A few years ago, the author of this review received an offer to run a film-related show on a local radio station. Before accepting, I was thinking about the most suitable name for the show and came up with the idea to employ a term used almost exclusively in cinema circles—"American night" or "Day for night". This is the name for a cinematography technique in which special filters are used to allow daytime shooting of night scenes. This term in many ways symbolises the illusionist nature of film, but there is another reason why I picked exactly that name. I was partially influenced by François Truffaut, the great French filmmaker, and his 1973 Oscar‑awarded comedy La Nuit américaine, in many ways the best film about filmmaking.
The plot of this film takes place in the Victorine studios in Nice, on the set of Meet Pamela, a melodrama about a young English bride who runs away with her French father‑in‑law. We are gradually introduced to the members of cast and crew, led by the experienced technocratic writer and director Ferrand (played by François Truffaut), who must face numerous technical problems with near‑disastrous consequences. But the biggest difficulties come from the members of the cast, whose real‑life personalities are often as dysfunctional as the characters they portray in front of the camera. Ageing diva Severine (played by Valentina Cortese) keeps forgetting her lines due to alcoholism, while the young neurotic actor Alphonse (played by Jean‑Pierre Léaud) struggles with his fiancée Liliane (played by Dani) cheating on him with every available member of the crew. Problems multiply with the arrival of Julie Baker (played by Jacqueline Bisset), the English actress and the film's main star, who has just recovered from a nervous breakdown and who is followed by her husband and former physician, Doctor Nelson (played by David Markham). Ferrand must use all his talent to bring some form of organisation into this chaos and finish shooting on time.
Day for Night represents everything a film should be—funny, moving, entertaining and educational. Its educational value is the easiest to spot, because there are very few films able to give a convincing and coherent portrayal of the fine art of filmmaking. Truffaut, famous for using autobiographical elements in his films, obviously invested much of his rich filmmaking experience in the screenplay of this film, and those who are better familiar with his biography and the rest of his œuvre will find many similarities with real‑life stories around Truffaut's earlier films. But Truffaut also allowed himself the opportunity to make some more general observations in his film, often shot in a pseudo‑documentary style. Many viewers would be surprised how difficult it is to make a film—even the simplest and most banal scenes require hours of work, immense patience and complete attention to the tiniest of details. And all this effort, which requires military‑level precision, usually never gets properly appreciated or, as Truffaut/Ferrand observes, rarely produces the desired results. What drives the people in film is passion for filmmaking itself, not the desire for glory or artistic achievements.
Truffaut is equally perceptive when he deals with the way the chaotic reality of filmmaking affects people on the set. He acknowledges that mental and physical exhaustion can lead people to stress, substance abuse and other forms of self‑destructive behaviour. On the other hand, the promiscuity on the set—an endless series of short‑term relationships that start and break up during the shoot—is portrayed with much more sympathy and understanding, even in cases when they may have near‑tragic consequences. In Truffaut's eyes, those relationships can’t be explained by mere carnal desire; set promiscuity is one form of social interaction between people who are bound together by hours of unrelenting hard work. As a result of this interaction, the people on the set often become very attached to each other and form a surrogate family, making the inevitable end of shooting a heart‑breaking affair.
In its structure, Day for Night is a reflection of the chaotic circumstances of the shoot. Therefore, the plot is not very coherent and the film is episodic in nature. There aren’t real leading roles and almost every character gets an equal share of exposure. That allowed Truffaut to employ a rather diverse but very talented cast that ranges from Truffaut himself and his old associate and alter ego Léaud to more glamorous stars like Bisset. The relatively unknown Valentina Cortese got herself a well‑deserved Oscar for her funny yet moving role as an ageing actress, but there are a few other roles that stand out—namely Jean‑Pierre Aumont as a character that could have been modelled on Rock Hudson, and the lovely Nathalie Baye in the role of Ferrand's trusted and very capable assistant. The egalitarian treatment of all these wonderful acting talents is underlined in the end credits, when their faces and names appear accompanied by the wonderful musical score of the great Georges Delerue (who appears earlier in the film in a voice cameo). This great finale is the most fitting for this excellent hymn to filmmaking.
RATING: 9/10 (+++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on June 21st 2001)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1675-la-nuit-am-ricaine?language=en-US
Critic: AAA
