François Truffaut
Tirate sul pianista

Shoot the Piano Player is the second feature film by Francois Truffaut, one of the greatest directors of all time and, in my opinion, particularly original.

After the dazzling debut (masterpiece) The 400 Blows, a film in some ways autobiographical, imbued with an Italian-style neo-realism but no longer proletarian but bourgeois, he completely changes course and delves into the path he himself will deeply trace, of the so-called Nouvelle Vague.

The same year, in 1960, Breathless by the "countryman" colleague Godard was released shortly before, another milestone of the Nouvelle Vague movement.

Shoot the Piano Player is a curious and fascinating object, indecipherable and ever-changing. Imagine holding a luminous prism in your hand... you look at it, move it, turn it... you don't know from which angle to observe it...

Shoot the Piano Player, drawing a parallel with music, is a cross-over genre. Starting from a foundation inspired by American noir, itself a child of hard boiled novels, often, in its 90 minutes, it flits and veers into comedy, tragedy, the surreal, mixing ingredients seemingly at random. The critic Alberto Barbera defined it (masterfully) as "an uncontrolled stroll." Simple as a stroll indeed, but uncontrolled because (Paolo Conte would say) "it glides and flies over the darkness for us"...

The story: yes, there is a story, moreover based on a novel: Down There by David Goodis but, always in my opinion, it's not that important in the film's economy.

Let me explain better: it's certainly not the plot that nailed me to the chair.

It wasn't the plot twists that made my jaw drop. It is Truffaut's overall work that captivated me.

Shoot the Piano Player is a "live" film; I don't know how to explain it, it exudes energy.

I don't find it easy either to explain what Truffaut's originality translates into... perhaps in a representation of life more vibrant than life itself? (quite neat, this one; it's a pity it's just a catchy phrase). Or in that detached, somewhat representative manner of his, in some way akin to pantomime, which makes you watch a work with detachment, without particular emotional involvement, almost as if he wants to connect more with your brain than with your emotions? Who knows... it is a deliberately unresolved film, just like life and its meaning. It is a highly representative film because it doesn't pass any sort of judgment, nor does it let you understand whose side it's on, why? Because it doesn't care at all, or perhaps it cares deeply but just throws it in there, with nonchalance... and who has more nonchalance than a French artist? And it is in this suspension of judgment that I understand I have witnessed a work of art, in some ways "pure," just as art should (or would like to) be.

What can be said about the modernity of the work? That urge for emancipation speaking, for example, about the theme of the relationship between man and woman. A film that exudes machismo in all its protagonists except one: THE protagonist, Charles Aznavour: the showman. The shy pianist, once a great performer of classical music in France's finest theaters, now reduced to playing in a third-rate venue. Why did he end up like this? A flashback will tell us.

To all this, the extraordinary filmmaking technique adds up (and isn't that just a small thing?), from the photography to the light cuts, from the editing to the spectacular sequences, see the chase that culminates with the police checkpoint, truly fantastic, and we are talking about 63 years ago, right?

What more can be said? Uh, I'm sure many pages have been written about this film, there's even a review (very well made) from 2011 by a user/admirer of Francois Truffaut. Well, you won't be jealous if today (actually since yesterday) I am too...

cover your breast, in cinema, they don't show a woman's bare breast for such a long time...