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Shoot the Piano Player
Based on a pulp novel by David Goodis, François Truffaut’s second film (after 400 Blows) stars legendary French singer Charles Aznavour as a down-and-out pianist in a dive bar, whose criminal (and concert pianist) past is revealed by the waitress who loves him.
It’s blend of love story, melancholy noir, and comedy—punctuated by flashbacks and jump-cuts—is exhilarating! “The impulse to break down and reinvent cinema makes Piano Player a quintessential French New Wave film, but unlike the work of his contemporary, Jean-Luc Godard, Truffaut isn't interested in deconstructing film so much as celebrating its possibilities. Though melancholy at its core, Piano Player has the spontaneity of a lark, at once more radical and more playful than any other film in Truffaut's career, and brimming with inspired touches that still seem surprising after a dozen viewings, much less one.” —Scott Tobias, The Onion.
“Fantastic! One of the key films of the French New Wave. A strange pastiche of gangster movie, love story, and cabaret film, with a totally and calculatedly unpredictable plot. The story is by turns comic and pathetic, often flashing midstream from one mood to the other, and Aznavour's performance as the wounded hero is a masterstroke of casting.”—Time Out London
“The most purely enjoyable film Truffaut ever made!” —J. Hoberman
“Its freewheeling blend of fevered romanticism and classic noir never dates! Aznavour is the last word in sensitive cool as the titular anti-hero.”—New York Magazine
Presented in association with 98.1 Classical KING FM
French Crime Wave series - SIFF Cinema Winter 2009
Cast & Crew
Director: François Truffaut
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