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Subject Shoot The Piano Player shows at IFS on Thu April 2, 2009, 7:00 & 9:00

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Shoot The Piano Player
New 35 mm Print of Truffaut's Wacky Farce
Thu April 2
2009, 7:00 & 9:00

Francois Truffaut directed this tragicomic farce about a piano player (Charles Aznavour) beset by a family tragedy who has given up on his career as a famed concert pianist and fallen to tickling the keys at a neighborhood speakeasy, where his brother draws him into a feud with mobsters. Marie Dubois plays the waitress who falls in love with him. Following the success of his first feature, The 400 Blows, Truffaut rejected the sentimentality of that film, declaring he �needed to show that I had been influenced by American cinema.� This is reflected in the contrast between the broad variety of devices he uses to tell his story, including the then-novel voice-over describing the hero's neurotic self-chatter, as well as the inclusion of sex and violence. Because of this novelty, at the time of its release Shoot the Piano Player was widely regarded as the director's bomb between two hits (Jules and Jim followed in 1961) and was not appreciated by the critics of the day.

To see a trailer and read a review, visit InternationalFilmSeries.com.

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