Saturday, October 10, 2009

1278 - Shoot the Piano Player


I haven't been good lately about keeping up on my classic cinema. I've been training my writing mind about what kind of stories people are interested in today, however I have to remind myself that storytelling is cyclical and that good stories, no matter how old, are timeless.

I think of the foreign masters that Truffaut is pretty high up there. I was on a huge Bergman kick for a long time, mostly because of how much he influences Woody Allen, but I find that I relate more, and re-watch Truffaut a lot more than I do Bergman. Eric Rohmer is another that I admire the more I watch. That being said I don't think I've put even a into Truffaut's filmography. Something I need to remedy.

Now that I've babbled, this film was an interesting one. One thing Truffaut does really well is telling stories about people falling in love, being in love, and falling out of love. And he does so in a way that you can really relate to the characters. There's some really funny back and forth banter between a lot of the characters, some absolutely wonderful observations. In terms of story, it's mostly just there to service the characters, and in that it's nothing phenomenal, but then he's more interested in exploring his characters than making them go after anything.

Not in the upper echelon when it comes to Truffaut's films but it's entertaining nonetheless.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about getting into the classics, mainly 'cause I am slowly running out of contemporary movies. But I'm a bit lost there, 'cause it's really unfamiliar territory. Maybe you can recommend me something? But not that Gone With the Wind and Life is Beautiful and All About Eve stuff... something... I don't know. More... I don't know.