world really works, and yet people believe that they're learning about the world through cinema. One easily imagines Truffaut losing sleep over this issue in much the same manner as the director he portrays in this film.
- That director's name is Ferrand (Truffaut), and he has taken it upon himself to make a film entitled "Meet Pamela." His cast is headed up by a couple of old film pros in the form of debonair "ladies' man" Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and the perpetually tipsy Séverine (Valentina Cortese). There are also some younger faces present with the uncomfortably clingy Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud), the increasingly pregnant Stacey (Alexandra Stewart), and the Hollywood beauty Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset). Naturally, the film also has a producer (Jean Champion) and a crew that divides pretty cleanly into those who fix problems (Nathalie Baye, Nike Arrighi) and those who cause them (Dani, Bernard Ménez).
- Day for Night's opening scene is famous enough that I immediately recognized it, as a complicated tracking shot follows Alphonse to an uncomfortable confrontation with Alexandre...and then does it again a couple more times. At first the dramatic slap is off, later on the extras are slightly out of place, but the director struggles to get the scene right. And then the power goes out at the film processing plant, ruining an entire day's work. That is but one in a series of mostly amusing setbacks experienced by this production, ranging from the various neuroses of its stars, to behind-the-scenes romances, to a tragic car accident that threatens to derail everything. Sometimes it seems like the world is following Meet Pamela's script rather than the other way around.
- My favorite aspect of Day for Night is certainly how well Truffaut manages the tension inherent in offscreen drama and repeated takes. When is Alphonse going to notice that his fiancée is fooling around with multiple men? How is Julie's much older husband (David Markham) going to factor in? Will that cat ever drink the milk from a saucer? Is Séverine seriously going to open the wrong damn door again!? And all the while, Ferrand is haunted by a dream of a boy stealing Citizen Kane movie posters in what we assume is a glimpse of his childhood inspiration to become a filmmaker. Add in the wonderful fun that Truffaut has with juxtaposing what shows up onscreen with what actually happened, and you get a film that really makes you think about film. I consider that a great success! (Add recording of applause sounds here.)
- It's one thing to wear your influences on your sleeve, but it's quite another to dump out a package of books on Buñuel, Dreyer, Bergman, Hitchcock, Godard, Lubitsch, Rossellini and Bresson.
- Grahame Green gets a cameo, too!
