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Credits
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Summary
Charlie Kohler, formerly a great concert pianist, now works as a piano player in a popular
town bar. He has managed to keep his past a secret, until,unexpectedly, one of his
brothers, Chico, turns up asking for help. Charlie’s two elder brothers are
being harassed by some violent crooks who intend to settle a vendetta. Charlie
refuses to help Chico. Instead, he goes on a date with a waitress in his bar, Lena,
and reveals his unhappy past to her. A short while later, the couple are picked
up by Chico’s pursuers, but manage to ecape. Realising who has betrayed
them to the crooks, Charlie returns to the bar to confront the bar owner, but accidentally
kills him in a tussle. Meanwhile, Charlie’s youngest brother, a teenager,
is kidnapped by the crooks. Accepting that he can no longer evade his past, Charlie
flees to his brothers’ home. Then the crooks turn up and Charlie finds himself
in the middle of a frenzied shoot out – with a tragic outcome.
Review
With one successful film (Les
quatre cents coups) under his belt, director François Truffaut was free
to indulge himself in two of his personal passions, American gangster movies and male-female
relationships. The result is Tirez sur le pianiste, a pastiche of gangster
film and film noir which is both visually impressive and funny. The film bears some
resemblance to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville
, a similar parody of the 1950s gangster genre, although not quite so off-the-wall.
The film succeeds not because of its plot – which is pretty standard fare – but by virtue of Truffaut’s unique treatment of the subject matter. It appears as a natural development of the film policier genre, with the focus on the characters behind the drama rather than on the drama itself. To a large extent, the events of the film are superfluous. What matters is the characterisation, the response of the characters to events, the motivation for their behaviour. This is an approach where Truffaut excels more than perhaps any other French director and it is a trait that is noticeable in all of his films. Whilst not quite so overtly auto-biographical as some of Truffaut’s other works, Tirez sur le pianiste appears to reflect the director’s mood at the time the film was made. The success of Les quatre cents coups surpassed Truffaut's expectations and established him as a great director. Unfortunately, the apparent ease with which this success was acquired must have caused him to question how long his good fortune could be sustained. Worse, he was the victim of some unpleasant criticism and allegations of opportunism and gold-digging were rife (he married the daughter of a wealthy film distributor). With this in mind, it is not difficult to see a great deal of François Truffaut in Charlie Kohler – the timid young entertainer shunning the past, resentful of his success, a success which may owe more to chance and string-pulling than to actual merit, a man who is srongly drawn to attractive women yet afraid to engage in conversation with them… And who does Truffaut cast to play the role of Charlie? Charles Aznavour - a man who is very similar to himself in appearance, stature and mannerism. Not auto-biographical? Now better known as a singer, Aznavour has also had a successful acting career and here, in Truffaut's film, he is perfectly cast as the melancholic piano player. Aznavour brings an air of repressed tragedy to the part, and the character is instantly sympathetic, yet mysterious, humorous, but deeply sad. The chemistry between Aznavour and his co-star Marie Dubois is just right. The couple are ideal material for Truffaut’s exploration of an uneasy relationship between a man who wants to bury his past and a woman who worships the man he used to be. Whilst the mood of the film is sombre, in keeping with the gangster movie theme, it does offer some lighter moments, and some brilliantly comic touches (such as the outrageous my-mother-dropping-dead gag). One senses that Truffaut found great satisfaction in creating this film. Not as profound as his earlier film, Les quatre cents coups, not quite in the league of his timeless masterpiece Jules et Jim. However, Tirez sur le pianiste is clearly the work of a great director, challenging our expectations of the genre it appears to fit, whilst revealing a perspicacity and understanding of human nature that is staggering in its profundity. When the film was first released in France in 1960, Tirez sur le pianiste had a very luke-warm reception. After Truffaut’s first film, the critics were looking for a similar film and were evidently disappointed with what they received. The film proved to be much more successful abroad and is now almost universally regarded as a great film. © James Travers 2000
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