DAY FOR NIGHT - DVD review

There hasn't been a better movie made about the making of movies (or the love of movies) than the late French director, writer, actor, and film critic Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night." It's lightweight, it's funny, it's touching, and it's thoughtful, charming audiences the world over. Among its many awards was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture of 1973. Seldom has a movie so deserved its prizes.

By playing a character much like himself, a harried film director, and having the fictional director attempt to shoot a romantic tragedy, Truffaut gently pokes fun at the moviemaking business while at the same time expresses his total commitment to it. He deftly combines a movie being made within the movie with the lives of the actors and crew making the movie to produce a film that can be enjoyed on multiple levels. And to ensure proper results, the movie-within-the-movie parallels to some extent the actions and attitudes of the real-life actors in the movie. Understand, we have actors playing actors playing movie characters here, allowing Truffaut plenty of room for commenting on numerous aspects of life and love and art. The results are infectious.

The title "Day for Night" (in French, "La Nuit Americaine") refers to the process of shooting nighttime scenes in daylight using a special filter. It not only clues the viewer into the idea of the picture, it reminds the viewer that movies are, after all, mere imitations of real life; they are artifices using gimmicks to fool us into believing that what we're seeing on screen is actually happening, like using soap suds for snow or trick candles with hidden electric bulbs to light up a room.

The film director in the movie, Mr. Ferrand, is, as I said, played by Truffaut himself. He has his hands full trying to make a frivolous potboiler, "Meet Pamela," about a young man whose new bride falls in love with and runs off with her new father-in-law. Everything that can go wrong with a film production goes wrong, and Truffaut is said to have experienced many of these mishaps in his own career.

Jacqueline Bisset plays Julie Baker, the American star Ferrand and his producer (Jean Champion) hire to play the lead role of the young bride. Bisset is dazzlingly beautiful, both as a character in the film-within-a-film and as the actress playing the part. What's more, Julie is married to a doctor (David Markham) who appears old enough to be her father in real life! The young actor playing her husband in the film-within-a-film is Jean-Pierre Leaud, who had been in several previous Truffaut films, including "Bed and Board" and "The 400 Blows." His character, Alphonse, is insecure and naive in the ways of love. To play the lecherous father-in-law in the film-within-a-film, Truffaut chose veteran movie lead Jean-Pierre Aumont, whose character, Alexandre, is supposed to be a dashing screen idol who carries his own secrets. And to play the mother in the film-within-a-film, there is the vivacious Valentina Cortese, whose character, Severine, is an aging actress who can't understand why her old co-star, Alexandre, is still able to seduce younger women in his pictures. Sound familiar?

Everybody is trying to get the director's ear: On the one hand he's asked to make a serious political film; on the other hand he's pestered to make an erotic film. Severine drinks too much and can't remember her lines, necessitating cue cards all over the set. Actors are bickering constantly; a recalcitrant cat refuses to cooperate in a key scene; the script is being rewritten as they go along; and in the film's climax, the poor director has to deal with the real-life romantic complications of several of his principal players, leading to corresponding ironies and tragedy off the set. So life imitates art, and art imitates life.

The film is practically a seminar on filmmaking. Its behind-the-scenes glimpses of moviemaking, its handling of the day-to-day functions of the creative process, and its practical observations on the art of making illusion into reality are enlightening for the casual moviegoer, the dedicated motion-picture fan, and the seasoned filmmaker alike. "Day for Night" never attempts to be profound, and in doing so it becomes very profound, indeed.

Video:
The movie is presented in its original exhibition aspect ratio, measuring approximately 1.74:1 across a normal television and enhanced for widescreen TVs. Colors are deep, and in broad daylight shots the screen images are sharp and vibrant. But in more dimly lit scenes, the screen is not always so natural, a bit too dark and on occasion slightly muddled. The darker areas do not convey as much inner detail as they could, and while definition is good, it is not exceptional. All the same, the screen is entirely free of grain and virtually without wavering lines or other unwanted transfer artifacts.

Audio:
The film's monaural soundtrack has been reproduced in Dolby Digital, cleaning it up considerably, I would imagine, and resulting in a clear and quiet listening experience. The sound is very ordinary in all respects, but it does convey dialogue nicely, which is all it's called upon to do. The frequency response and dynamics are limited, but the all-important midrange is remarkably lucid. There is an unaccountable background noise that intrudes for a moment during a party scene, but it is nothing of consequence.

Extras:
The list of bonus materials for the film is appropriately extensive, but I must admit I found much of it saying the same things. The list begins with a typical set of cast and crew film highlights. Then, there follows a series of newly made featurettes that help explain what the director was up to in his film. The first is called "Day for Night: A Conversation with Jacqueline Bisset," wherein the actress tells us for about nine minutes her remembrance of the filmmaking. The next is the longest, a seventeen-minute featurette titled "Day for Night: An Appreciation." Here we get a look at the director and the film from Annette Insdorf, a Columbia University cinema professor and author of the book "Francois Truffaut." After that is an eight-minute featurette, "Day for Night: Truffaut in America," which Professor Insdorf narrates and which contains interviews with director Brian De Palma, actor Bob Balaban, and film critic and historian Todd McCarthy.

Following the "Truffaut in America" is set of four featurettes labeled "La Nuit Americaine: The French Connection." They are newly filmed reminiscences by some of the actors and crew who worked on the production: Nathalie Baye (Joelle), Bernard Menez (Bernard, the prop man), Dani (Liliane), and Yann Dedet, the film's editor. These featurettes last between three and eleven minutes each. The bonus items continue with a promo and two interviews with Truffaut made just after the film's release: "Truffaut: A View from the Inside," six minutes; a 1973 Cannes Film Festival interview, two minutes; and a 1973 National Society of Film Critics Award interview, two minutes. Concluding the extras are an awards list, thirty-four scene selections, and a widescreen theatrical trailer. The film is presented with its original French language track, but an English dub is also available. I strongly advise your listening to the French track, with English, French, or Spanish subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
The tagline for the film is "A movie for people who love movies." I'd add, it's also a movie made by people who love movies, and in particular by one person whose entire life was devoted to a love of movies, Francois Truffaut. Perhaps the most telling scene in the film is a recurring dream the director, Ferrand, keeps having. He's a little boy again and sneaking down a long, dark street. What possible mischief is he up to? He's stealing a wonderful set of prizes, movie stills from a local showing of "Citizen Kane"!

Truffaut's love affair with motion pictures is evident in every scene of "Day for Night," and watching the film is a joy for anybody who has ever been entranced by the magic of cinema.