Rating: 
Summary: One Of Truffaut's Best
Review: Near the beginning of this film a character says real estate is the place to make money, not the movie business, but he continues to work in the movies because he loves it. That is what Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" is all about. People who love movies making movies.
I saw this film years ago, but, it was the English dubbed version. I found the dubbing distracting and it had an effcet on my overall feeling of the film. When the movie became released on DVD it included the sub-titled version. I am reviewing this version. By seeing the film with sub-titles I now think it is one of Truffaut's best films only behind "400 Blows".
Maybe you're thinking I'm crazy. Can seeing a movie sub-titled really make that much of a difference? You have no idea. Just think about it. Now we can hear the original actors. We can hear the emotion they put in their lines. It is much different that hearing someone else plainly saying their lines. It is almost like seeing the film for the first time.
As we watch "Day for Night" we see what it takes to make a movie. All the problems that can occur, amd unfortunately for Truffaut, everything that can go wrong, does. People die, actors get pregnant, crew memembers fall in love, actors forget their lines, and film footage is destroyed. But as the saying goes, "the show must go on". And why does everyone keep going on? Because they love movies. It's one of the many reasons so many people have called this one of the greatest films about films in a class with "8 1\2", "Contempt" and to a lesser extent one of my favorites "Stardust Memories".
"Day for Night" won the Academy Award for "best foreign film"in 1972 and two years later was nominated for "best picture". Film critic Gene Siskel even hailed it as the best film of 1974.
Bottom-line: One of Francois Truffaut's best films. And it may as well be one of the greatest films about the movies.
Rating: 
Summary: Only Half the Stars a Subtitled Copy Would Rate
Review: A wonderful film; the opening shot (with its surprise followup) is my second-favourite example of how camera movement can make or break a scene (my all-time favourite is that incredible crane shot in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West"), and the peeks behind the silver screen that it gives us both de-mystify and increase our appreciation of the high art of film-making.Something else it may point up for us is that, in Hollywood, in Dory Previn's words "Female meat does not improve with time..."; movies continually cast lead actors in romantic roles opposite women twenty or thirty years their junior, but almost the only possible roles that allow an older woman to be romantically attracted to a younger male tend to portray the woman as a predator. Severine, the older actress playing the mother in the film within a film complains that she and Alexandre, the romantic lead, hit Hollywood at about the same time and hsre she is playing mothers and other "older women", and he's still playing the romantic lead who gets the young girl. (The irony of this is emphasised by the fact that, in 1973, Valentina Cortesa (Severine) was 48 and Jean Pierre Aumont (Alexandre) was 59 -- and she is cast as the aging actress playing the cast off older woman and he was the "mature" leading man getting the girl -- played by then-29-but-looking-younger Jacqueline Bissett). The sequence in which Severine completely falls apart as she repeatedly blows take after take of a relatively simple scene is almost harrowing to watch; one almost wonders how Cortese was able to so convincingly simulate progressively broader problems until she is in near-hysteria without breaking down almost as badly as her character does. The details of film technology are fascinating, as are the story and continuity problems that arise and (due to the fact that films are shot out of order and two scenes that take place one after the other on screen may well be shot in reverse order and days, even months, apart) must be taken into account and require rewrites and even reshoots (though one attempts to avoid those) -- such things as the death of the person playing a major character before all of that character's shots are in the can. The dream sequences (in black & white) are, in fact, actual events from director Truffaut's childhood. The only things really wrong here is the abysmal English dubbing. Not only is it bad, in and of itself, but it decreases the sense of how truly international the production of "Je vous presente Pamela" is. Also, it leads to absurdities in scenes like the one in which director Ferrand (Truffaut) announces (in French) that the important action scene will be shot in "nuit Americaine". The stunt man (British and not speaking a word of French says "What?" and Julie (Bissett) translates to the English-language term "Day for Night". Consider the absurdity of this, as rendered in the dubbing with everyone dubbed in English, no matter what language they were originally speaking: "We'll be shooting it day for night." "Huh?" "It means 'day for night'." "Oh. Thanks." Pretty please, could we have this on DVD with the original track and our choice of subtitles?
Rating: 
Summary: If your French is poor, be ready to read a lot!
Review: As the film began, I was annoyed (because I'm not a great fan of Truffault). By the end I was in grateful tears. A truly inspiring film about making art. In it, Truffault rightly predicts the future of filmmaking -- that films would be made on the streets, independent of Hollywood. Like any Truffault film, one must be in the mood to enjoy intellectual banter and slow development to get to the heart of it. This was very Altman-esque, with lots of activity and talk at once making the subtitles difficult to follow. Yet once I resolved myself to sitting close enough to read constantly, I was completely taken up with the beauty. Truffault brilliantly illustrates the experience of being an artist in a medium that requires so many tedious details to be taken care of. The actors are superb and the characters are developed brilliantly, beginning the film as the caricatures that they present to strangers, and becoming more developed as they get to know one another. The music was also a suprise, as instead of using it as background filler or to create suspense, he brings in distinct themes at certain parts to draw one into greater understanding. Long live the DVD format -- watching the accompanying interviews was a great learning experience.
Rating:
Summary: "Making a film is like a stagecoach ride into the Wild West"
Review: Day For Night (also called La Nuit Americaine) is a captivating glimpse into the mechanics of the film-making industry. It is a film within a film - the plot concerns the trials and tribulations (both human and technical) involved in the production of the fictional movie "I Want To Present Pamela". We are inducted into the world of director Francois Truffaut and his motley band of cast and crew as they cope with the seemingly endless difficulties in trying to make a film they can be proud of in a limited amount of time. There are tempestuous actors who storm off the set, canisters of film which go missing, and even the death of an actor during filming to deal with. And yet, through all this, the film itself reigns supreme. Day For Night is a French film, so unfortunately for English-speaking viewers some of the feeling is possibly lost in translation (either through dubbing or subtitling). However, the essence of the film remains, helped in no small part by some montage sequences set to Georges Delerue's wonderful orchestral score. The film was made almost thirty years ago, so looking at it from a purely historical perspective, it might seem a little dated. However, to see it merely as a representation of a point in time is to miss entirely the message contained within the movie; this message being that films are timeless. So whilst we might smile nostalgically at the clothes (most of which are unbelievably tight), the aspects of human relationships revealed are as relevant today as they were in 1973.
Rating:
Summary: All-Time Great
Review: Day For Night (La Nuit Americaine) is one of the finest movies ever made about the movies. Although its story is rather trivial and melodramatic, the good humor and wit, the beauty of the setting, and above all the extraordinary performances elevate this to the level of near masterpiece. Especially the amazing performance of Valentina Cortese as a vain actress whose son is dying of cancer. She clearly should have won the 1974 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress - so obvious was it to everyone (except the sentimental Academy voters, who instead gave it to Ingrid Bergman, of all people), that even Bergman, accepting the statuette, publicly said it should have gone to Valentina! It's a charming movie, not Truffaut's best, but close to being his happiest. Terrific to have it out on DVD. Don't miss it!
Rating:
Summary: Jacqueline Bisset, Truffault trisquit!
Review: Easily one of the best, and true, "movies about a movie". And also probably one of Truffault's best (a lot of his moives, for those that haven't seen them, sort of go on a on and never really have a plot). But not this one. It's engaging and funny, and (having worked on a couple film sets) right on about the behind the scenes antics of a movie set. Also, this was my first encounter - I think - with Jacqueline Bisset. Man is she great. And what a looker. As I was watching the movie I kept thinking she looked like someone else and then I realized it: Elizabeth Hurely! I swear she could be Jacqueline's son. Anyway Bisset was lithe and elegant and spoke great french. Yummy yum yum YUM. So, if you like Truffault (and hot babes), check this one out. B
Rating:
Summary: TRUFFAUT'S MASTERPIECE
Review: Firstly a tip for those of you who long for a subtitled version of DAY FOR NIGHT. You can buy now at www.amazon.fr an incredible 2 DVD edition of François Truffaut's masterpiece. French and dubbed version and a boatload of extras including rare footage of Truffaut interviews. Needless to say that the images and the sound are perfect. But BEWARE, you have to own a DVD player able to read zone 2 DVD's. In my opinion, if you must choose three titles in Truffaut's filmography, take THE 400 BLOWS, JULES AND JIM and DAY FOR NIGHT. With those titles, you'll have in your library the quintessence of his work. A movie for your library.
Rating:
Summary: It's Finally Here With Subtitles!
Review: For years i have been not watching this film -- one of my very favourites -- because it was only available on VHS in an abysmally-dubbed version. Well, now it's on DVD with the original French track and subtitles in English, and it's just as great as i've been remembering it from the last chance i had to see it theatrically. The video transfer looks excellent, the sound is good, and the film is the film. And there are goodies galore on the DVD as well; i haven't finished all of them yet. If you haven't seen this film, now is the time to do so. ((The dubbed track is included for people who simply can't deal with subtitles.))
Rating:
Summary: Day For Night
Review: Francois Truffaut is the wall between the traditional cinema and the self-conscious cinema. He is the most minimalist of the ideological filmmakers and the most radical of the artisans, his delicate touch: that most tender style that finds seemingly impossible intersections between theatre and cinema, Hitchcock and Rossellini, language and film-noir. `Day For Night' is a film that celebrates, not the making of forgettable, commercial cinema as it has been suggested, but the actual process of making a film. In `Day For Night' Truffaut has managed to make a film that separates the creation of art from the result of the creation. Truffaut is saying that everything is art before it is finished and distributed. No other filmmaker has made a more luscious poem to the making of films than Truffaut, for he is interested in the process and not the result. Most filmmakers whose films are dubbed `films about cinema' or `films about the making of a film' are most often films about everything except the making of a film. Truffaut's film radiates with purity: if he had not been interested in making a film about the actual process of making a film than he wouldn't have ended his film simultaneously with the end of the actual shooting of the film that they are making. That is what is most poignant and poetic about Truffaut's direct and minimalist approach to cinema in `Day For Night': when the film ends, everyone is separated again. He sees cinema as a beautiful collective dream. Truffaut's fetishistic interest in obsessive love (Antoine Doinel's obsessive love of Balzac in `400 Blows' resulting in a small fire, Adele Hugo's obsessive simultaneous love for a man and for writing that drives her to insanity in `Adele H.', Truffaut's love of children in `Small Change') is ever present in `Day For Night'. In one poignant, self-conscious scene, Truffaut himself tells Jean-Pierre Leaud, `We are only happy in our work', it's a beautiful scene, and one that summarizes `Day For Night': it is a film about making a film in which the characters are making a film, it is about itself. Jean-Luc Godard has been quoted by saying, about `Breathless': `I thought I was making `Scarface' and I ended up making Alice In Wonderland'. Truffaut, like Godard, tricks the audience into thinking that they are watching `Scarface' only to make `Alice In Wonderland': he uses the form of films that are made with technique only to make films made with emotions. What is most poignant about `Day For Night' are Truffaut's evocative, melancholic scenes of framing a scene, or editing a sequence, another filmmaker would have concentrated on the audience's response to the film, something more important than the actual film. Not Truffaut. It is the ending of a beautiful collaboration, and when the film ends the actors leave, the sets are destroyed, the film is forgotten and nothing is innocent once more.
Rating:
Summary: why dubbed in english?
Review: gosh--i must say i really love truffaut, and i truly enjoyed this movie. i saw it once--a while ago--in french with subtitles, and when i saw this video edition i was truly disappointed. dubbing makes everything seem so silly; the movie lost a lot for me in the process. so while i'd give the movie itself a whopping four or five stars, the video only deserves a paltry two or three.
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