132 - Day For Night (1973)

DVD Box
Day For Night tells the stories surrounding the complications of creating the latest cliché film, Meet Pamela.

The director (Francois Truffaut) is being consistently harassed to get the film finished because the insurance is about to run out, while the actors all have their own problems forcing the director to try to stay ahead of the game by moving his schedule around.

One actress signs her contract while a few weeks pregnant, with her ballooning belly being a challenge to keep hidden. Another proposes while on set and is left devastated when she leaves him camping himself in his room. Combined with this, even the film's cat decides it would be better not to behave.
Theatrical Poster
Source: Wikipedia

Day For Night is a highly personal insight into the mysterious world of film making. It offers an unprecedented view behind the cameras from a director's perspective with Truffaut going so far as to cast himself as the in-film director for a heightened sense of realism.

Moreover, the film offers a sensitive view of how shallow Hollywood - and other film locations around the world - actually is. The paper thin location is hilariously bare proving exactly how easily the audience is duped into believing what they see is real and this is especially highlighted during the final pan out exposing the entire set.

Equally one-dimensional are the actors who appear to see the world through rose-tinted glasses, living in their own little world unaffected by the real issues as they jet set into luxurious locations with their exaggerated problems.

Somehow Truffaut manages to capture all of this without going so far as to make the film too much like a documentary. In fact, there are even small interviews with each actor which you are likely to see on the extras of a DVD which Truffaut undercuts in the next scene by revealing the interview as - at most - a dumbed down version of reality.

In summary, this is simply a film made by a cinema lover for his fellow cinema lovers. Truly outstanding.

StarStarStarStarStar

Comments