Day for Night [La nuit américaine] ***** (1973, Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, François Truffaut, Nathalie Baye) – Classic Movie Review 1403

His thirteenth film proves lucky number 13 for François Truffaut as his much-loved 1973 success Day for Night [La Nuit Américaine] represents a huge return to form for him. Co-writer/ director/ star Truffaut’s 1974 Best Foreign Film Oscar-winner is a wonderful film about making a film from a man we should listen to because he knew more about it than almost anyone else. It also won three Bafta awards for Best Film, Best Direction and Best Supporting Actress (Valentina Cortese). Anyone who loves movies will love this movie.

Truffaut himself plays a film director called Ferrand, who is battling against all the odds to try to make a romantic movie in Nice with a bunch of impossibly difficult or troubled cast and crew. All of them are in crisis, either personal or professional.

The movie is called Je Vous Présente Paméla (Meet Pamela), a clichéd melodrama that stars ageing screen icon Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont), former diva Séverine (Valentina Cortese), young heart-throb Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and English actress Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset) recovering from a nervous breakdown and controversy over her marriage to her much older doctor (David Markham).

The late, great French director’s unshakeable sense of the unconfined joy he feels that is involved in making a movie, despite all the ridiculous and absurd trials and tribulations we see depicted, is overwhelmingly infectious. The film works supremely on every level – as comedy, soap opera, insider’s view of the movies, romantic melodrama, and even metaphor for living.

The acting by the whole hand-picked cast is perfect, and her endearing star role here is an early sign that Jacqueline Bisset was more than just a beautiful face. Nathalie Baye (as the script girl Joëlle), Dani, Alexandra Stewart, Jean Champion, Nike Arrighi, Zénaïde Rossi and Gaston Joly also star.

Truffaut directs with supreme verve and style, the insider’s screenplay is effortlessly polished, perceptive and witty, Pierre-William Glenn’s cinematography is glorious and Georges Delerue’s music score is lovely.

The author Graham Greene appears as an insurance company representative, credited as Henry Graham, unfortunately in what is the movie’s only poor performance. Greene was a great admirer of Truffaut, so was delighted to be able to meet him on set in the small part where he talks to the director. Truffaut wasn’t told that the actor was Greene, whom he admired in return.

Truffaut dedicates his film to legendary silent movie stars Dorothy and Lillian Gish.

In French, nuit américaine (American night) is a film’s technical process whereby sequences shot outdoors in daylight are shot using tungsten (artificial light) or infra-red film stock and underexposed (or dimmed during post production) to appear as if they are taking place at night.

Valentina Cortese (1 January 1923 – 10 July 2019).

RIP Italian actress Valentina Cortese (1 January 1923 – 10 July 2019). She married Richard Basehart, her co-star in The House on Telegraph Hill, in 1951. She gained a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award Nomination for her role as the fading alcoholic movie star Séverine.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1403

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/