DAY FOR NIGHT Movie Review
La Nuit Americaine
At the American premiere of François Truffaut's Day for Night at the 1973 New York Film Festival, I overheard a critic in the lobby loudly pronouncing that Truffaut had finally revealed himself as a phony; he had made a movie about moviemaking that was devoid of passion and suffering. The critic (a reactionary jerk then and now) was wrong on both counts, for one of the glories of Truffaut's art lay in his ability to blind us with images of sunlight sparkling on a calm sea, forgetting for just a moment about the coming storm. The “characters” of Day for Night—actors, crew, their lovers, a narrator/director (played by Truffaut)—are as much children as the kids of Truffaut's later Small Change. As the director of what's apparently going to be a mediocre film (at best), Truffaut tells us—as if he were talking about a homework assignment late Sunday night—that at first he hoped to make a great film, then a good one, but now he hopes simply to finish it. He tells his sullen star (Jean-Pierre Léaud) to stop whining, that for them there is only the cinema—they aren't like normal people. This is the real world to them. And at that moment when the sun does come out and everything works—and the simple crane shot that the director wants to shoot is perfect—Georges Delerue's triumphant music rolls and the director confirms to us that “cinema is king.” At a moment of supreme nakedness, Truffaut's character listens to a playback of Delerue's music over the phone while he opens a parcel. It contains books—a copy of Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films, a copy of Dreyer's unfilmed screenplay for “Jesus,” and more. This remarkable, talented man was always in thrall to his own gods, for whom his passion was boundless. That critic was wrong—Truffaut was possessed of passion. But since the director's departure, it is the cinema that suffers.
NEXT STOP… 8 1/2, Alex in Wonderland, The Player
1973 (PG) 116m/C FR Francois Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Valentina Cortese, Alexandra Stewart, Dani, Nathalie Baye; D: Francois Truffaut; W: Suzanne Schiffman, Jean-Louis Richard, Francois Truffaut; C: Pierre William Glenn; M: Georges Delerue. Academy Awards '73: Best Foreign Film; British Academy Awards '73: Best Director (Truffaut), Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Cortese); New York Film Critics Awards '73: Best Director (Truffaut), Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Cortese); National Society of Film Critics Awards '73: Best Director (Truffaut), Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Cortese); Nominations: Academy Awards '74: Best Director (Truffaut), Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Cortese). VHS WAR