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2006 review (**** out of ****)
Lots of fun. A movie about the making of a movie, and rarely are the artifices of filmmaking shown off with such great affection, from actors pretending not to step over dolly tracks, to rain machines, to dozens of cigarettes being cut in half for different takes, to lamps hidden in trick candles. Sets are convincing from the front but props from behind, and there are breathtaking crane shots (of crane shots!). The fake hotel room built on stilts might make you dizzy. Although “Day for Night” is about how off-set personal and technical problems plague the onscreen, and how actors even take on vague characteristics of their characters, the result is never cloying or sentimental; we never feel like we’re watching the drama class laughing too hard at some private joke that we don’t get. The lead actor is played by Jean-Pierre Leaud doing what he does best: self-absorbed and childish with a face of utter, regal seriousness, as he demands money for a whorehouse or blows off woman trouble in a go-cart. Throughout it all, you can feel Truffaut’s great love of making movies—open-faced, smiling, uncomplicated adoration—and the people in them. The idea of the film is said to have come from Truffaut’s interviews with Hitchcock, in which the master mentioned that he liked the idea of making a movie about making a movie, in which the fabricated drama is not nearly as interesting as the real-life dramatics. (Big shock: Brian De Palma is on the DVD extras talking about how much he loves “Day for Night.” De Palma, in love with a movie about the artifice of movies?! Never!)
.
Lots of fun. A movie about the making of a movie, and rarely are the artifices of filmmaking shown off with such great affection, from actors pretending not to step over dolly tracks, to rain machines, to dozens of cigarettes being cut in half for different takes, to lamps hidden in trick candles. Sets are convincing from the front but props from behind, and there are breathtaking crane shots (of crane shots!). The fake hotel room built on stilts might make you dizzy. Although “Day for Night” is about how off-set personal and technical problems plague the onscreen, and how actors even take on vague characteristics of their characters, the result is never cloying or sentimental; we never feel like we’re watching the drama class laughing too hard at some private joke that we don’t get. The lead actor is played by Jean-Pierre Leaud doing what he does best: self-absorbed and childish with a face of utter, regal seriousness, as he demands money for a whorehouse or blows off woman trouble in a go-cart. Throughout it all, you can feel Truffaut’s great love of making movies—open-faced, smiling, uncomplicated adoration—and the people in them. The idea of the film is said to have come from Truffaut’s interviews with Hitchcock, in which the master mentioned that he liked the idea of making a movie about making a movie, in which the fabricated drama is not nearly as interesting as the real-life dramatics. (Big shock: Brian De Palma is on the DVD extras talking about how much he loves “Day for Night.” De Palma, in love with a movie about the artifice of movies?! Never!)
1973, 115 min, PG. Directed & co-written by Francois Truffaut, starring Jacqueline Bissett, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Valentina Cortese, and Jean-Pierre Leaud.
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