Cinema Sunday: Day for Night

Salutations et bienvenue dans une nouvelle édition du Dimanche du cinéma !

Let's try that again. 

Greetings and welcome to another edition of Cinema Sunday! 

OK, so what's with the French up top? 

Today's film was made in France and in French.  

Our spotlight falls on Day For Night, a 1973 French comedy-drama romance film directed by François Truffaut, starring Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Truffaut himself. 

"Day for night" is a term used for filming outdoors in daylight with a filter over the camera lens (a technique described in the dialogue of Truffaut's film) or adjusting the film stock to appear as if the scene are taking place at night. La Nuit américaine ("American Night") is the French name for this technique and the original French title of Day For Night.  

Day For Night chronicles the production of Je Vous Présente Paméla (Meet Pamela), a clichéd melodrama starring aging screen icon Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont), former diva Séverine (Valentina Cortese), young heartthrob Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and a French speaking British actress, Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset).  

The movies chronicles the stories of the cast and crew trying to pull this thing together.  

The director Ferrand (Truffaut) is still writing this thing while making it and is not above borrowing from the lives of the cast and crew to deliver script pages at the last minute. 

Everyone is on eggshells around Julie since this is her first film project after suffering a nervous breakdown and enduring the scandal of marrying her much older doctor. 

But Julie is the least of Ferrand's problems. Well, for awhile. 

Alphonse has a bad habit of falling madly and passionately in love with whatever woman happens to be paying attention to him at any given moment. 

• He's madly and passionately in love with the script girl who then runs off with a stuntman.
• Then Alphonse is madly and passionately heartbroken over the end of the affair and refuses to go on the set.
• Julie confronts Alphonse that yes the hell he will go on the set and to help convince him gives him a pity fuck.
• Now Alphonse is madly and passionately in love with Julie.
• And now Julie is upset and won't go on the set. 
• Ferrand manages to convince Julie to return to the set and in the process of talking to her, "borrows" some of what she said to him for the latest script pages.  

Meanwhile...

Séverine has repeated difficulties with lines and stage directions. Whether this is due to the excessive drinking, aging or a mixture of both is hard to say.  

Alexandre is an affable sort but still behaves as he did when he was a much younger man. It is a recklessness that ultimately takes his life and endangers the film.  

Meet Pamela is nearly done except for one crucial scene, a confrontation between the characters played by Alphonse and the now deceased Alexandre. Ferrand employs some cinematic trickery involving a stunt double, wide shots and a last second re-write that eliminates Alexandre's dialogue. 

And...cut! Meet Pamela is in the can and ready to enthrall French cinema goers.  

Day For Night premiered  at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the following year.

It is an interesting experience whenever I watch a movie that's in another language. I find it remarkable how much I am invested in what's happening on screen even as everything being said is not in English.   

Day For Night is a turns funny and sad as this collection of actors and crew try to turn a collection of scenes into something resembling a coherent film. It's an intimate behind the scenes look at the deals, tricks, compromises and machinations it takes to make a movie.    

Et voilà pour le dimanche du cinéma d'aujourd'hui. Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, n'oubliez pas d'être bons les uns envers les autres.

Or to put that another way...

And that is that for today's Cinema Sunday. Until next time, remember to be good to one another.