Rating: 
Summary: One of Truffaut's best! And the disc is a beauty!
Review: A great film for anyone who wish to start watching Truffaut's works. Sandwiched between "The 400 Blows" and "Jules and Jim," this film is often overlooked and underrated. I've watched almost all of his works, and I'm amazed how "Shoot the Piano Player" still stands out and charms me. The plot becomes purely an "exterior" after a couple times of viewing. Of course, one of the magic of this movie is that it refueses to be any genre you think it would be: All of the film noir/thriller/chase type of scenes turn out to be really humourous and light hearted; it's a comedy but also undeniably sad. What remains in my head is Charles Aznavour's pianist himself. Here is a man who is beaten up by life with no career future; he's shy but would kill a man if he has to; he treats women well and they like him; and he always seems to make the slight wrong mistakes that changed his life. But he has his piano and that's all he needs. The expression when he plays tells you that he has dreamed of something bigger but has no complain about where he is. This is the most freely structured Truffaut with some of his most lovable characters. And the DVD with it's widescreen transfer has amazing image quality for a black and white film in 1960. Although nothing extra in the disc, this one worth the money!
Rating:
Summary: One of Truffaut's best! And the disc is a beauty!
Review: A great film for anyone who wish to start watching Truffaut's works. Sandwiched between "The 400 Blows" and "Jules and Jim," this film is often overlooked and underrated. I've watched almost all of his works, and I'm amazed how "Shoot the Piano Player" still stands out and charms me. The plot becomes purely an "exterior" after a couple times of viewing. Of course, one of the magic of this movie is that it refueses to be any genre you think it would be: All of the film noir/thriller/chase type of scenes turn out to be really humourous and light hearted; it's a comedy but also undeniably sad. What remains in my head is Charles Aznavour's pianist himself. Here is a man who is beaten up by life with no career future; he's shy but would kill a man if he has to; he treats women well and they like him; and he always seems to make the slight wrong mistakes that changed his life. But he has his piano and that's all he needs. The expression when he plays tells you that he has dreamed of something bigger but has no complain about where he is. This is the most freely structured Truffaut with some of his most lovable characters. And the DVD with it's widescreen transfer has amazing image quality for a black and white film in 1960. Although nothing extra in the disc, this one worth the money!
Rating: 
Summary: NOSTALGHIA
Review: At first, just two or three thoughts about the quality of the Fox Lorber DVD. Poor is the word. Subtitles one can not remove, six trailers of Truffaut movies, so so filmographies and that's all. If one considers that the DVD treatment of the images is average at the best, awful during the first five minutes of the movie in a nightly Paris, you will have to be a genuine Truffaut fan to buy this DVD. I am, so I bought it. Why does I like this movie ? Well, I presume I'm touched by the so praised Truffaut touch for a beginning. But, above all, I always feel an intense nostalgy when I'm watching SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER. To hear Charles Aznavour play his sad melodies at the piano and the late Boby Lapointe sing "Framboise" move me a lot. To admire once again this fantastic actor Albert Rémy - the father in the 400 BLOWS -, Michèle Mercier before her ANGELIQUE serie, the screenwriter Daniel Boulanger in the role of a comic gangster or the director Alex Joffé as the passerby philosopher is an always renewed pleasure for me. A DVD zone give it a chance.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes the book is just better!
Review: Maybe one shouldn't compare the movie and book versions of a story. But sometimes that's inevetibable. And sometimes the movie actually improves on the book, ie. "In a Lonely Place." However, in the case of "Shoot the Piano Player," based on the book "Down There," by David Goodis, I can't say this is so. The look of the movie has that gritty noir feel, but all the time one feels as if they're watching the characters in a goldfish bowl ? from a great remove. You don't really get to know the characters or their motivations. In the book, this is much more clear and makes for a much more involving experience. Also, the addition of the character Fido (the piano player's younger brother) adds little to the story. In novel and movie we don't really get a great feel for why the waitress does what she does, but in the novel we get more of a feel for it and that does make a difference. It also makes a difference that we know more of the piano player's background, that he served with Merrill's Marauders in World War II, that, after losing his first wife, he went on a binge of anger and hate and fighting that finally led him to be the "docile" person he is when we meet him. This is little explained in the movie. Some of it's there, but much of it isn't and without it the character just seems a cypher. Read the book, watch the movie and decide for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes the book is just better!
Review: Maybe one shouldn't compare the movie and book versions of a story. But sometimes that's inevetibable. And sometimes the movie actually improves on the book, ie. "In a Lonely Place." However, in the case of "Shoot the Piano Player," based on the book "Down There," by David Goodis, I can't say this is so. The look of the movie has that gritty noir feel, but all the time one feels as if they're watching the characters in a goldfish bowl ? from a great remove. You don't really get to know the characters or their motivations. In the book, this is much more clear and makes for a much more involving experience. Also, the addition of the character Fido (the piano player's younger brother) adds little to the story. In novel and movie we don't really get a great feel for why the waitress does what she does, but in the novel we get more of a feel for it and that does make a difference. It also makes a difference that we know more of the piano player's background, that he served with Merrill's Marauders in World War II, that, after losing his first wife, he went on a binge of anger and hate and fighting that finally led him to be the "docile" person he is when we meet him. This is little explained in the movie. Some of it's there, but much of it isn't and without it the character just seems a cypher. Read the book, watch the movie and decide for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: a masterpiece
Review: This is a brilliant commentary on the short sidedness of typical genre pics in how they ignore the reality of the everyday-- especially that gangsters are run of the mill like the rest of us. Another astute New Wave feminist style criticism, too.
Rating:
Summary: a masterpiece
Review: This is a brilliant commentary on the short sidedness of typical genre pics in how they ignore the reality of the everyday-- especially that gangsters are run of the mill like the rest of us. Another astute New Wave feminist style criticism, too.
Rating:
Summary: MR CHARLIE
Review: This luminous little movie contains 2 of the greatest scenes ever put on film. Charlie, a piano player in a seedy Paris bar, has locked away his heart so even he can't get to it. A young woman who works at the same bar is determined to crash through the wall he has constructed around himself. Through her, his painful past is discovered and the promise of the present ends in the disolution of hope. Truffaut is constantly surprising us with the unexpected. There are car chases & kidnappings & excapes and even oaths acted out; and all with an air of the inevitable. There's never been another film like it. The scene where the barmaid takes him home & they sleep together consists of 360 degree pans around the room with cuts of the couple settling into each others' arms as they sleep. It is one of the most poignant & beautiful scenes ever filmed. (The pans with goldfish feeding at the top of their aquarium are expecially touching.) And there is a scene of the hero Charlie, going to his piano audition, that is done with such economy of style that the mixture of clashing feelings comes flooding out. 'Don't shoot the piano player; he's doing the best he can.' Not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: MR CHARLIE
Review: This luminous little movie contains 2 of the greatest scenes ever put on film. Charlie, a piano player in a seedy Paris bar, has locked away his heart so even he can't get to it. A young woman who works at the same bar is determined to crash through the wall he has constructed around himself. Through her, his painful past is discovered and the promise of the present ends in the disolution of hope. Truffaut is constantly surprising us with the unexpected. There are car chases & kidnappings & excapes and even oaths acted out; and all with an air of the inevitable. There's never been another film like it. The scene where the barmaid takes him home & they sleep together consists of 360 degree pans around the room with cuts of the couple settling into each others' arms as they sleep. It is one of the most poignant & beautiful scenes ever filmed. (The pans with goldfish feeding at the top of their aquarium are expecially touching.) And there is a scene of the hero Charlie, going to his piano audition, that is done with such economy of style that the mixture of clashing feelings comes flooding out. 'Don't shoot the piano player; he's doing the best he can.' Not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: An early Truffaut masterpiece.
Review: This was one of the movies that made me a fan of foreign cinema. I first saw it in college at a small art house theater that had been owned by Pauline Kael in Berkeley, before she moved to New York. Each film was accompanied by notes she had prepared. What a great way to start one's education in great movies. This was also the perfect film for a young college student. Charles Aznavour plays an alienated pianist who is working on a honky tonk piano in a bar. We learn as the film unfolds that he is excruciatingly shy - a problem that afflicted him in his earlier career as a concert pianist, and that also keeps him from responding to the overtures of a beautiful young woman who takes an interest in him. They do finally get together and have an idyllic rendezvous in the country, but things unfold to a shocking and tragic end. The film closes with Aznavour back in the bar retreating into his honky tonk piano. Truffaut gives us a black and white film in which verite and surreal elements weave together. The sense of alienation is palpable. The role of fate and how it pursues us is presented with black humor and some funny concrete sight gags. All in all it combines to form a masterpiece. Not easy to watch for those not familiar with French cinema, but very well worth it. Highly recommended.
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