Directed by:
François TruffautCinematography:
Raoul CoutardComposer:
Georges DelerueCast:
Charles Aznavour, Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger, Albert Rémy, Michèle Mercier, Alex Joffé, Alice Sapritch, Daniel Boulanger, Claude Heymann, Claude Mansard (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
A former concert pianist, now the piano player in a seedy Parisian bar, is surrounded by gangsters and hoodlums. He is befriended by a woman who tries in vain to restore him to his former glory, but his own timidity and inability to act lead to tragic consequences for both. (official distributor synopsis)
Reviews (4)
In the first half, pleasantly (not only in terms of genre) meandering, purely resting on Charles Aznavour's shoulders and his charismatic gaze of a man who has experienced something and who can, whether he wants to or not, charm every girl he sees with that look. From the moment of the abduction, however, Francois Truffaut dives too deeply into the thriller genre, where he is no longer at home at all. He never truly embraces the suspenseful tracks and, instead of being inspired by various noir rules, he is instead constrained by them until the very end.
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Of all the creators of the French New Wave, I have watched the most from François Truffaut, and I also understand him the best. I have to say that within his work, Shoot the Piano Player does not represent anything significant, let alone a masterpiece. It is rather a plaything where the director tested the possibilities of combining several genres. While watching it, I felt that he mostly improvised and followed his current intuition. I don't see any order, well-thought-out, and coherent plan in it. Unfortunately, the script is far from perfect, and Truffaut's intentions were realized much more successfully in later decades by directors like the Coen brothers or the creators of modern multilayered TV series such as Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad. These creators are able to mix often seemingly contradictory genres more cleverly and effectively for the audience (without being cheap or superficial). Truffaut's experiment from the early 60s falls short by two classes. Truffaut's directing and the cast are interesting to me, but if the story doesn't absorb you and the characters are more or less irrelevant to you, you can't consider giving it a four-star rating. The selection of genres also harms the result. Truffaut truly didn't understand thrillers, and he should have avoided them altogether. What ultimately emerged will probably appeal much more to an art-house circle of viewers than to regular fans of genre productions. Overall impression: 60%.
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Nice movie. Truffaut demonstrates his love for the filmmaking of past generations with this witty tale of a gifted, shy pianist who finds himself in the wrong family at the wrong time, in the style of, well, several styles. Hitchcockian motifs alternate with detached romance and psychological drama, and though Truffaut manages to jump between different moods and genres quite gracefully and smoothly, the result didn’t leave me with a very consistent impression, and above all, even though it's only 80 minutes long, I couldn't help looking at my watch a few times to see how much longer I would have to stay in this strange company full of mere character shadows. A big difference from the previous The 400 Blows, a film so heartfelt and cohesive. 65%
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François Truffaut was a great filmmaker, and I enjoy film noir and crime movies, but this rendition just didn't sit well with me. There are some good moments that I liked formally, but the overall story just didn't entertain me. Every now and then, you can see how innovative and inventive Truffaut was, but that doesn't mean he wowed everyone.
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