#769: TRUFFAUT, François: Day For Night (1973)
TRUFFAUT, François (France)
Film Rating (0-60):
Commentary
None.
Visual essay
By filmmaker ::kogonada
Archival television footage
About the film, including footage of Truffaut on the set.
Day For Night [1973]
Spine #769
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
This affectionate farce from François Truffaut about the joys and strife of moviemaking is one of his most beloved films. Truffaut himself appears as the harried director of a frivolous melodrama, the shooting of which is plagued by the whims of a neurotic actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud), an aging but still forceful Italian diva (Valentina Cortese), and a British ingenue haunted by personal scandal (Jacqueline Bisset). An irreverent paean to the prosaic craft of cinema as well as a delightful human comedy about the pitfalls of sex and romance, Day for Night is buoyed by robust performances and a sprakling score by the legendary George Delerue.
116 minutes
Color
Color
Monaural
in French
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2015
Director/Writers
Screenplay by François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard, and Suzanne Schiffman.
Truffaut was 41 when he directed Day for Night.
Other Truffaut films in the Collection:
#5: The 400 Blows (1959)
#315: Shoot The Piano Player (1960)
#281: Jules And Jim (1962)
#749: The Soft Skin (1964)
#186: Stolen Kisses (1968)
#187: Bed And Board (1970)
#188: Love On The Run (1979)
#462: The Last Metro (1980)
The Film
Other Truffaut films in the Collection:
#5: The 400 Blows (1959)
#315: Shoot The Piano Player (1960)
#281: Jules And Jim (1962)
#749: The Soft Skin (1964)
#186: Stolen Kisses (1968)
#187: Bed And Board (1970)
#188: Love On The Run (1979)
#462: The Last Metro (1980)
The Film
The French title is La Nuit américaine. A good pun resulted in a cute jab: L'ennui américaine ...
**
Perhaps the most beloved film ever made about filmmaking!
Halfway through the shoot of Meet Pamela, Truffaut inserts a montage of cinematic imagery, accompanied by a triumphant, Baroque cue from the composer, Georges Delerue:
- Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset) rehearsing
- C/U camera lens
- Rehearsing, with Ferrand coaching Julie
- Lights
- Alphonse walking through dolly tracks as the camera films him
- Julie's hands, with Ferrand giving direction
- Light
- Hands
- Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont)
- Light / Bertrand
- Alphonse and Julie jumping over a dolly track
- Séverine (Valentina Cortese)
- Odile (Nike Arrighi)
- Crew
- film strip
- Julie and Séverine / legs
- camera / lens / Ferrand
- Alphonse with newspaper / Liliane (Dani) with clapperboard / stopwatch / lights
- moving a prop
- two different methods of shooting in a car / Julie, in the car, slating the clapperboard herself
- large light atop subway entrance
- crane
- Ferrand (Truffaut) has ordered some books on directors:
- Buñuel
- Dreyer
- Lubitsch
- Bergman
- Godard
- Hitchcock
- Rossellini
- Hawks
- Bresson
- a collection from Cahiers du cinéma
Truffaut must have wanted to edit out his book after Godard walked out of Day for Night in disgust, accusing Truffaut of having made "a lie." The two former friends never spoke again.
- The kid (uncredited) who steals the lobby cards from Citizen Kane (1940) {Spine #1104} is reenacting a true event from Truffaut's childhood. A similar scene can be seen in The 400 Blows (1959) {Spine #5/#185}.
"The perpetually squiffy Séverine doesn't remember much of anything, including her lines or the location of the set door. Her suggestion that she just recite numbers, 'like with Federico,' refers to Fellini's practice of dubbing, which Cortese would have encountered when they made Juliet of the Spirits together in 1965. It's one of comparatively few movie in-jokes in Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard, and Suzanne Schiffman's script, which prefers to pile up catastophes to not-quite-farcial effect; a later reference to Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game seems apt."
Commentary
None.
Visual essay
By filmmaker ::kogonada
Detailed look at the three dream sequences.
Interviews
With DP Pierre-William Glenn and assistant editor Martine Barraqué.
Interview
With film scholar Dudley Andrew.
Interviews
With DP Pierre-William Glenn and assistant editor Martine Barraqué.
Interview
With film scholar Dudley Andrew.
Detailed look at the Truffaut v. Godard feud.
Documentary
On the film from 2003, featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf.
Archival interviews
With director Truffaut, editor Yann Dedet, and actors Aumont, Baye, Bisset, Dani, and Menez.
Documentary
On the film from 2003, featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf.
Archival interviews
With director Truffaut, editor Yann Dedet, and actors Aumont, Baye, Bisset, Dani, and Menez.
Aumont interview:
The interviewer states that "there is a Pirnadellian and very comic relationship between the real film crew and the one 'filming' in Truffaut's film":
"I always addressed Truffaut with the formal vous. He used the formal vous with everyone, and I used it with him on our films together. But here he said, 'we have to use the informal tu. That's what Ferrand and his script girl use.' I said okay, but after two sentences, we'd go back to vous."
Must have been confusing.
Archival television footage
About the film, including footage of Truffaut on the set.
Trailer
Dubbed English-language version. Yuck.
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