Day For Night (1973, François Truffaut)

"Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point, you just hope to survive." Ferrand

Watching a film about film-making done right is always a sweet spot for me, and there have been quite a few. Singin’ In The Rain, The Bad and the Beautiful, Contempt, The Player, Shadow of the Vampire, The Artist and two of my personal favourite films 8½ and Ed Wood.

That being said, I have never experienced a film like Day for Night. You simply forget you're watching a film and are transported onto the film set and begin to feel as though you are intruding. I was completely absorbed.

The film opens to a quaint French street where two characters who the camera has been following meet face to face. But just as one is about to slap the other, we hear the word "Cut!", and we realise we're on the film set with the entire crew.

In comes our director Ferrand, played by non other than François Truffaut himself and the entire film crew gather together before they go through the scene again. This time, we're walked through the entire process of the shot, from the pace of the walk, to the activity in a cafe to the speed of a moving car.  

We're also introduced to a few of the players such as veteran actor Jean-Pierre Aumont and Jean-Pierre Léaud (who was the young boy from Truffaut's first film The 400 Blows). However, we're left waiting on the arrival of Hollywood star Julie Baker, played by actual Hollywood star Jacqueline Bisset. Thus leading to one of my favourite lines uttered in the film, "I remember her in that movie with the car-chase." Of course they're referring to Bullitt.

After the producer approaches Ferrand and drops the ball of a reduced shooting schedule, we are given a wonderful long take of numerous crew members approaching him one by one for numerous decisions and compromises. From having to choose a car for a particular scene, a bungalow as shown in sketch form, a wig for one of the actresses, even a gun for an actor, which is chosen to fit the actor's hand size.

"What is a film director? A man who's asked questions about everything. Sometimes he knows the answers."

Asides from pure joy, which is what this film delivers in spades, the film's overall brilliance lies in the reveal of the technique. The execution of a cinephile's vision, and how when hit with numerous obstructions to his project, he keeps moving forward despite all his struggles towards his goal. Even in his sleep, Ferrand has cinema on the mind, as shown in a lovely dream sequence. 

Ferrand: "Tell him the car crash we're shooting tomorrow will be in American night."

Julie: "What is American night?"

Ferrand: "A night scene shot in daylight with a special filter."

Julie: "Ah, day for night."

As for performances, this goes to Valentina Cortese, who plays Séverine, the ageing (and sometimes drunken) actress. There's a particularly brilliant scene where she keeps mucking up her scene by either forgetting lines or opening the wrong door... over and over and over again. It's quite a sad scene.

Unlike most glamorised depictions of film-making, everything here is laid out in plain sight for us to see. It's completely stripped down, as though Truffaut is unveiling the curtains to the magic of his show and also serves as a glorious homage to the old school style of film-making.

When Truffaut made Day for Night, he was at the height of his career and hit big with this film, including an Oscar for best foreign film and an Oscar nomination for best director the following year. Unfortunately his French New Wave collaborator and friend Jean-Luc Godard, wasn't feeling the love and had this to say upon viewing the film: "Yesterday, I saw Day for Night. Probably no one else will call you a liar, so I will." 

The two former friends never met again, and since Truffaut's untimely death in 1984, Godard has regretted this argument and admitted it's a great film. Click here for a quick video on this legendary quarrel.

If you're an aspiring film-maker, or consider yourself a cinephile, or maybe you're just a fan of the show How It's Made, either way you must see this film. 

Rating:  A+

Click here for the trailer and here for the trailer from hell