Antonius Block Everyone talks about how much of an homage this is to Hollywood film noir, but to me it seems much more like a light version of a Hollywood gangster film. Sure, there are some scenes at night and the film is black and white, but the plot is straightforward, there's not a lot of gritty drama, and the 'bad guys' are not all that menacing. That doesn't make the film bad, just miscategorized. What I found most interesting was the running theme of the nature of the relationship between men and women, the 'new wave' cinematography Truffaut includes (including cool scenes shot out of a car window at night in the winter towards the end), and the humanism of the timid piano player, sucked up into clashes with criminals as well as a love affair, and whose past is gradually revealed. It's enjoyable but relative to the gangster story there are several moments which don't seem honest or real, and the shootout scene is cheesy. On the other hand, the relationship aspects are fascinating, the film is enjoyable from start to finish, and it's cool to watch a Truffaut film from 1960 – watch it for that.

melvyn-z Tragic, unconventional, non-chronological told love story in which the protagonist Charlie loses two girlfriends under fateful circumstances, partly caused by him. The occasionally funny and always entertaining film transform the American novel Down There and it's noir atmosphere into a french masterpiece that exposes the "romance and beauty between the lines" (Kael in a different context). It centers around the titular piano player who's shyness, love for women and art, as well as his final powerlessness reflect not only the writer and director Truffaut, but also our own lives. It's his second picture and maybe with the, partly failed, exception of Jules and Jim his last real attempt at the Godard-esque deconstruction of film and his genres, after which he leaned more, and sometimes too much so, to the classical approach of his great idol Hitchcock. Nevertheless do I admire Truffauts more grounded style, which fits his striving for succession of Renoirs humanistic legacy. In Shoot the Piano Player the combination between youthful experimenting with genre and form, and the not quite polished attempt at an effective emotional drama, perfectly fit the story to create a masterpiece.

bts1984 Truffaut introduced himself with 'The 400 Blows', a film of very good taste. His 2nd effort, 'Tirez sur le pianiste', isn't a let down, quite the contrary, it's a generally quite enjoyable film that tells the story of a piano player in trouble.This interesting french film is a clever combination of comedy, drama, crime, thriller and suspense. It approaches the policial genre, as well as the atmosphere sometimes approaches darkness, even the noir genre. Nevertheless, the levels of action are very modest. But I'm not the hungry for action type, so that fact doesn't bother me. Another thing is that there isn't one truly tense scene, even in the scenes which are supposed to be tense. Even the bad guys are not intrinsically evil enough to be much of a problem and therefore they're not really scary or intimidating.It wouldn't be far from the truth claiming that another achievement is how this displays humor in less than good circumstances. For example, there is a scene when Charlie and Léna are being kidnapped by the bad guys and Charlie says a funny line about women: «If you've seen one, you've seen them all» - and they all erupt into laughter. Even I laugh out loud with that line, even more so considering it is so true. The piano music by the talented musician Georges Delerue is relaxing to hear, it's like poetry for the soul. Cinematography is great and obeys to the principles of liberty so characteristic of Monsieur Truffaut.Frankly speaking, I think all of the actors are great in this. And I mean all. Charles Aznavour, a talented singer, is just as interesting as an actor, as his performance proves. Albert Rémy is, again, great. Richard Kanayan has a bigger role here as Fido Saroyan but still far from being a big role. Nevertheless, he is hilarious. That kid had charisma and talent. His big, floppy hair; his weird, raspy voice; his dance-walk style; his lips's movement; the fact that the actor was quirky and hyperactive... all of that made him unique and hilarious.The bad guys are funny and pretty cool for bad guys and they're well played by the actors: Claude Mansard as Momo and Daniel Boulanger as Ernest. As for the beautiful women (Marie Dubois as Léna and Michèle Mercier as Clarisse), I also like the way they play their roles.All in all, great movie. Only its ending is somewhat rushed and ambiguous, although satisfying aside the fact that the girl gets shot.Title in Portugal: 'Disparem sobre o pianista'.

Rockwell_Cronenberg I'm not used to handing out these ratings, but Shoot The Piano Player absolutely deserves it for me. It's Francois Truffaut's second feature, after the stunning debut The 400 Blows, but it feels like a mix of Godard and Melville in a lot of ways. It has the melancholy noir of something like Le Doulos, with a shut-off main character who is constantly a victim of his surroundings, but the freedom and playfulness of something out of Godard's early playbook.Truffaut experiments a lot here with narrative structure and film techniques, making up plenty of it as he went along instead of sticking to a more traditional narrative. In fact, Player feels in many ways like a natural progression from The 400 Blows. His debut was all about the power of freedom, and he followed it up with one of the most utterly unleashed films I've seen. It's New Wave in full form, as experimental as it is exciting. Truffaut molds plenty of genres together here, creating something that is part noir thriller, part pulp mystery, part dark character study and part satirical, self-referential, madcap comedy. It's wildly fun all the way, but I was surprised by the more dark turns that it takes around the halfway point.The most surprising aspect of it all is the fact that Truffaut manages to make it all work within one film. He combines all of these different tones, but it never feels like he's trying to cram it all together, it flows so effortlessly and, again, free. Charlie Kohler is a superb lead character, played marvelously by Charles Aznavour. He's a guy with a lot of pain in his past, and instead of letting that fall out all over the place, it stays inside the entire film. Kohler has shut himself off from the world and at the end of the film nothing has changed within him.Truffaut uses voice-over to give us an inner monologue of Kohler, with the help of Aznavour's expert stoicism, and it perfectly serves to get us into this man's mind without betraying the character by opening him up to those around him. Kohler stays removed from the world, and I found a lot to relate to in the character. It's a melancholic character study placed within a wickedly smart comedy placed within a dark and twisty pulp thriller.