Sunday, July 09, 2017

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)


One of Truffaut's lightest (and most enjoyable) films, a clever homage to Hollywood crime films. A brilliant concert pianist (Charles Aznavour) who has fallen on hard times and is playing in a small-time club runs afoul of a pair of gangsters who are after his brother, while pursuing a romance with the club's waitress (Marie Dubois). Truffaut deftly creates a film that works both as a crime thriller on its own and as a playful riff on the genre at the same time, expertly balancing suspense and comedy from one moment to the next, enlivened by the director's stylistic flourishes, especially his use of cutaways.

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