La nuit americaine (1973)

Directed by: François Truffaut | 116 minutes | comedy, drama | Actors: Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Dani, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean Champion, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Nike Arrighi, Nathalie Baye, Maurice Seveno, David Markham, Bernard Menez, Gaston Joly, Zénaïde Rossi, Xavier Saint-Macary, Marc Boyle, Walter Bal, Jean-François Stevenin, Pierre Zucca

François Truffaut’s ‘La nuit américaine’ (‘Day for Night’) (1973) was widely acclaimed by the press at its premiere and won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1975. American film critic Roger Ebert even considers it the best film about film. ever made. However, not everyone shares this enthusiasm. The story goes that Nouvelle Vague fellow director and friend Jean-Luc Godard furiously ran away during a screening of ‘La nuit américaine’, because he sees it as one big lie.

‘La nuit américaine’ is not a heavy meal, however. The film is about the ups and downs during the shooting of a dime a dozen melodrama, entitled Je Vous Présente Paméla (‘I want you to meet Paméla’). In it, a son introduces his British fiancé to his parents and then the fiancé and his father fall for each other. But the film about the film does not escape clichés either. You have the serious director, played by Truffaut himself; the white-hot producer, who only cares about money and diva behavior; the older actress on set, who drinks herself a punch; and the rising star, who is more concerned with himself than with the film. In addition, there are countless roles for people ‘behind the scenes’, such as script girls, costume designers, stuntmen, and so on. By means of short, pointed scenes, in which passion and envy are often central, ‘La nuit américaine’ connects all the people on the set.

Despite all these clichés, ‘La nuit américaine’ still has many surprises in store for the viewer. Not everyone is as he or she seems at first glance. The great foreign star Julie Baker, played by the British actress Jacqueline Bisset, has just returned from a breakdown at her previous project. However, this time she is one of the most stable people on set and keeps some of her colleagues on the right track: everything for the film, as she herself admits. Moreover, she wonders aloud whether film makers do not consider films more important than life?

‘La nuit américaine’ is also a love letter to the fleeting beauty of cinema. When, after frantic attempts and switching from cat-actor, the animal finally succeeds in getting the animal to drink from a plate of milk, there is spontaneous applause from everyone present on set, including the divas. After all, everyone knows: there are only two things harder to direct than humans, and those are babies and animals.

This feat of meta-cinema is more relaxed than Godard’s meta-cinema. Think ‘Le mépris’ (1963) – although brilliant and cutting edge, this film burns just about the entire industry. Godard spares no one in this, including himself. But this seriousness can work against you. ‘La nuit américaine’ is easier to look away than almost any of Godard’s films, including his ‘lighter’ works such as ‘Pierrot le fou’ (1965). That’s what Truffaut tried to achieve with this love letter to his vocation: film is something between seriousness and lightness.

In response to Godard’s resolute rejection of ‘La nuit américaine’, Truffaut wrote a long critical letter about his friend’s work. After that, the two never saw each other again (Truffaut died in 1984).