"Shoot The Piano Player" is an enormously entertaining movie that utilises a variety of different styles, moods and sudden changes of pace to tell the story of a piano player whose attempts to achieve contentment in obscurity are thwarted by the actions of his criminal brother. This was Francois Truffaut's second movie and at the time of its making, he was clearly on a creative high, as what's seen on screen looks like the delirious outpourings of a mind that was totally passionate about filmmaking and also brimming over with ideas.
Truffaut's love of movies started at an early age and provided him with some respite from his very troubled childhood. As a young man he, like most of the well known New Wave directors, became a contributor to the film journal "Cahiers du Cinema" and together, they advocated a more informal approach to filmmaking with greater use being made of footage that was shot outside of the studios. The type of films that had captivated the young Truffaut were predominantly American B-movies and it was because of his great respect and affection for them that he made "Shoot The Piano Player".
Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) is a pianist in a small but lively Parisian bar who finds that his regular routine is thrown into chaos when his older brother Chico (Albert Remy) seeks his help because he's being pursued by a couple of gangsters. It transpires that Chico and another brother, Richard (Jean-Jacques Aslanian), had worked together with Momo (Claude Mansard) and Ernest (Daniel Boulanger) on a heist but had double crossed them when they took off with most of the loot.
Charlie leads a quiet life looking after his youngest brother Fido (Richard Kanayan) and is helped in this by his good natured neighbour Clarisse (Michelle Mercier) who's a prostitute and also occasionally, his mistress. Helping Chico leads to trouble for Charlie when he and his girlfriend Lena (Marie Dubois) get kidnapped at gunpoint by Momo and Ernest, but fortunately, they manage to escape when Ernest's bad driving leads to him being stopped by the police.
Lena is a waitress at the bar where Charlie works and tells him that she knows about his past. Charlie had been a very successful concert pianist (known by his real name, Edouard Saroyan) but had given up his career after his wife Therese (Nicole Berger) had committed suicide. Tragically, she had taken her own life because she'd confessed to Charlie that the first big break in his career had come as a result of her agreeing to sleep with his impresario. Charlie's inability to come to terms with what she'd done had been more than she could bear.
After Charlie kills his boss in self-defence, trouble continues to follow him until events ultimately reach a climax during a shoot-out in a countryside location.
Charlie is a tragic and sensitive character who's a victim of fate. Not only had his career, which had elevated him to a new level of success, ended suddenly with the result that he'd ended up back in the type of environment that he'd originally emerged from, but also his love affairs with Therese and Lena both ended in tragedy and heartbreak.
There's a great deal that's melancholic and poignant about Charlie's story but the way in which it's told is often comical, irreverent and disconcerting because of the use of unorthodox styles of editing and pacing. This juxtaposition of humour and pathos could be regarded as a reflection of the normal balance of life which often leads to humorous things happening at times of great sadness or it could simply be what happens when someone who's so intoxicated by the possibilities of his art form gives his creativity free rein.
The quality of the acting in this movie is consistently good but Charles Aznavour's performance is positively exceptional. His facial expressions and body language are perfect and convey Charlie's vulnerability and innate sadness so well that it would be hard to imagine anyone else being able to improve on what he achieved in this role.
Truffaut's love of movies started at an early age and provided him with some respite from his very troubled childhood. As a young man he, like most of the well known New Wave directors, became a contributor to the film journal "Cahiers du Cinema" and together, they advocated a more informal approach to filmmaking with greater use being made of footage that was shot outside of the studios. The type of films that had captivated the young Truffaut were predominantly American B-movies and it was because of his great respect and affection for them that he made "Shoot The Piano Player".
Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) is a pianist in a small but lively Parisian bar who finds that his regular routine is thrown into chaos when his older brother Chico (Albert Remy) seeks his help because he's being pursued by a couple of gangsters. It transpires that Chico and another brother, Richard (Jean-Jacques Aslanian), had worked together with Momo (Claude Mansard) and Ernest (Daniel Boulanger) on a heist but had double crossed them when they took off with most of the loot.
Charlie leads a quiet life looking after his youngest brother Fido (Richard Kanayan) and is helped in this by his good natured neighbour Clarisse (Michelle Mercier) who's a prostitute and also occasionally, his mistress. Helping Chico leads to trouble for Charlie when he and his girlfriend Lena (Marie Dubois) get kidnapped at gunpoint by Momo and Ernest, but fortunately, they manage to escape when Ernest's bad driving leads to him being stopped by the police.
Lena is a waitress at the bar where Charlie works and tells him that she knows about his past. Charlie had been a very successful concert pianist (known by his real name, Edouard Saroyan) but had given up his career after his wife Therese (Nicole Berger) had committed suicide. Tragically, she had taken her own life because she'd confessed to Charlie that the first big break in his career had come as a result of her agreeing to sleep with his impresario. Charlie's inability to come to terms with what she'd done had been more than she could bear.
After Charlie kills his boss in self-defence, trouble continues to follow him until events ultimately reach a climax during a shoot-out in a countryside location.
Charlie is a tragic and sensitive character who's a victim of fate. Not only had his career, which had elevated him to a new level of success, ended suddenly with the result that he'd ended up back in the type of environment that he'd originally emerged from, but also his love affairs with Therese and Lena both ended in tragedy and heartbreak.
There's a great deal that's melancholic and poignant about Charlie's story but the way in which it's told is often comical, irreverent and disconcerting because of the use of unorthodox styles of editing and pacing. This juxtaposition of humour and pathos could be regarded as a reflection of the normal balance of life which often leads to humorous things happening at times of great sadness or it could simply be what happens when someone who's so intoxicated by the possibilities of his art form gives his creativity free rein.
The quality of the acting in this movie is consistently good but Charles Aznavour's performance is positively exceptional. His facial expressions and body language are perfect and convey Charlie's vulnerability and innate sadness so well that it would be hard to imagine anyone else being able to improve on what he achieved in this role.