But later Edouard learns that his big break was brought about by Therese’s self-sacrificing submission to the impresario’s lustful demands, in an effort to advance her husband’s career. By chance, it seems, he meets a concert impresario who hires him to perform, and soon Edouard is famous. Anyway, this section does show, at least, life at the piano bar, and we are introduced to the proprietor, Plyne.Ĭharlie/Edouard was married to a comely young woman, Therese, and struggling to come up in the world as a pianist.

Later on in the film there will be another disruptive, time-wasting song that takes up a further minute-and-a-half of screen time for no reason. It is apparently supposed to be funny, but it takes up a full two minutes of this 81-minute film and is merely a distraction. The reasons for why Truffaut included it in the film escape me. This section, by the way, also features a bizarre singing performance of a witless and boring song, “Framboise”. In this section we are introduced to Charlie’s introspections in voiceover, and on this occasion he reflects on his ambivalent feelings for his dumb and troublesome but upbeat brother. When two thugs pursuing Chico show up, however, Charlie reluctantly does help Chico escape out the back door. Although Charlie hasn’t seen his brother in four years, he is familiar with his usually criminal activities and doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. Charlie is a tight-lipped piano player who entertains the dancing customers with his playing. Thus despite the stark contrasts in external trappings between these two early films, Shoot the Piano Player is still very much of a personal and existential journey like that of The 400 Blows.Ĭhico finds the piano bar where his brother Charlie works, and he runs in to hide from his pursuers. Evidence for this can be seen in the fact that Truffaut modified the personality of the protagonist away from the confident and authoritative one fashioned by Goodis in the novel to a more introverted personality like Truffaut’s own. Nevertheless, I feel that Shoot the Piano Player still lies in the personal psychological space of Truffaut.

Truffaut later admitted that he was consciously trying to chart a new artistic direction with Shoot the Piano Player, in an attempt to avoid potential autobiographical typecasting arising from The 400 Blows. By making a film of an expanded narrative based on American crime writer David Goodis’s novel Down There (1956), he apparently wanted to move away from the personal context and display his sympathies for the American films noir of the 1940s and 50s – and also perhaps demonstrate a full panoply (or at least try out a number) of cinematic techniques along the way.

Shoot the piano player david goodis