121 - Shoot the Piano Player, 1960, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.

Monday, May 1, 2017

121 - Shoot the Piano Player, 1960, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.

CHARLIE KOLLER
DANCING NIGHTLY

Look at him, the concert pianist pounding out honky-tonk!

Chico Saroyan has come to see his brother Charlie Koller play the piano at Plyne's place.

Charlie is a popular piano man.  At nine o'clock on a Saturday the regular crowd shuffles in.

But Chico knows he used to be so much more.

"You're throwing your life away," he complains.

"You look great behind that piece of junk," he mocks.

"You deserve a concert grand in a packed hall," he remembers.

"The world-famous artist can't even afford a jalopy."

Chico is one to talk.

He is on the run.

He has stopped into Plyne's place to ask his brother for help.

He has not seen his brother in four years.

And he has just pulled a job.  A heist.

He and his one partner have taken the loot and are running from their other two partners, Ernest and Momo.

Chico rationalizes that he needed to gyp them before they gypped him.

He appeals to Charlie.

"These two men are chasing me." / "What do they look like?" / "One wears a hat and the other a cap."

That helps.

Chico is named for Chico Marx.

Charlie is named for Charlie Chaplin.

Francois Truffaut loved American movies.

When he made his first film, The 400 Blows, he realized it was quintessentially French.

So with Shoot the Piano Player, his second film, he decided to pay homage to American gangster films.  And comedies.  And melodramas.  And slapstick.  And heist films.  And silents.  And romance.  And farce.

In other words, let us just do it all.

So a touching, heartfelt love scene will be followed by a bumbling chase scene.

And a dramatic kidnapping will be followed by parody.

No problem.  This film also ends up being quintessentially French anyway.  As Truffaut was filming, he kept changing elements from the book to make it more French.

Just when I was going to call it a hodgepodge, I discovered that Truffaut himself called it a grab bag.

At least we are on the same page.

Charlie plays the piano.  Chico dances.  He meets a girl and dances with her.  He thinks things are going well.  She does not.

No problem.  Ernest and Momo enter the bar anyway.  Charlie has Chico dash out the back.

An Italian singer sings Italian.

Lena works at Plyne's place with Charlie.  She is falling for him.

Plyne tells Charlie.  Plyne is jealous.  He is falling for her.

Charlie leaves for the night.  Lena is waiting for him.  He walks her home.  He tries to hold her hand.  He tries to put his arm around her.  Nothing comes of it.

But she sees that Ernest and Momo are following them.  And she tells him.

They dash down an alley.  They lose the tail.  He asks her out.  But she is already gone.

We will eventually discover that there are four Saroyan brothers.  Like the Marx Brothers.  Three whom we see frequently.  One whom we see seldomly.  There will be a Richard.

We know Chico and Charlie.  Now we will meet Fido.  The kid brother.  The one Charlie is raising.  He lives with him.

Fido is played by Richard Fanayan.  The kid from The 400 Blows yesterday who kept spilling ink on his exam book and who kept tearing up the pages trying to blot the ink.  He was funny then.  He is funny now.  He was funny on set.  The cast and crew loved him.

He would appear in one more Francois Truffaut movie nineteen years later, and otherwise disappear.

Whatever happened to Richard Fanayan!  He was funny!  He was good!

Since Charlie did not make it with Lena tonight, he will settle for his neighbor across the hall.  She comes over and stays with him.  They talk self-consciously about love in the movies.

The next morning as Charlie awakens Fido for school, Fido sees Ernest and Momo outside down below.  So he rounds up some neighborhood kids and they go after Ernest and Momo.

Too late.

Ernest and Momo kidnap Charlie at gunpoint.  They cannot get him to tell them where Chico is, so they kidnap Lena from her apartment.  Now Charlie and Lena are both in the car.

They got the addresses of Charlie and Lena from Plyne.  He sold them out for quick cash.

They drive.

Ernest talks about women.  Everyone laughs.

Lena puts her own foot on the accelerator and speeds through a stop sign in front of a police officer.  He pulls them over.  While he is talking to Ernest and Momo, Charlie and Lena get away.

Smart Lena.

Lena takes Charlie back to her place, and he discovers that she knows him.  Who he really is.

The great pianist Edouard Saroyan.  She has his poster on the wall.

We go to flashback.  We learn his story.

He was a great piano player.

He was given a chance by the great impresario Lars Schmeel.

He had a great career.

But his marriage declined.

His wife finally revealed that he got his big break with Schmeel because she slept with him.  She did it because she loved Edouard.  She wanted to help him.

In a single moment he had walked out.  He had turned around.  He had walked back in.  He had intended to tell her it was OK.  He loved her.  He was too late.  She had jumped from the window.

He had quit.  Given up.  Drowned his sorrows in a dive bar.  With a new name.

Lena loves him anyway.

She just asks that he never leave her without telling her first.  If you ever stop loving me, just let me know.  No man ever has.  They have all just disappeared.

Charlie will not disappear.

There will be more kidnappings and more chases, more jokes and more pratfalls, guns and knives, killing in defense, killing by accident.  And a showdown.

It will all come to a head in a cabin in the snow.

And someone's heart is going to break.