A very meta film about film making itself, François Truffaut’s 1973 romantic dramedy Day for Night transports us behind the scenes of a movie being made at the famed Victorine Studios in Nice, France (think classics like To Catch a Thief and Children of Paradise).
The title itself is a reference to movie making, highlighting the term used when scenes are filmed during the day, only to make it look like they were done at night (by way of using filters). The Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974, Truffaut casts himself as the movie’s director, Ferrand, who is currently filming the tragic, if clichéd, melodrama “Meet Pamela” – not likely to be the next classic.
With a varied cast of players, he must juggle a number of proverbial balls, dealing with his large cast and crew: Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont) is a former A-lister, an aging icon in the industry; Séverine (Valentina Cortese), another star from the past, is an alcoholic prima donna who has lost her edge; Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a childish, immature up-and-comer in the industry; while British actress Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset) is an emerging starlet who has recently suffered some sort of nervous breakdown and is returning to work after the controversy of having just married her much older doctor (David Markham).
The plot of “Meet Pamela” (which in many ways relates to Truffaut’s own The Soft Skin – reappraised today as a classic, it was originally a box office disappointment as well as being panned by critics) revolves around a young couple; the man bringing his new bride home to meet his parents. The father and daughter-in-law soon come to realize that they are, in fact, in love and decide to flee in the middle of the night. The loose plot of Day for Night orbits around the making of the above described movie and the troubles that crop up on set.
And troubles there are. Everything from the mundane – the director must make a number of quick decisions, to the much more complex – numerous affairs are had amongst the cast and crew. At one point, a crew member’s wife, Madame Lajoie (Zénaïde Rossi), who has been keeping an eagle eye on her husband, bluntly exclaims, “what is this – filmmaking? You call that a business? You’ve no morals. Everybody sleeps with everyone! What is it but a dirty lie. You call that normal? Filthy cinema – you’re a plague on the world. You smell of filth! You’ll pay for your sins! I despise you!”. Highlighting the otherworldly bacchic nature of the film industry, it reiterates the countless scandals that have cropped up time and time again over the years. Other issues: boozing Séverine cannot memorize her lines or hit her marks, Alphonse disappears after a multitude of relationship problems. . . and even death rears its ugly head. There is also a fun little sequence with a cat that can’t act.
Perhaps the most intriguing moments are three black and white dream sequences. As the camera draws in on the director, sleeping with business on his mind, we flash into his psyche. We see him as a young boy walking the streets with a cane. The first two scenes are a teaser to the third, where the whole vision is seen – the boy is sneaking to the exterior of movie theatres and stealing stills of films he idolizes (in this case, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane). With a gate guarding those photos, it symbolizes the barriers which the layman has in understanding motion pictures – the closely guarded secrets of movie magic. Though it does not stop the young director, who is able to reach through and transcend to filmmaker. It also suggests the borrowing nature of the film industry, that each idea comes from somewhere. The rich nature of its historical past cannot be escaped – style, substance and story all come from the influences of earlier films and filmmakers. Some moments in Day for Night not only remind us of Truffaut’s own work, but also of Welles’ and others.
Truffaut also points us to the filmography of his idols. Linking us to just how similar he is to his director character, he receives a shipment of books (like the filmmaker actually frequently did). . . tomes on Hitchcock, Bergman, Buñuel, Lubitsch and so many others, including his friend Jean-Luc Godard. Strangely enough, it was this motion picture that brought a divide between the two. Godard walked out on the film in protest, calling it a “lie”. Writing a letter to Truffaut criticizing his work (how it depicts film making as well as heading towards the mainstream – they were both critical of those who did that), he was not kind. It ended with a reference to one of their favourite filmmakers from the past, little known Jacques Daniel-Norman, pointing to their early years and less-complicated times. Ignoring the concluding notes, Truffaut responded with his own scathing letter – calling Godard pretentious, demeaning and noting that he pretends to be poor (despite being extremely wealthy), he also christens him a “shit”. This ended their friendship; they would never reconcile – something Godard regretted, especially after Truffaut died at only fifty-two years of age.
Sex also plays a major part in the story. As mentioned above, trysts pop up, affairs are had, break-ups happen and relationships are salvaged – a study of the stressful, time consuming and confined nature of the film set. It is an apropos reference to the sex obsessed director himself, who frequently bedded his leading ladies – funnily enough, he is not one of the people who sleeps with Bisset’s Baker (though they were having a highly publicized affair during filming – you might have guessed that this was another point Godard made in that scathing letter – how ironic that he does not bed her in the film).
I would also like to highlight some fascinating quotations on film from Day for Night. The director, at one point, explains that “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.” Prophetic, he also analyses that “people used to stare at fires. Now they watch TV. We need to see moving images, especially after dinner”. Perhaps suggesting that chance and luck plays a part: “what is a film director? A man who’s asked questions about everything. Sometimes he knows the answers”. Joëlle, one of the crew, discusses the fact that a lady working on the film ran off with a stunt-man, saying, “I’d drop a guy for a film. I’d never drop a film for a guy!” – suggesting that those ensnared by the industry are beholden to it and those on the outside will never truly understand the draw of the process. It is only fitting then that the director tells Alphonse that “no one’s private life runs smoothly. That only happens in the movies. No traffic jams, no dead periods. Movies go along like trains in the night. And people like you and me are only happy in our work”.
Dedicated to Lilian and Dorothy Gish (the silent era stars), Day for Night draws in the passionate film lover by giving that person a bird’s eye view into this secretive world (e.g. how to make snow in the summer or build a balcony out of nothing). Richly constructed, beautifully acted and absorbingly illuminating, it is vital viewing for those enthralled with the inner workings of the industry. Though, as Alphonse says, “life is more important than films”, Truffaut would have you believe otherwise, showing a vision of his world that, despite being all facades and short-lived/highly charged love affairs, is more real to him than life itself.
French with English subtitles