Day for Night has quite an unusual cinematic structure where things happen in a manner that looks difficult to achieve with a script, writes Bikas Mishra

A stone deaf director whose “ear was messed up when he was in the artillery”! An unattractive production manager whose wife follows him on the sets like his shadow in the fear that he might sleep around! A young and tender Hollywood actress, who had a nervous breakdown, and fell for the old doctor who treated her! An aging actress who acted in Fellini’s films and delivered digits as dialogues! And Casanova of bygone era, now planning to adopt and live happily ever after with a young guy! And a nut French actor whose beloved runs away with a British stuntman! Truffaut brings all these characters together to make one of his most adorable films “Day for Night”. However what makes this ensemble distinct is the purpose that brings them together.

So they have gathered to shoot a French film-Meet Pamela. Pamela is an American girl, who fell in love with a French guy and got married. But then she fell in love with her father-in-law later and ran away with him. But since it’s a tragedy, the father is shot by his own son. Though, I’ve given away the plot, fear not, it’s only the plot of the movie within the movie. The Truffautian narrative has a deceptive outer comical crunchy surface within which the real story unfolds.

Actually calling it the “real” story won’t be fair. There’re two narratives, one of the movie that’s being shot and how it’s transformed because of human and heavenly interventions. Reasons like the character who plays the father-in-law dies in a car crash. Lead actress has a nervous breakdown. And even a cat who refuses to act!

Along with the film that’s being shot, the relationship goes through a process of transformation among the actors as well. Some ephemeral moments of love and an eternal feeling of loss, best expressed by the aging actress Severine “As soon as we grasp things, they’re gone.”

So the stone deaf director of the movie within the movies is Ferrand (Played by Truffaut himself). He’s quite convincing as an actor. I think François Truffaut is the most complete cinema-man ever born. A fanatic movie buff, an influential critic, a path breaking screenwriter (Breathless), a brilliant director and an actor!!!

So Truffaut must pay tribute to the great masters of cinema and the medium. And he does, entire film is like a comical tribute to cinema that could be easily mistaken for mockery. The director Ferrand orders a consignment of books that bears names like Bunuel, Bergman and Fellini.

Why the director Ferrand is deaf in the film? I’ve read that Luis Bunuel had actually turned deaf by the time he made “Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie” (1972). Is that a tribute to the master. Coincidently Truffaut’s this film was made the year after.

Day for Night has quite an unusual cinematic structure where things happen in a manner that looks difficult to achieve with a script. Even in the film within the film actors only get to read the script only night before the scene has to be shot.

Watching Day For Night is a unique experience something close to watching a play from backstage from where you see what’s going on stage as well as in the green room. This adds another layer to the film where Truffaut makes fun of the “studio era” of filmmaking and proclaims the arrival of the New Wave.

So finally what happens in the movie, like every other movie it comes to an end!!! The director might feel “Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point, you just hope to survive.” but we the spectators do have a fun ride.

A brilliant piece of cinema! A must watch for every film buff.
[imdb]0070460[/imdb]

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