For only the third time in three years, I couldn’t find a digital copy of this week’s film! I finally located a used DVD online and, after several attempts at shuffling this French film around my screening schedule, was able to watch the flick—and it was worth the effort!
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“Day for Night” (a title referring to the film-effect where night scenes are shot in daylight with a special filter/processing technique to appear dark) is a ‘movie about making a movie’. The story floats between several main players in the making of the fictional film “Je Vous Présente Paméla”, a soap opera-esque melodrama about a woman leaving her husband for her father-in-law. While making “Paméla”, Director Ferrand (played by the actual film’s director François Truffaut #meta) is frantically bounced between creative and talent crises, both real and imagined, solving problems as they arise. As the film progresses, we get some glimpse at the movie being created but spend most of our time following the personal-drama, affairs, technical challenges, creative decisions, script woes, and tragedies that burden the shoot, gradually eroding the film’s concept into the film’s eventual reality.
Like Fellini’s “8 1/2”, which I watched 2 months ago, this film chronicles the absurd nature of the creative process and the studio film system. While “8 1/2” is meaningful because it’s about trying to SAY something, “Day for Night” is meaningful because it’s about trying to DO something—just get through a full script on time and on budget! I found the film incredibly clever, funny, stylish, and raw. It was fun to see how the actors “real-life” drama intersected with the drama they were allegedly depicting in “Paméla”. It was also heartbreaking to see how resigned and pragmatic the once idealistic director had become. I imagine anybody who has tried to lead a group of people with diverse motivations and competing priorities in service of a singular vision will relate to the elation of little-wins, the frustration of compromise, and the bittersweet pride in completing a project different than the one you set out to create.