Shoot the Piano Player

Shoot the Piano Player
The original theatrical poster.
Directed by	François Truffaut
Produced by	Pierre Braunberger (producer)
Written by	David Goodis (novel Down There) François Truffaut (adaptation) and Marcel Moussy (adaptation) François Truffaut (dialogue)
Starring	Charles Aznavour Marie Dubois Albert Rémy
Music by	Georges Delerue
Cinematography	Raoul Coutard
Editing by	Claudine Bouché Cécile Decugis
Distributed by	Cocinor
Release date(s)	25 November 1960
Running time	80 minutes (UK) 92 minutes (USA)
Country	France
Language	French

Shoot the Piano Player (French: Tirez sur le pianiste, aka Shoot the Pianist) is a 1960 French film directed by François Truffaut, starring Charles Aznavour.

The film is loosely based on the novel Down There by David Goodis.

Plot summary

A washed-up classical pianist, Charlie Kohler/Edouard Saroyan (Charles Aznavour), bottoms out after his wife's suicide — stroking the keys in a Parisian dive bar. The waitress, Lena (Marie Dubois), is falling in love with Charlie, who it turns out is not who he says he is. When his brothers get in trouble with gangsters, Charlie inadvertently gets dragged into the chaos and is forced to rejoin the family he once fled.

Differences from novel

The film shares the novel's bleak plot about a man hiding from his shattered life by doing the only thing he knows how to do, while remaining unable to escape the past. However, Truffaut's work resolves itself into both a tribute to the American genre of literary and cinematic noir and a meditation on the relationship between art and commercialism.

Truffaut significantly changes Charlie's personality in Tirez sur la Pianiste. Originally, Goodis' Edward Webster Lynn (who Truffaut adapts as Charlie) is “pictured as a relatively strong, self-confident guy who has chosen his solitude [whereas] Truffaut’s Charlie Kohler has found his isolation inevitably; he was always shy, withdrawn, reclusive.”

Cast

• Charles Aznavour as Charlie Kohler / Edouard Saroyan
• Marie Dubois as Léna
• Nicole Berger as Thérèse Saroyan
• Michèle Mercier as Clarisse
• Serge Davri as Plyne
• Claude Mansard as Momo
• Richard Kanayan as Fido Saroyan
• Albert Rémy as Chico Saroyan
• Jean-Jacques Aslanian as Richard Saroyan
• Daniel Boulanger as Ernest
• Claude Heymann as Lars Schmeel
• Alex Joffé as Passerby
• Boby Lapointe as Le chanteur
• Catherine Lutz as Mammy

Soundtrack

• Boby Lapointe - "Framboise" (Written by Boby Lapointe, music by Boby Lapointe)
• Félix Leclerc and Lucienne Vernay - "Dialogue d'Amoureux" (Written by Félix Leclerc))

Production

Truffaut's stylized and self-reflexive melodrama employs the hallmarks of French New Wave cinema: extended voice-overs, out-of-sequence shots and sudden jump cuts.

External links

• Shoot the Piano Player at the Internet Movie Database
• Shoot the Piano Player is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• Shoot the Piano Player at AllRovi
• Criterion Collection essay by Kent Jones