Directed by Francois Truffaut
When I was a junior in high
school, I was involved in our school’s production of Footloose: The Musical. What a time that was: several months of
meticulous planning, hours upon hours of reciting dialogue, seemingly endless
cycles of repeating the same choreography over and over to get it just right.
All of that alone might be enough to drive one crazy – now remember that there
are human beings (teenagers at that) and all of their high emotions and
comically petty drama, which make an already trying experience all the more
difficult. In spite of all of that,
though, when show time was upon us…it was a truly magical experience that nothing can ever compare to, and the
sense of accomplishment and pride that followed (no matter how awful the
production might be) can fortify confidence in even the most insecure of
individuals. This experience is hands-down my favorite memory from high school.
Though about film production
instead of stage production, French auteur Francois Truffaut captured all of
these feelings perfectly in his 1973
film Day for Night, a fictional yet wonderful
– not to mention hilarious – chronicle of a film production. It’s not
necessarily a chaotic production that’s shown, nor a polarizing account of a
doomed project bound for failure. Just a typical film production and the strife
that is, perhaps, inseparable from the process, and perhaps Day for Night’s director (played by Truffaut
himself) puts it best: “Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old
west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point,
you just hope to survive.” And survive the cast and crew do, but what a ride
this stagecoach takes them on.
Director Ferrand (Truffaut) is
helming the production of a film entitled Meet
Pamela, and as Day for Night begins,
brief plot overviews from cast members reveal that Meet Pamela is a tale of romance, betrayal, and all of the
melodrama in between. Is it going to be good? Is it going to be bad? Right now,
that’s completely irrelevant – after all, the film needs to be made to
determine any kind of quality. And so production begins, and there’s really not
much more to the plot than that. The plot structure highlights this, as events
unfold in a rather fragmented manner rather than a streamlined series of
events. What Day for Night may lack
in plot, it makes up ten-fold in what unfolds in each fragmented moment. Almost
every single shoot brings in one big problem after another. How interesting
that the times shooting does go
smoothly, these moments are skimmed over via montages that highlight a
curiously uninteresting quality to these moments. I believe this is done
intentionally – any production you might have been involved in; do you really
remember the times things went as planned?
Let the shenanigans begin,
from lead actor Alphonse’s (Jean-Pierre Leaud) naïve misconceptions on women
and love that results in him engaging in childish antics. Then there’s Severine
(Valentina Cortese), an aging actress in denial who drowns her sorrows in one
bottle of booze after another, who brings the simplest of shoots to an
insufferable and embarrassing slog – part of this particular scene involves her
having to walk through a door, which is adjacent to another door, and no matter
how many takes repeated, Severine just can’t remember which door to walk though
and undergoes an emotional meltdown over this. And then there’s the
goddess-level beauty Jacqueline Bisset as Julie Baker, the leading lady taking
the role of the titular Pamela. She recently underwent an emotional breakdown
that left doctors uncertain whether she should partake in the production of Meet Pamela. Though she seems fine, that
cloud always hangs uneasily over the production. For me, personally, the funniest scene in the film involves a cat
that just won’t do its job, and the shoot is once again halted so the script
girl can go get the studio cat (yes, they have a designated studio cat).
These moments are genuinely hilarious, but not
one scene is overplayed for laughs or other such extravagant effect. The camera
simply observes as the mishaps unfold, and I think this is what makes them even
funnier. While Day for Night doesn’t
strive for hyper-realistic in traditional cinema verite fashion, there is an
almost documentary quality to the film (almost like a making-of documentary you’d
find on HBO). This quality combined with the lack of overplayed comedy gives
everything a sense of realism, and the outrageousness of it all makes one laugh
as they wonder “Is this really happening?”
Day for Night is not a
technical marvel by any means; cinematography and sound design are less than integral
here, though I will say that I was quite struck by the set design in my most
recent viewing (in preparation for the piece you’re now reading). Then again,
this isn’t the kind of film that really requires spectacular cinematography or all-absorbing
sound. As much of a comedy as Day for
Night is, it is much more a passion project for, yes, the art of film, but
more so of the process of filmmaking itself. This passion shines brightly
throughout, to the point that any flaws that Day for Night possesses.
And in all fairness, Day for Night does have its share of
flaws, particularly with the ending. I was never a fan of how Day for Night concludes: after
production for Meet Pamela has
wrapped up, everybody says their rather passive goodbye’s to everybody, and end
film. While I think this scene should definitely be included in the film, it
shouldn’t be the finale due to the awkward abruptness of it. How curious that
the answer was literally right there in the film, and was just misplaced.
Throughout the first half of Day for
Night, we watch Ferrand toss and turn in bed, followed by black and white
clips of a young child with a cane and oversized suit wandering the city streets
way past his bed time. Is this a nightmare? Not at all; as these sequences
unfold, we discover the root of Ferrand’s love for movies, where he cleverly
steals lobby cards for Citizen Kane from
a local theater. For a moment as important as this in Ferrand’s life, the
ultimate testament to his love for movies and moviemaking in spite of its many
stressors, this should have been Day for
Night’s conclusion.
To look at a flaw this deeply…should
I be considering Day for Night a
truly great film? Well, why not? It is rare for a film to be purely flawless.
Hell, in his ‘Great Movies’ review of Dr.
Strangelove, Roger Ebert criticized that film’s ending and went into how it
should have properly ended.
Besides, Day for Night is a case where the good far outweighs the bad. The glaring
passion for filmmaking is something that should be of no surprise, as it is
well-known that Francois Truffaut was an immense cinephile. Though I’m still
making my way through Truffaut’s films, I’d be surprised if he made a film with
more love for film and filmmaking than Day
for Night. Passion projects like this, though, usually raise some
skepticism from me as there tends to be more concern for references and homages
to the auteur’s favorite films rather than substance (on the topic of French
cinema, my mind immediately goes to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers regarding this issue). None of that here in Truffaut’s
film. Good, as that leaves more to be enjoyed by everybody.
So, after all is said and
done, after all of the repeated takes that would drive the most patient of men
to insanity, after all of the drama behind the scenes that reveal the immature
child within all of those involved, was Meet
Pamela any good? Well, we never find out, and this is for the best I think.
Sometimes it really doesn’t matter what the end result unveils. When one has
that much passion for their work, it must be more than enough to get to do it
every day. To recite a cliché: do what you love, and you never have to work a
day in your life.
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