In his films he shows considerably more technical skill, overall, than his great rival, Jean-Luc Godard; but even when Godard woefully misfires, as in some of his early films, he's at least striving for something. Truffaut, by comparison, likes shiny, pretty things, and anything that disturbs that safe universe is averse to him. Thus, his 116 minute long, 1973 filmic take, Day For Night (La Nuit Américaine), on the behind the scenes goings on at the making of a movie amount to little, as neither the exterior film, the interior film, nor the extra-exterior of the viewer watching the film, satisfies on any level. The characters on all levels are rather vapid, if not outright cardboard characters, and it's a tossup as to which set of characters are more vapid- those who portray actors in Day For Night (whose title derives from film scenes that are shot day for night, wherein a filter is used to give the look of night while shooting in daylight, yet the metaphor of which is pointless to the actual film), or those the actors portray within the interior film Meet Pamela (Je Vous Présente Pamela- literally May I Introduce Pamela). On either level, the action is purely melodramatic. Critics argue the film shows how much François Truffaut loves film. So? Love without action or meaning is rather sterile- the perfect description for this well made but dull and simply pointless film. There have been many films made about the making of film, or meta-films on the subject, even going back to the silent era. But, the two most interesting comparisons to be drawn with this film would be from films released a decade earlier. One by Truffaut's rival- Godard, who made Contempt (Les Mepris), and the other by Federico Fellini: 8½ (Otto E Mezzo).... Still, despite its awards and reputation, Day For Night is not near a great film, merely an adequate one, whose greatest failing is its being too long for its banal and lightweight screenplay to sustain itself. If it lost 30-35 minutes it could have been more successful. Then again, I may as well grow wings, for the screenplay aspect of films was never high on the list of the French New Wave filmmakers, who were birthed out of the atrocious Cahiers Du Cinéma magazine on film theory. The filmmakers who came from this milieu (Truffaut, Godard, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol) were generally not good writers (with the exception of Louis Malle), even if they were competent technical and visual stylists. Their writing, as critics, was routinely bad, consisting of purple prose that dealt with the criticism of intent, rather than substance, and was usually only undershot by the often worse ideas they espoused. Thus, Day For Night's failure is no surprise. It is too prosaic, flat, and hollowly predictable to succeed as great art, even if it is an interesting diversion, at times. Compared to a film like John Cassavetes Opening Night, which similarly details the dramatic goings on of a stage production, it is fey and forgettable. Say what?
Review of Day for Night
