DAY FOR NIGHT
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
DAY FOR NIGHT is a marvelous celebration of the art and toil of filmmaking. For those interested in the mechanics and the background of the creation of movies this picture should be on your must-see list. DAY FOR NIGHT won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1973 and received nominations for best director and screenwriter for Francois Truffaut and best supporting actress for Valentina Cortese. With an excellent print, the film is showing now in Manhattan. Hopefully, the print will make its way around the country so others can share the joy I had in seeing it. (The film is undoubtedly available on videotape of course.)
Nervous director Ferrand, played with perfect precision by Truffaut, is under pressure from his American backers to finish his film called MEET PAMELA, a tragedy about a woman who falls in love with her father-in-law. Radiantly beautiful Jacqueline Bisset plays the less-than-confident American megastar Julie, who has the starring role of Pamela. Julie brings her new husband, a silver-haired doctor old enough to be her father, to the set with her.
The English title DAY FOR NIGHT for the French film LE NUIT AMERICAINE comes from the way filmmakers can shoot nighttime scenes during the day and then darken them in the developing to look like night. The title is apt in that the fascination of the picture comes from the behind the scenes look we get at the way pictures are made. A two hour documentary would not reveal less and certainly would not be as involving as DAY FOR NIGHT.
We see all of the details, large and small. To avoid continuity errors, the cigarettes are carefully chopped to the same length for each take. The actors step over the camera rails as they are being filmed and are careful not to trip. We watch them acting from facades and observe the director and the editor pouring over the day's film stock.
Like real movie making, the production of MEET PAMELA has a slew of problems, which puts the director's 7-week schedule in jeopardy at every turn. The lab destroys a complicated and costly crowd scene. Costumes are sent back too early. And, boy oh boy, are those stars ever temperamental and thus keep getting in the way of a successful completion of their production. Still, little that happens, except the ending, is a surprise. The masterwork of the movie is that Truffaut makes both DAY FOR NIGHT and the cheap melodrama MEET PAMELA fascinating without tricks or gimmicks.
But the picture is no boring pseudo-documentary. The actors come alive with enough mini-dramas for a couple of daytime soap operas. As in "Upstairs, Downstairs," the minor members of the crew have as many trials and tribulations as the cast.
Valentina Cortese plays the older actress Severine, who drinks too much and forgets her lines as Pamela's mother-in-law. Jean-Pierre Leaud plays the impetuous young actor Alphonse, who is in love with Bisset in both pictures -- who wouldn't be! If you've never quite understood how romances on movie sets develop, this movie demonstrates how quite convincingly.
In a revelation of the duality of an actor's real and celluloid lives, Julie and Pamela come to the same conclusion. "I've decided to live alone," they both declare at different times. "I know that life is rotten."
Although written a quarter of a century ago, the film seems remarkably fresh and relevant. The director complains that, "THE GODFATHER is showing all over Nice, and it's killing the other movies." With this summer's action blockbusters taking over most of the screens this comment becomes so apropos. If DAY FOR NIGHT were released for the first time this summer, it would be buried by the fourth episode of masked superheroes and the second of mechanical lizards as were ULEE'S GOLD and PONETTE.
DAY FOR NIGHT runs 1:55. The film is in French with English subtitles. It is rated PG for mild profanity and for sexuality. The film would be fine for teenagers and those a bit younger. I loved this sweet film and think you would too, so it gets a strong recommendation from me and *** 1/2.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: August 14, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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