Shoot The Piano Player

A part of this view­ing list: Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion Spine #315: François Truf­faut’s Shoot The Piano Play­er.

I only have ten more films to rewatch in The Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion before I can start watch­ing stuff I haven’t seen before again. I’m look­ing for­ward to that day. Here’s a lit­tle con­text about Shoot the Piano Play­er. It is con­sid­ered part of the French New Wave, and its direc­tor, François Truf­faut, one of the pre­mier nou­velle vague auteurs. It is based on a pulp fic­tion nov­el by David Good­is called Down There. The film is much bet­ter than the nov­el. This is also one of those films that sends aca­d­e­mics into shark­like slaver­ing fits due more to its con­text than its qual­i­ty. That isn’t to say it is a crum­my film. It is very enter­tain­ing, poignant, pol­ished and still fresh after near­ly 50 years.

But the Möbius strip feed­back between the film, its dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion as French film noir from Amer­i­can film noir, its self-aware­ness, its obvi­ous under­cut­ting of expec­ta­tion, and its humor lend the focus more on Truf­faut’s direc­tion, the mech­a­nism, rather than the con­tent. That is real­ly only to be expect­ed, since the gen­er­al con­tent, apart from the afore­men­tioned under­cut expec­ta­tions, is noth­ing real­ly new. Despite the fact that there is a sui­cide, a few mur­ders and some kid­nap­ping, a sort of dynam­ic equi­lib­ri­um is main­tained with brief philo­soph­ic inter­ludes and con­sis­tent humor. The result is a film that leaves a view­er sat­ed on all fronts, gorged or starved on none.

The most inter­est­ing char­ac­ter is, of course, the piano play­er: Charlie/Edouard. There is a remark­able amount of his char­ac­ter expo­si­tion in a film that is only 81 min­utes long. At times the view­er is privy to his inner mono­logue, but ulti­mate­ly he remains a mys­tery and his obses­sion with the piano a simul­ta­ne­ous bless­ing and curse. Still, this unsolved mys­tery does­n’t leave any dis­sat­is­fac­tion, as it is obvi­ous that Char­lie is con­tent with his lot, as long as there is a piano with­in fin­ger range. Char­lie reminds me of this open­ing pas­sage:

Cur­rent-borne, wave-flung, tugged huge­ly by the whole might of the ocean, the jel­ly­fish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from any­where to any­where, for in the deep sea there is no com­pass but near­er and far­ther, high­er and low­er, the jel­ly­fish hangs and sways; puls­es move slight and quick with­in it, as the vast diur­nal puls­es beat in the moon­driv­en sea. Hang­ing, sway­ing, puls­ing, the most vul­ner­a­ble and insub­stan­tial crea­ture, it has for its defense the vio­lence and pow­er of the whole ocean, to which it has entrust­ed its being, its going, and its will.

-Ursu­la K. LeGuin The Lathe of Heav­en

While Char­lie isn’t quite as pas­sive as a jel­ly­fish, he does have a cer­tain sto­ic accep­tance of the sit­u­a­tions he finds him­self in. The only time he is vis­i­bly agi­tat­ed is when Lena is in dan­ger. The rest of their char­ac­ters play their parts, so it real­ly is the man­ner of the film-mak­ing, the gim­mick shots, the sight gags, the under­cur­rent of smar­tassed French humor that gives the film its pep.

• Cri­te­ri­on Essay by Kent Jones.
• Carter B. Hors­ley Review.
• Tom Hud­dle­ston Review.
• Pulp cov­er of David Good­is­’s Down There.
• YouTube clips [1, 2].