Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

This is a movie I hope gets better with multiple viewings because I was disappointed on the first look. I bought it sight-unseen because I am a film noir fan and I read several reviews absolutely raving about this film. So, I expected a lot.

This was too much of a talky, off-beat noir with stupid dialog in too many parts. The French certainly have a different way of viewing things than I do. This more of a melodrama than a crime story, although a crime does take place. When it occurs, it's a short but shocking scene.

Charles Aznavour has an interesting face and the women in here are pretty but the cops and other characters in general are just too dopey for me. Why film noir "experts" all like this movie is beyond me. Maybe I just "don't get it." Well.....I do like the title, at least.

Fmovies: With singer/actor Charles Aznavour in the lead (his expressive face is priceless), "Shoot the Piano Player" is one of Truffaut's most charming and inventive works. Aznavour plays Charlie/Edouard -- a former concert pianist who becomes an anonymous piano player in a dive bar in order to escape his past. After his brother (Remy, who Truffaut also used wonderfully in "The 400 Blows") gets in trouble with some borderline inept gangsters, chaos ensues.

Truffaut's winsome camera and editing techniques blend perfectly with Aznavour's performance. A must for fans of the French New Wave.

The opening scene is of a man running in dark streets. We only hear his steps and the menacing mechanical sound of traffic which we assume to be made by the pursuer. He collides with a post and is stunned. A man carrying a bouquet of flowers, helps him to his feet. As they walk, the man is expansive and briefly describes the course of his relationship with his wife, from simple selfish lust leading to marriage and only later, leading to true love. The man excuses himself, turning towards his home, and in an instant the original victim returns to his role as prey to some all-pervasive, inhuman, pursuer.

For me, this is Truffaut, the viewer identifying with the victim for a few moments, being safe in the domestic harmony of the man, only to be launched anew into the role of the hopeless quarry. The talkative man's recognition of his dependence on his wife contrasts with a later scene, in a car, where the two gangsters reveal highly cynical attitudes towards women. The irony is that their cynicism is capped by Charlie (Edward), who quotes his father as saying "when you've seen one woman, you've seen them all". It is significant how timid and respectful he is when daring to interrupt the macho diatribe of the two hoods. With this one statement, we have the background to the whole story.

Big brother, Chico, the "prey", needs help from Eddy, who is very reluctant to be drawn in, but family ties prove too strong. We see Chico as being a demanding,selfish, brute and can guess he takes after his father. We also guess where Eddy's timidity originates.

In the dialogue between Eddy and the brutish bar-owner, who is jealous of Eddy's attractiveness to the waitress, Lena, Eddy even offers to leave. When the bar-owner tells Eddy he is scared, Eddy repeats the phrase, playing with it as if it were a new flavour. This seems to be the ultimate in humility or humiliation, yet Eddy respectfully almost accepts it as advice. This short conversation suggests a life of victimisation, from father and big brother. Yet, most touching of all, is that his submission does not mask underlying contempt; Eddy still cares for the bar-owner as he does for his brother. Later, when the two are collapsed in the alley after a struggle, Eddy tosses aside his advantage of the knife and is then tricked by the bar-owner, who appears to be offering to make peace with a manly hug, but then attempts to strangle Eddy.

In his relations with Lena, Therese and Clarisse we witness tenderness, spontaneity, playfulness and trust. I don't know if it's my imagination, but these scenes seem to have brighter lighting. With each woman, there is a different mood. For instance, those involving Therese are all flashbacks and seem to involve more classical, static camera-work, lending an appropriate quality of distance. With Clarisse, the prostitute, there is bawdy, but innocent humour and no physical embarrassment, while with Lena there is adolescent awkwardness, reminiscent of Woody Allen, followed by such delicate, romantic scenes of physical discovery.

There are unexpected cameos, such as Boby Lapointe, in the bar singing "Framboises" and Fido, Eddy's kid brother being fascinated by the two gangsters who have kidnapped him. The final moment of the film, ignores the outcome of the feud between gangsters and brothers. We are only concerned with Lena.

Shoot the Piano Player fmovies. Truffaut's homage to the American gangster film stars Charles Aznavour as a smalltime piano player in a bar who has a secret past that he keeps hidden. The film almost falls into the trap of not being an homage to the gangster film, but rather being one itself. What saves it is the film's unique wit and charm - it's a blend of humor, romance, and gangster film. The gangsters themselves are quite funny, casually discussing everyday matters in a way that certainly had to influence Quentin Tarantino when he was writing Pulp Fiction. Some of the jokes are funny just because they are so silly (i.e., the gangster swearing his truth on his mother's grave). It's this sense of humor and the fact that the movie doesn't take itself seriously that sets it apart from other gangster movies of the day.

I read mixed reviews about this film - some interesting elements but it doesn't work completely as a whole. Having seen it recently, I would tend to agree with these comments. Shoot the Piano Player is about a famous piano player who falls in love with and loses two women who care for him. After the death of the first, his wife, he changes his name and becomes a piano player in an obscure bar where he meets the second love of his life, a waitress. There are some sub-plots regarding his criminal brothers, the kidnapping of his son and the bar-owner also falling for the same waitress.

There are very interesting individual scenes - interesting, not brilliant. On the whole, the film is a mish-mash of ideas and plots, all told very confusingly. Even if the narration had been more coherent, another problem is the visual look. There are noir themes in the narrative, but the visual style is in no way reminiscent of those films. It is more rooted in realism but has the visual look of a TV film.

I don't know! I'm still confused by this film...

Sometimes you watch a classic for the first time and you don't understand the hype. This time I was more than pleasantly surprised. Wonderful, whimsical and sad little film noir. This movie completely plays with the audience, but in a loving way. The actors and actresses are almost uniformly great. Some incredible faces. Aznavour in particular has an amazingly distinctive look. Be warned, it takes about ten minutes to have an idea of what is going on. Just hang in there and go with it. Highly recommend.