Customer Reviews

Day for Night

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For years i have been not watching this film -- one of my very favourites -- because it was only available on VHS in an abysmally-dubbed version.

Well, now it's on DVD with the original French track and subtitles in English, and it's just as great as i've been remembering it from the last chance i had to see it theatrically.

The video transfer looks excellent, the sound is good, and the film is the film.

And there are goodies galore on the DVD as well; i haven't finished all of them yet.

If you haven't seen this film, now is the time to do so.

((The dubbed track is included for people who simply can't deal with subtitles.))

La Nuit Américaine is an interesting movie with celebrated French director Francois Truffaut playing a director making a movie. He proves to be a modest and convincing actor himself while patiently weaving a tale about how movies are made and how intense the emotional interactions among those making the movie can be.

Don't give up on this one too soon. It starts slow and seems almost amateurish because of the relatively low-tech way the film within the film is being shot. Truffaut gives us a glimpse of how the production crew works together (and sometimes at odds) while showing us some of the things that can go wrong while making a movie. He begins with the technical details of the production but before long begins to concentrate on the personalities of the movie-makers and their individual stories. Each story is carefully crafted in a somewhat leisurely way almost like the characterizations in a soap opera (without of course the phony drama and mass market sentimentality seen on TV). Truffaut's fine sense of emotional conflict and how conflict might be resolved makes the various stories touching without being maudlin.

Jacqueline Bisset who stars as English actress Julia Baker who plays the title role in the film within the film (May I Introduce Pamela?) doesn't make her appearance until about a fourth of the way in. She is a delight as an actress with a heart of gold recovering from a nervous breakdown married to an older man whom she does indeed love. Jean-Pierre Leaud, whom most viewers will recall as the running boy in Truffaut's The 400 Blows, plays a young and not entirely confident actor who gets jilted by the script girl who runs off with the stunt man during production. Bisset's warm and sisterly befriending of Leaud is, shall we say, entirely French (which gets her into trouble with her husband). This really is a skillful showcasing of Bisset since she gets to play something like an ingenue with her husband and the older woman with Leaud. Be careful you might fall in love with her.

Valentina Cortese in a fine supporting role does a most convincing job of playing the temperamental Italian actress just past her prime who quaffs champagne while working, who forgets her lines and can't find the right door, but when properly indulged gives a great performance.

My problem with this movie is I saw the dubbed version and of course that is disconcerting because one is constantly trying to reconcile the visualized actor with the dubbed one. To see Jacqueline Bisset who is beautifully fluent in both English and French speaking French while at the same time hearing someone else speaking English for her is just a bit too much to take. I understand that the DVD version is in French with subtitles. I would recommend that you get that and not the dubbed video.

Truffaut is the kind of director who allows the audience to penetrate not only his characters to see what makes them tick, but also the stars who play those characters. He does a particularly beautiful job with Bisset who is warm and wise and something close to heroic, and with Leaud whose childishness seems natural and whose pettiness forgivable. Don't believe those reviewers who think this is a slight film. It is carefully crafted and very well thought out and is a fine example of the work of the one of the great directors of the French cinema. See it for Truffaut whose delicate genius is evident throughout.

For those of you who haven't seen any films by the late, great French director, Francois Truffaut, Day For Night (French title: La Nuit Americaine) is a great introduction. This actually won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and it is evident why. Day For Night is really a valentine to Francois Truffaut's love affair with cinema. This is a great and intriguing story (a sort of film within a film approach). Ferrand (played by Truffaut) is the hardworking film director, trying to line all of his ducks in a row, to film and complete his movie, "Je Vous Presente Pamela." As is often the case, nothing is going quite as was planned. For starters, his beautiful lead, Julie (Jacqueline Bisset), is recovering from a breakdown. Her co-star (Jean Pierre Leaud) is completely unreliable, and Severine (Valentina Cortese), an aging actress, is hitting the bottle pretty hard during the filming of their picture. What's more, all sorts of other intrigues are taking place between members of the crew (romantic and otherwise).

I love this shot because it almost seems like a pseudo-documentary, as well as a loving tribute to the blood, sweat and tears that go into making a film. How great that Truffaut got in front of the camera for this piece. He really should have done it more often. This film is equally funny and touching and I highly reccomend it.

Firstly a tip for those of you who long for a subtitled version of DAY FOR NIGHT. You can buy now at www.amazon.fr an incredible 2 DVD edition of François Truffaut's masterpiece. French and dubbed version and a boatload of extras including rare footage of Truffaut interviews. Needless to say that the images and the sound are perfect. But BEWARE, you have to own a DVD player able to read zone 2 DVD's.

In my opinion, if you must choose three titles in Truffaut's filmography, take THE 400 BLOWS, JULES AND JIM and DAY FOR NIGHT. With those titles, you'll have in your library the quintessence of his work.

A movie for your library.

This was one of the movies that when I first saw it made me love the cinema even more...Now, with this horribly dubbed English version, how can anyone stand to watch it?...Whoever is responsible for this version should never be allowed to have anything to do with the movies ever again...

I can't express how bad I feel about this movie not being available in the subtitled version.

They are depriving us of one of the best films of all time, by one of the best directors. NOT FAIR

Not only that, but the version they DO offer is so horribly dubbed and what about that price!!!!

I am completely against this type of crimes.

PLEASE release it in the subtitled version, and please readable subtitles with good translation. And if at all possible CRITERION please take note!

Day for Night has not aged quite as well as some of Truffaut's other films, since it feels like an homage to a bygone era, but that is partly because it has influenced so many subsequent portrayals of what goes on behind the scenes during the making of a film, and it is partly because the filmmakers wanted to make an homage to an older style of filmmaking. Tom di Cillo's "Living in Oblivion" for example is the American indie version of Day for Night -- more cynical, even more funny, but not nearly so complex or profound. Day for Night almost wants to be a tragedy, and while the fact that the film gets finished in the end lends the film a comic dimension, it is clear that Truffaut knows life is never so neatly packaged. That is, in fact, the central theme of the film: that life is unpredictable and often tragic, but cinema makes magic of tragedy, and is worth the sacrifice that are made for it. The acting is very real and compelling -- especially when you recall that most of the actors play essentially two roles: their stage role and their character. The film itself seamlessly moves between scenes that are shot for the film within a film and scenes shot of the filming process and of the lives of the actors and crew. I did enjoy the fact that Truffaut included himself as the director of the film with the film that he was also directing; I also enjoyed a great deal the glimpse into what seems to be his process of working with actors and improvising in response to the demands of situations.

My only complaint is that there are a few fairly heavy-handed elements in the film, that belie Truffaut's otherwise light and subtle touch. At a few moments in the film we can hear what a character is thinking through voiceover -- and it seemed somewhat sporadic and inconsistent rather than the result of a coherent approach. When Truffaut (playing a director) falls asleep he hears voices (usually his own) and then dreams -- and the dreams are always of a little boy walking down the street in black and white. The dreams don't fit as clearly or as lightly into the film as similar sequences in Fellini's 8 1/2 (a film that this film is obviously comparing itself to at certain points). Though it seems that the boy in the dream must be the director, it wasn't clear to me what the dreams revealed other than: this is someone who, from an early age, was fascinated by film (and, possibly, felt guilty about "stealing" from Orson Welles). But I'm not sure why we needed three separate dream sequences (or any at all) to convey what seemed already clear -- at another moment the director opens a package of books and they are books about several of the great western directors including Orson Welles, Fellini, and Cocteau. Even that seemed a bit heavy handed -- was the point to make a comparison or to suggest a feeling of inadequacy?

On the whole, though, in spite of a few reservations that may be peculiar to me, this is an excellent film that belongs especially among the very great films about film: 8 1/2, Stardust Memories, Living in Oblivion, Beware of a Holy Whore, State and Main, and a few others. Highly recommended for lovers of film.

gosh--i must say i really love truffaut, and i truly enjoyed this movie. i saw it once--a while ago--in french with subtitles, and when i saw this video edition i was truly disappointed. dubbing makes everything seem so silly; the movie lost a lot for me in the process. so while i'd give the movie itself a whopping four or five stars, the video only deserves a paltry two or three.

Along with Fahrenheit 451, Day For Night is easily Francois Truffaut's most playful film. It works where so many subsequent moviemaking movies don't because Truffaut doesn't put the director at the center of the picture, or indeed the movies themselves: it may be set in a movie studio on a troubled picture, but it's all about people and about love in its various forms. Moreover, for all the pains and tantrums and breakdowns, there's a real love for and acceptance its characters that makes it a particularly joyful experience. Throw in some great performances from a fine ensemble cast - not least the oft-overlooked Jean-Pierre Aumont - and a wonderful Georges Delerue score, and it's hard not to fall under its spell.

If you like the film, now is the time to pick up either Warner's excellent Region 1 disc or MK2's French PAL disc (with English subtitles on the feature and a slew of unsubtitled different extras) as both companies are being sued by the Truffaut estate over the film, which may make it unavailable for the forseable future.

This is a beautiful movie about the world of film-making, with all of its trials and joys. Truffaut shows the foibles and glories of the people who make films, revealing even his own indiscretions. The film is, at the same time, a charming story. And almost every shot reveals something about how films are made -- stuntwork, set facades, directing extras, and even working with animals! A joyous ode to the people who make films!