Short Take: Shoot the Piano Player

There's a jazzy, anything-goes spirit to François Truffaut's tragicomic crime drama Shoot the Piano Player. The main character is a one-time concert pianist (Charles Aznavour) who has bottomed out after a family tragedy. Apart from raising his youngest brother (Richard Kanayan), he's retreated from life. He's changed his name, and earns a modest living playing piano with a dance band at a local bar. But beyond that, all he wants is to be left in peace. His past, though, again confronts him. It's in good ways and bad. The good is the waitress (Marie DuBois) who knows who he is, and with whom he falls in love. The bad are the two adult brothers (Jean-Jacques Aslanian and Albert Remy) who get him mixed up in their wranglings with local gangsters. Truffaut does full dramatic justice to the plotting and the protagonist's inner conflicts. But he also treats the story as a springboard for constant arabesques: observational humor, oddball conversations, music and dance numbers, slapstick and romantic comedy scenes, and a bevy of cinematic flourishes. The delight of the film is that the spontaneous atmosphere doesn't distract. It enriches the material. The discords keep one attentive to the rather banal pulp material, and give it a wonderful true-to-life rhythm. The effect is further enhanced by Raoul Coutard's superb documentary-style cinematography. The stars enhance the film, too. Charles Aznavour's hangdog manner and Marie DuBois' down-to-earth dream-girl quality are perfect. The cast also includes Nicole Berger, Michèle Mercier, and Daniel Boulanger. The screenplay, credited to Truffaut and Marcel Moussy, is based on the David Goodis novel Down There.