Tirez sur le pianiste

Francois Truffaut was a film critic for the magazine Cahiers du cinéma. He was disenchanted with what he saw as a lack of originality and honesty in contemporary cinema. He developed the theory of the auteur in cinema - an idiosyncratic force such as his hero Hitchcock rather than a 'civil servant of the cinema'.

His motivation for entering the cinema was to make films which he, and others like him, wanted to see and which then didn't exist. Cinema with breadth and imagination, which took risks and broke rules. The zest and vitality of his vision is still evident so many years on.

After his impeccable full -length debut, Les Quatre Cents Coups (aka The 400 Blows), which was a slice of life / coming of age tale, Truffaut took a completely different subject matter for this second feature. The source novel is 'Down There', typical US pulp fiction by the little known David Goodis. Its a tale of crime set in seedy locations with a graceless linear plot. Obviously its the way the filmmakers use this source that makes Tirez Sur Le Pianiste the film it is.

Charles Aznavour, a mainstream celebrity in France, is the bizarre but perfect choice for the lead role of Charlie Kohler. His passive, indifferent demeanour makes him an anti-hero of a different kind to Cagney or Brando - one who is ineffective in either solving or preventing crime. This minor cinematic tradition I see as continuing with John Klute in Klute (1971), Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973), reaching its comical apex with The Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998).

Not, in fact, that Charlie has to solve any crimes. He is simply out to save his skin - and those of his brothers. His life is in danger throughout the film yet he is more preoccupied with whether or not he should take the arm of the attractive waitress Lena (Marie Dubois) from the dive where he plays the piano, as he walks her home in a scene that is a perfect marriage of its imagery and internal monologue. It is this kind of juxtaposition of themes (threat to life and romantic shyness) which makes this film such compelling and unpredictable viewing.

The film opens with a charming conversation about the secrets of a happy marriage, spoken by a character we never see again who simply runs into Charlie's brother Chico (Albert Rémy) - who is the catalyst for the 'plot'. The throwaway conversations are really more important to the creative spirit of the film than any of the plot's major concerns. This trend continues with the characters of Ernest and Momo, the pursuing heavies. Though evidently dangerous men, they speak tangentially on a range of subjects (mostly women, though) which cannot help but remind a modern audience of Tarantino's hit men in Pulp Fiction. Indeed much of what I said about Truffaut - how he was compelled to make rule-changing cinema that he and others wanted to see - could of course equally be applied to Tarantino.

The centrepiece of the film goes back to Charlie' past where he was a classical concert pianist. This beautiful vignette explains to us why Charlie is in the pits now. Nicole Berger as Thérèse Saroyan, Charlie's wife absolutely owns this part of the film. This section also features the celebrated and beautiful sequence where the camera chooses to follow a female violinist from the door of an apartment and out into the courtyard. Why? Just for the sake of artistic freedom, it seems.

As well as Aznavour and Berger, the casting is uniformly perfect. Claude Mansard and Daniel Boulanger as the waffling heavies, Marie Dubois as the sweet, maternal young waitress Léna, Michèle Mercier as a tart with a heart with a body to die for (bringing the total of female 'leads' to three!), Serge Davri and Catherine Lutz as Charlie's antagonistic and ultimately tragic employers. The obscure threesome (the latter two brothers have their only major film roles here) of Albert Rémy, Jean-Jacques Aslanian and the young Richard Kanayan are brilliantly effective as Charlie's brothers, all of whom display varying degrees of the criminal element - the 'curse' of Charlie and his family. Early on in the film there is also a terrifically amusing song (complete with karaoke-style lyrics) performed by Boby Lapointe, a real-life Parisian entertainer.

For all its wealth of ideas, though, this is generally not a pacey movie. Its pace is as laidback as Charlie himself at times. But with patience this will reward the audience with all kinds of unexpected delights.

You're a humble pianist inside a bar, when your brother barges in to pay regards, he's pursued by two tough villains, but your able to contain them, give him time to make escape, and go afar. But these rogues have found a way to track you down, and they know where you reside, which part of town, so they'll take something that's close, means your brother is exposed, and the place where he's escaped, is now well known.

The tale of how Charlie Koller went from obscurity to fame and back again, before all hell breaks loose when his brother, under pursuit, walks back into his life. Great performances, original in its presentation for the time, by a truly great, visionary director.

Shoot the Pianist is Francois Truffaut's attempt at mirroring the greatness of the classic gangster films. And suffice to say; it is a very nice attempt indeed. The film follows Charlie Kohler, a simple bar-side piano player. Charlie's life takes a turn for the more exciting one day when his brother turns up at the bar, telling his brother that a couple of gangsters that he and his other brother cheated out of their side of the loot from a job that the four did together are after him. Charlie also has a secret admirer; Lena, a barmaid at the bar he works in. Now this once simple piano player has gone from a quiet life at a piano to having to deal with gangsters, his brothers and a new love interest. But wait...there's more; is Charlie all that he seems? Is he merely a simple piano player? That's what makes this film great; it's never black and white (if you'll excuse the pun), and it is always ready to throw in another plot turn to keep you guessing.

After the universally acclaimed "The 400 Blows", Francois Truffaut had his work cut out for his next movie. Many will disagree, but I actually think he surpassed it. The 400 Blows is undoubtedly a more important work; but this film hits more of the right notes and is very much more enjoyable. The cast is absolutely flawless throughout; Charles Aznavour stars in the lead role. He gets his characterization spot on; his melancholy comes naturally and is believable throughout. Marie Debois and Nicole Berger star alongside Aznavour, and although they are more in the background; they still manage to impress. There is also a role here for Michèle Mercier, whom you may remember from the Mario Bava masterpiece; Black Sabbath. Truffaut's cinematography is clean and crisp and the film is an aesthetic treat throughout. Despite being nearly 45 years old, the film also manages to retain a feeling of freshness, and that's something that not all crime thrillers of today can do after 4 years, let alone 45. Truffaut has also very obviously got an astute sense of humour - there's one part of the film involving one of the gangster's mother's dropping dead that made me laugh out loud. Let it never be said that the French can't be funny

The film features many anecdotes that ring true. My personal favourite is when Lena says that what you do today becomes a part of you tomorrow. It's simple, but very astute. Another good one is when one of the gangsters talks about all the lovely gadgets he has, and after listing them all he finishes with; "I'm bored". Truffaut obviously knows that material goods aren't what make people happy, and this film presents a rather amusing way of showing that. However, despite these and several other anecdotes; the film doesn't appear to have a defining point, which lessens its impact somewhat. Overall, however, Shoot the Pianist is a lovely little film that shouldn't be missed by anyone that professes to like gangster movies. It's amusing, has some points to make and its flawlessly acted and directed. Highest recommendations for this one.

Sometimes you watch a classic for the first time and you don't understand the hype. This time I was more than pleasantly surprised. Wonderful, whimsical and sad little film noir. This movie completely plays with the audience, but in a loving way. The actors and actresses are almost uniformly great. Some incredible faces. Aznavour in particular has an amazingly distinctive look. Be warned, it takes about ten minutes to have an idea of what is going on. Just hang in there and go with it. Highly recommend.

François Truffaut's second feature, Tirez sur le pianiste, is a deliberately wild and chaotic satire of the American gangster pictures of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Truffaut tried to make Tirez sur le pianiste, or Shoot the Pianist, the complete opposite of his first picture, The 400 Blows, doing away with the sentimentality of the predecessor and making his second feature far more vicious, nonlinear and, occasionally, quite funny.

Based off of a pulp novel by David Goodis, the movie is about a once-famous piano player (Charles Aznavour) who gives up looking for the reason his wife left him, and now plays piano in a run-down Paris bar where he falls for a waitress, and must overcome his natural shyness in order to express his love for her. Unfortunately his brother gets him involved in a gangland feud, which gives the story an unnecessary (but welcomed) edge to the romance.

There are some highly amusing scenes, such as when Charles and his soon-to-be-girlfriend walk down a Paris sidewalk and he contemplates what to say, do, and how to act, without offending her or making a fool out of himself. We hear Charles' neurotic thoughts in voice-over – an effect now overused in cinema but back in 1960, very new. It wasn't until the intrusion of Woody Allen comedies such as Annie Hall that sporadic first-person narratives became popular – in the noir movies of the earlier decades voice-overs were sometimes used by narrators (such as in the cult classic Detour) but never in such a way as Shoot the Pianist's. It's one of the best scenes in the movie, and a great way of expressing the inner-workings of Charles, the character.

Shoot the Pianist's chaotic structure confused and overwhelmed many audiences when the film was released in 1960. Its content (violence, nudity, etc.) was not as welcomed by audiences as it is now, and as a result the film was a financial and critical failure. The humor was not appreciated, the insightful look at a French Everyman was not even noticed – it was ruled out as a dud, and that's all that mattered to anyone.

Over the years it has picked up a rather small cult following and fans of Truffaut's films have declared it to be one of his best pictures. Looking back now in light of such recent gangster genre hybrids such as Reservoir Dogs and Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Truffaut's movie not only seems more understandable but far ahead of its time. In relation to Reservoir Dogs it contains the same sort of standard, everyday nonchalance in accordance with gangsters – while it contains the narrative flow of Guy Ritchie's British gangster cult hit.

Regardless of how brilliant Shoot the Pianist seems forty years later, Truffaut was scarred by the negative press surrounding his second feature and never made another movie as daring (so to speak) or, more likely, downright fun as Tirez sur le pianiste. It's a very amusing movie, and it is one of the few 1960s films that doesn't seem dated compared to the film-making standards of modern-day Hollywood. The performances are flawless, the characters likable and realistic, the movie overall highly enjoyable and worth seeing more than just once. It is sadly one of Truffaut's most underrated movies, although hopefully in another forty years it will only be all the more appreciated for its qualities.

5/5