Day for Night

I understand the boundless enthusiasm of film fans and I understand that it is almost a duty to give Day for Night 5 stars, but I don't have any obligations and I avoid them in every possible way. This film represents a tribute to the world of film studios and all enthusiasts who have dedicated their lives to cinema. It exudes an uncritical fascination with the glamour of film and is essentially a unilaterally positive journey into the world in front of and behind the camera, where even the death of one of the crew members is not a tragedy but a part of life and work, presented with a sense of humor. However, I get the feeling that making a film is primarily hard work and stress, not just a continuous happening, and the problems are far from comedic. Truffaut's film certainly has a number of great moments, but it also has average passages, and I do not consider it the best in his career. It's simply the theme that caters to film fans that catapulted it to such heights. Overall impression: 80%. (10/01/2011)

Enchanting illusions about the enchanting medium of illusions and the people and peripeteias that precede the creation of such a tricky work. Unlike Godard’s Contempt, which focuses on the philosophical ideals associated with cinematic art and the creative process, Truffaut focuses on utterly banal episodes from shooting and melodramatic behind-the-scenes intrigues, which he combines with a sincere confessional belief in film not in the sense of the work, but rather in the process and the state of mind. Day for Night became the catalyst of the dramatic falling-out of Godard and Truffaut, when Godard, outraged by the film’s triviality and falsity, wrote an indignant letter to his long-time colleague and friend, which was followed by an equally haphazard response. In many respects, one could agree with Godard. Films are an intersection of money, politics and sex, which Day for Night either completely ignores or attempts to downplay through amusing episodes. Nor can it be denied that Truffaut idealises himself in his own film, and not only when he conceals his escapades with actresses. Furthermore, by delegating them from a figure of the cinema and the work of a dedicated director, which he himself portrayed, to the character of a naïve and dandyish actor played by Léaud, he completely ignores the power and fetishising level of those relationships. However, that is essentially what Day for Night is about, even if Truffaut himself wouldn’t put it that way. It is the confession of a director who balances his relationship to film and says that it is not (only) philosophical and analytical, but primarily a passion. Godard constantly looked ahead and, for him, it was not merely a matter of initiating a new take on film, but constantly rejecting the current one and finding a new form of expression. Conversely, Truffaut went back to the beginning, to his admiration and fascination with films and the actual process of making them, where falsity and make-believe serve for the creation of intoxicating illusions. Day for Night is unavoidably a meta-illusion that, in peering behind the scenes, does not want to disrupt the overall aura of films, but instead reinforces it. Therefore, it is not only more calculated and deceptive in its seeming ordinariness and naïveté, but also more intoxicating and touching than Contempt. The PR staff at Hollywood studios must love Day for Night even more than filmmakers and movie fans do, as it represents the ideal for which they aim in their "making of" promo videos, which are just as manipulative and just as skilfully obscure their internal politics and real dark sides, splendidly arousing emotions in us and nourishing our love for the whole carousel of illusions. (26/09/2020)

A very tolerable film, at least for me, if I judge it by who made it. I'm not a big fan of this era of European cinema, but it's evident that Truffaut moved away from it, and it was only for the better because it resulted in something that truly understands film and its production, and it's willing to offer this perspective to the audience, moreover, in an accessible and understandable way. (10/09/2015)

Truffaut shoots his own lines with admirable accuracy, but I couldn't shake the feeling that at times it was a little detrimental to the film. His actors and all members of the crew are portrayed in such a way that even their personal problems, which form the skeleton of the story, seem to be from another, simpler world. On the other hand, however, there is no lack of character variety or a whole range of real emotions and life attitudes, manifested in the moods of each scene (gentle humour in the scene with the kitten, the bitterness of growing old in the scene of "two identical doors", etc.). Moreover, everything is adorned with a beautiful formal aspect, where almost every detail is put against the background of the entire shooting process (for example, when Truffaut is looking at the photos of the aspiring actresses, the camera keeps focusing only on them, as if the viewer should give his opinion whether to hire them or not). But the greatest ornament of the film, which attracts so many enthusiasts, is of course its unrepeatable precision and yet casualness in outlining the colossal, physically and mentally exhausting process of filmmaking. Probably no one other than Truffaut, a lover of cinema, an excellent director and a very pleasant actor, could have done such a thing, which is why we have to appreciate this magical work very, very much. 85% (20/03/2014)