Day for Night

"Day for Night", also known as "Nuit Americaine", directed by Francois Truffaut and released in 1973, demonstrates a "meta-film", or, a film about a film. The movie opens with a scene being practiced in the streets, the audience is aware of the actions taken by the directors and producers of the film. The plot of the movie revolves around a director who tries eagerly to complete a film but is side-tracked by a number of problems with the actors and crew. Each member of the cast seems to be going through a difficult phase in their lives, preventing them from devoting their abilities to the movie. One of the main characters, Julie Baker, is prized for her acting in Hollywood but behind the scenes is experiencing a nervous breakdown. Another actress, Severine, displays her alcohol problems while shooting a scene and is unable to deliver her lines because of her state of being. Alphonse, another character in the movie, portrays his lack of confidence and immaturity with one of the crew members he is in love with. He also has a nervous breakdown after being rejected by the girl he is in love with. The everyday troubles of each of the members of the cast and crew create the plot of the film. There isn't one concrete story to follow, however, several smaller plots that come together and give the viewer an idea of how chaotic it is to film a movie. The characters who play the actors have the most dramatic scenes and problems while the crew of the movie acts in a more normal fashion. The dramatic elements of the actors as well as the drama of the actual film-making itself make "Day for Night" one of Truffaut's most memorable works. "Day for Night" serves as a look inside the world of Francois Truffaut and offers his admirers and movie-goers a sense of what it takes to be a director. The movie reveals Truffaut's love for cinema, for example, the scene where he orders books that all seem to be about directors and movie-related topics. The dream sequences reveal his love for making films over watching them.

Contempt, Le Mépris

Contempt, released in 1963 and directed by Jean Luc Goddard tells the story of a writer, Paul, who is assigned the job of creating a script for a movie that is directed by Fritz Lang. The producer of the film is an arrogant American named Prokosch, who tires to seduce Paul's wife, Camille, played by Brigitte Bardot. Contempt was the one film which Jean Luc Goddard was able to create with such a large budget. He chose A-list actors, Bardot and Lang, and made the film in color. One interesting thing about this film is the fact that it is about film making, a sort of "meta-film". Goddard was able to portray one aspect of the "behind the scenes" cinematic world. However, the film is not entirely based on filmmaking. The relationship between Paul and Camille seems to be falling apart. Camille seems dependent of Paul, but at the same time extremely distant in their relationship. The half hour long scene in the couple's apartment is a good example of how and why the relationship faded between Camille and Paul. Paul tries to make Camille feel contempt as the couple lounges around the apartment, going from room to room, while discussing their current problems with each other. Throughout the movie, Camille seems disgusted with Prokosch's aggressivness, however, at the end of the film, she slowly warms up to him and ends up leaving her husband for him.

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a musical directed by Jacques Demy in 1964. This film is extremely colorful and musical which create an almost sensory overload to the viewer. It is a dramatic love story between a young girl who works at an umbrella store with her mother and a man who works as a mechanic. In the beginning of the film the two characters are madly in love but when Guy finds out that he must serve in the military and leave Geneviève, their dynamic changes. As time passes, the couple drifts apart. Geneviève becomes pregnant with Guy's child but since he is not present, she is being pursued by a well-to-do jewelry dealer, Roland. In the end, Guy and Geneviève seem happy with their new lives but both hold onto the past that they had with each other
The vivid colors of the film balance the unrealistic sung dialogue. If the film did not have such interesting color to appeal to the eye, the music would overbear and become to unsettling. Every line of the movie is sung ( en chanté) , the songs do not have a beginning or end, the verse/chorus structure of the music is absent. The dialogue is sung in a more operatic structure and sung very slowly.

Shoot the Piano Player

Shoot the Piano Player, Francois Truffaut's second film, relased in 1962 is based on film noir as well as American gangster films of its time. However, it sets itself apart from American gangster films because of the addition to comedy. Shoot the Piano Player has a comic and tragic tone to it, it has as many funny scenes added to it as it does violent. In one of the shootout scenes, there is a comical undertone to the way that Léna dies. Her body is shot while she is running in the snow and it continues to roll down the hill in an dramatic and awkward manner. Truffaut seems to be de-emphasizing the role of violence in the film throught this scene. The tone of the film seems to change from scene to scene, Truffaut structured this film rather chaotically. The unstrutctured pattern of the film seems to work for it because all of the elements of romance, comedy and tragedy somehow make sense together. Although this film may be classifed as a gangster movies, it could be appreciated by any type of movie-goer, no matter what style of film they appreciate.

Cleo from 5 to 7

Cléo from 5 to 7 was released in 1962 by the only female Nouvelle Vague director, Agnes Varda. The film is shot according to the life of Cléo from the hours of 5 p.m. to about 7 p.m. on a certain day in June. Varda was one of the first directors to experiment with this sort of real-life use of time to portray the characters.
The main character, Cléo, is a semi-popular singer in Paris who is narcissistic and attention-craving. The beginning of the film shows Cléo visiting a tarot card reader who predicts that she may be looking death in the eyes. Cléo believes her while admitting that she is superstitious and continues her day dwelling on the fact that her life may soon be coming to an end because of cancer. Her vanity is evident throughout the film. For example, she plays one of her own songs at a café and expects the customers to react to it positively. When no one seems to pay attention to the music, Cléo becomes even more frustrated with herself. Cléo demonstrates a variety of emotions througout the 2 hours of her day, when she learns that she does have cancer, her mood seems to settle and her paranoia eases.
Varda's camera work is intersting in this film, like Godard she plays with jump cuts in a few scenes. The scene where Cléo is wandering the street and noticing the faces of passer-bys is also memorable.

Pickpocket

This film by Robert Bresson was created in 1959 along with many other contemporary New Wave films in France. The main character, Michel discovers that he has an interest in pickpocketing while at the race track. Michel's character is somewhat difficult to understand. He seems lonely and empty and finds comfort in the material world of pickpocketing. His emotions are so hidden that his feelings for Jeanne, his mother's caretaker, to not arise until the end of the film. I don't believe Michel's character was intended to be romantic; his supressed feelings seem to come from the guilt that is bottled inside from stealing from his mother as well as strangers.
The most memorable scene of the film is when the three accomplices devise a plan to pickpocket at a train station. The three men steal wallets, pass them to eachother, empty the wallets, and replace them all while keeping the owners oblivious to what is happening. Bresson focused on the hands and facial expressions of the accomplices during this scene; the body movements flowed and it seemed more magical than real.
Pickpocket has a style all its own. Bresson's creation of Michel is someone to be admired for his mastery of pickpocketing as well as pitied for his lack of confidence and hope.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Hiroshima Mon Amour is the story of two people, a French woman and a Japanese man, who find love in the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The film consists of a dialogue between the two characters about their past and present relationships. The director, Alain Resnais, is constantly aware or the concept of time in this film while focusing on memory and past events. The female character explains to the Japanese man her previous love interest while Resnais shows flashbacks of what her memories of this may have looked like. The concept of memory is what the basis of the conversations between the two characters revolve around. The female actress seems to be re-living her previous love interest with the German soldier through her new love affair with the man from Japan. Her old memories of the German soldier have surfaced because of her new relationship. The direction of the film is interesting because it leaves many gaps for the viewer to fill in. The relationship between the two characters is difficult to figure out because the woman seems to caught up in the past to live a normal life in the present. Hiroshima Mon Amour is structured fragmentarily, which creates this disarray of time between past and present.