Francois Truffaut's second feature film. His first film "The Four Hundred Blows" was his successful attempt to pick up the camera in the "New Wave" after he put down the film review pen of "Cinebook". Although this film is deeply influenced by American B-grade films, it is not difficult to see the line of "author films" that Truffaut has always advocated.
The film tells the story of an artist who loves music but is ignorant of the world. He changed his name and surname after an accident in his life. Pianist Edward Saroyan and his wife Teresa originally lived a happy and peaceful life. Edward longed to become a famous artist one day, but his understanding wife accepted it out of love for her husband. In the filthy conditions of a manager who can turn clouds and rains, it is difficult for him to balance his mind after losing his life. His beloved wife endured humiliation and tragic death for himself, Edward was in pain, and had no face to see the world again. Time flies, and he, who changed his name to Charlie Collier, came to a small town bar to play the piano, but he was implicated because his brother had a holiday with robbers. The title "Shoot the Pianist" is both sympathetic and ironic). Even more unfortunate is Lena, this kind girl with self-respect and self-respect, out of admiration and love for the pianist, because she was worried that Charlie would be murdered, she was shot by the gangster and died. Any viewer with a sense of justice will feel sad and unfair about this.
There are quite a few unforgettable moments in this film. Bar singer Bobby LaPointe, for example, sang "Strawberry Praise" when he was covering the West Coast. Another example, the robber Echnest swore to God that his clothes were made of Japanese metal, and said, "If I lie, my mother will die immediately." As soon as he finished speaking, an old woman standing on the street immediately fell down. These shots have been included in the classics.
Truffaut, who was born in 1932, was only 28 years old when the film was filmed. As he has just put down the pen of the film critic, the "authority" film criticism principles and method of filmmaking he advocated are still evident in his early works, while in his mid and late works, due to the excessive indulgence in love affairs The catharsis, the sharp-edged style of the year seems to have disappeared.
Truffaut once expressed his views on the "author's film" to the American film critics. In view of the fact that before the 1950s, Hollywood has always implemented the producer system, everything is decided by the producer, and it is difficult for the director to carry forward his personal creative style, so Truffaut proposed: "The future movies will be more personal than novels. It will become an autobiographical form, like a confession of a private diary." It should be said that Truffaut's proposition has been more fully reflected in some of today's films. Several of Margaret Durra's films with strong literary and unique personal style, such as "The Lover" and the recently published "North China Lover", can be called "Confessions of a Private Diary".
Truffaut believes that the works of several famous French directors such as Jacques Tadi, Eric Rommel, Robert Bresson, Jacques Baker, Jean-Luc Godard and others can be attributed Into the "author's film" column. The starting point of the "author theory" is that a director with a certain concept must produce a film that is completely in accordance with his own conception and accurately reflects his personal concept. When writing articles, novels, and poems, people often say that "the text is like the person", and the film should be "the film is like the person". The director must control the whole process of shooting, so that he can faithfully express his personal ideas. In this film, Truffaut strives to practice his own ideas, expressing his injustice and helpless despair towards the society through the fate of the protagonists. It is very unfortunate for a famous artist to live incognito due to the tragic death of his beloved wife, living in a humble alley with prostitutes and playing the piano in a bar. But even this kind of lingering life has repeatedly broken out. After his lover suffered misfortune, in order to make a living, he still had to return to the town to play the piano to live the rest of his life. Now only the sound of the piano can express his deep sorrow. In order to express his anger and despair over this social injustice, Truffaut chose Charlie Aznauer as the lead role in the film. Born in 1924, Charlie was a well-known singer in France in the 1950s and 1960s and was also quite famous internationally. He is a descendant of Turkish Armenian immigrants, a folk singer passed down from generation to generation. His singing is full of mockery and despair at social injustice. Truffaut chose him to express his own voice, and in fact, he fully embodied the director's intentions.
Regarding the concept of "authority" in film criticism, Truffaut believes that there is no difference between good and bad movies, only the director has the difference between good and bad. A bad director may make a film that looks good on the surface because of a good script or a famous actor, but in the eyes of strict film critics, such a film is worthless. Conversely, if a good director encounters a bad script and bad actors, or is limited by budget and makes an unpopular film, critics' interest in the film will not diminish. To take a step back, a good director can't make a film that is all good, and he also has his own aberrations, but this is irrelevant, because the important thing is to understand a director's consistent thoughts and concepts, from the beginning to the mature stage. The ideological trajectory shown in his entire film career, each of his works may be an integral part of his entire thinking, and a reflection of his thinking at a certain stage, naturally his works may be good or bad, some successful or not Fail. Bergman's films are like this. When they are good, they are extremely good, and when they are bad, they can be seen, but they are bad after all. Another example is Jean Renoir, who often tries different things, and his innovations are often beyond his time. In 1936, he made a film called "Tony", the realism of this film was more than ten years earlier than the Italian Neorealism movement. And in 1937 he shot "Beast in Clothes" and "Tony" in a completely different style. The gorgeous style of the film is even more than that of the same type of Hollywood films. Then in 1939, he made "The Rules of the Game" which was the first psychological film that proposed to abandon the principle of absolutizing human nature good and evil. At that time, the French audience and film critics refused to accept the film. A commercial failure doesn't mean it's a bad movie. On the contrary, many years later, the French film critics corrected their original evaluation, and generally considered it to be Renoir's most personal and artistically refined film. As one of the top French directors, he is recognized by the international film industry. All in all, from the point of view of "author theory", "authors" must be people like Jean Cocteau with profound literary qualities and certain insights into social life. They are constantly innovating and surpassing themselves. Constantly exploring a variety of different film means to express their own thoughts and concepts.
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