This was the first French New Wave movie I've ever seen (sorry, mom!), and it left me intrigued but unsatisfied. I'm gonna watch more Nouvelle Vague, but if this was what Truffaut was up to, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about (sorry again, mom!).
Tirez sur le pianiste is about a piano player named Charlie (Charles Aznavour). He works in a dive bar/club and wants to stay out of trouble--but just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in! Or whatever. His older brothers are fuck-ups and criminals, and when Charlie helps one of them evade two thuggish pursuers, he attracts the thugs' attention. Charlie accidentally gets his co-worker Léna (Marie Dubois) involved in his troubles, too. (Ironically, the bad guys decide she's associated with him because she asks him to walk her home at night. Because she doesn't feel safe. I thought that was a nice touch.) Turns out things aren't what they seem, of course: Charlie has a secret past, which Léna knows about. In fact, she stalks him because of it? But in a cute way! Anyway, she has some ideas about his life, as do the thugs, his brothers, and his boss at the bar. Charlie, like many noir protagonists, is a mostly passive figure at the center of swirling chaos. Okay? Okay.
I really enjoyed the two leads' performances. Dubois does some kind of magic (acting?) that makes her character seem more likable and less undeveloped than the script deserves. Aznavour balances Charlie's timidity and charisma beautifully. (Also, he reminds me of Kevin Spacey, all detachment and dimples.) Their chemistry with each other was fine, but their makeout scene was Very Awkward. They don't so much kiss as press their faces together. Plus the camera doesn't just hang out on them; it does this weird thing where you see them and also a panning shot of Léna's apartment over them? Or maybe under them?
Dissolve back and forth, forever. ))<>((As for other characters, there's a prostitute Charlie likes to sleep with (Michèle Mercier); she also takes care of Charlie's little brother when he's out (i.e. most of the movie). Charlie's boss (Serge Davri) is one of those okay-until-he's-not types, and the violent confrontation between Charlie and Plyne was one of the least believable, least enjoyable parts of the movie for me. I guess I'm not supposed to find it "believable" because the New Wave wants to teach me about artifice and bust down all my square ideas about narrative film. Bore snore. A work of art that makes me reexamine my ideas about plot/story/politics/zucchini is exciting. A chain-smoking Frenchman telling me to reexamine my ideas is irritating.
Though I found some parts of the movie boring/annoying, Truffaut's style is undeniably cool. The sequence where Charlie and Léna drive out of town has a lovely, familiar feeling. It's shot through the windshield, and over the course of a song ("Dialogue d'amoureux" by Félix Leclerc and Lucienne Vernay, apparently), the city's streetlamps are replaced with the sun rising over the snowy countryside. I enjoyed select images much more than I enjoyed the film as a whole: opening credits inside a piano with its hammers hitting, a gangster with a musical lighter, a betrayal framed with--not sure how to describe these:
What is this technique called? Besides "cool."Finally, I want to mention the first scene of the movie, which did not let me down. Truffaut does this hilarious thing that shows up in lots of French movies: he has two complete strangers talk about very personal things for no reason. I love seeing movies where this happens, and I love the reliable pattern for these conversations: "intimate detail, proverb/platitude, agreement/disagreement, proverb/platitude, intimate detail." Example:
- Man A: In the old days, there were never enough syringes. My wife and I met when we looked up from our shared needle. Haha! You know what they say: a stitch in time saves nine.
Man B: No, I don't think so. After all, what's true is true.
Man A: I have celiac disease.
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