Tirez sur le Pianiste: A Stylistic Analysis (Just a Note)


Criticism of Truffaut's films draws our attention to his intuitive and instinctive investigation of human relationships. His aesthetic interest in the form of the filmic text, which is constructed and developed by considering a variety of techniques, is immediately recognizable in formalistic structure of the narrative and the image. In addition to his former films Les Mistons (1958) and Les Quatre cents Coups (1959). Tirez sur le Pianiste (1960) is prominent in terms of using camera movement, editing and framing/composition.

In fact, there is considerable evidence at the beginning of the film to make us aware of the independence of the camera through abrupt changes imposed by using of pans, tracking shots and fast editing. Obviously, the significance of the chase scene at the beginning is in producing a Brechtian distance to the audience so that this action is part of film, cinema, such as the scene in which Chico (Albert Remy) leaves the stranger suddenly moved quickly into the night. Then, camera movements in any form-pan, tracking shot and long take-try to capture him, but like all Truffaut's characters, he resists being entrapped by the frame and attempts to maintain his sense of freedom and power of maneuver to off-screen. It simply means that in Truffaut's films every individual is claustrophobically followed under a microscope of social judgment, and he is being controlled under everyone's moral and ethical interpretation folded in identity. In a similar manner, when Charlie(Charles Aznavour) walks with Lena(Marie Dubois) on the pavement in front of the bar in their first dramatic contact, however, the shadow of the camera on them through the tracking shot reveals us the action which is a fiction.

Moreover, in dealing with suspense and Hitchockian terminology, Truffaut's camera movement is skillfully manipulated to visualize the complex web of emotions involved in the sequence in which Charlie tries to invite Lena for a drink. Her disappearance caused by Charlie's hesitation to make his final decision, which is captured by a tracking shot, makes the suspense to emerge at the end of his monologue. Even more striking, though, is Truffaut's loyalty and homage to his mentor Hitchcock that is emphasized by using Hitchcock's favorite MacGuffin formula, by using the gangster genre unfolded in film noir style, to conceal the actual story(Charlie's obsession and fascination with women).On another level, most parts of Truffaut's film are structured on point of view shots. The shot/reverse-shots combined with the camera movements, such as pan, are signified by the sequence in which Charlie looks at Clarrise (Michele Mercier) (Homage to western genre) tracking off her dress, and throwing the pillow at him (audience's point of view, censorship), therefore, he covers her breast to make a direct reference to cinema: 'au cinema c'est comme ca et pas autrement' ('that's what they do in films'). Although it is Lena's voice over heard on the film track, the whole flash back in flash back sequence is Charlie's point of view shot (beginning with another pan which takes us from the present time to the past). It begins with Iris-in (homage to silent cinema) putting Lars Schmeel's(Claude Haymann) position right in the middle of the screen between Charlie and Tresea (Nicloe Berger)in the bar, and it ends with Iris-out making the similar graphic editing in the bed emphasizing his interference with destruction of the couple's life.

In the second half of the film, characterized by a slower rhythm of editing and a sense of Charlie's solitude and isolation, the images represent his obsession revolving around women as Charlie's idealized "other" and vice versa. For instance, in the sequence in which Charlie and Lena are kidnapped by the gangsters, the gangster right beside Lena speaks about women and how they try hard to attract men's attention, then, Lena tries to make a posture as the men's idealized image. In addition to Lena's example, through Theresa'a confession to Charlie about Lars Schmeel in the flash back sequence, Charlie's Point of view shot tries to capture her by camera movement in order to condemn her manipulation of narrative and simultaneously to adore her existence and sacrifice, but she runs away from being imprisoned in such static frame in that once he succeeds to freeze her, she has already committed suicide. Like Hitchcock or Lang, Truffaut's cinema is about look. In other words, how the individual characters identify with each other and how the audiences are preoccupied with the identification process through the looks of camera.

In terms of editing, therefore, Truffaut provides a good demonstration of his homage to French impressionist directors like Abael Gance, Germain Dulac and Marcel L'herbier in the ambiguous flashback narrated by the gangster in the first kidnap sequence. The frame is structurally split to three distinctive and circular frames (frame-split technique) with dark backgrounds (inspired by Abel Gance's Napolean). The differences among the temporal rhythms of each of Plyne's(Serge Davri) visual framings strikingly conflict with the linear structure of the time of the narrative between past, present, and future against the conventional style of Hollywood continuity editing. Furthermore, in Lena's apartment Trauffaut suggests the state of confusion between past and present and future by using favorite French Impressionist's techniques: superimposition and dissolve (inspired by Germaine Dulac and Marcel L'Herbier). Indeed. Truffaut simply signifies that one can never become free from the domination of the past, and it returns all the time, which is one of the most important motifs and themes in his film. Although they make love and sleep in the bed together, the poetic dissolves and the superimpositions imply the couple's desire to make the length of sleeping time and being together eternal while Lena's voice over with diegetic sound track by George Delerue impose a sense of emotional identification with her image of Charlie to the audiences.

Truffaut's experimentation with Eisenstein and Bazin's ideas about editing and depth of field in the film gives us a sense of reading an academic film text in which the masters of editing's traces are being followed very clearly from the beginning to the end. For instance, when Chico stares at Clarisse dancing with his customer in the bar, Truffaut's ability to exploit his rich store of cinematic memories seems to help him to put the actors in the depth of field in order to maintain and intensify the momentum of reality. Therefore, Chico in the foreground stares at Clarisse dancing in the middle-ground and two more customers of the bar act as his rivals, who have been introduces before to the audiences, sitting in the background. Again, in the sequence in which Charlie and Lena are being kidnapped, Truffaut manipulates Eisenstein's concept of conflict montage in the climax of the scene by showing an upside down image of the car passing through the intersection and following by police officers. Ultimately, at the final sequence, when Charlie's brother and gangsters shoot at each other Truffaut revolt against the 180 degree system of Hollywood conventional editing and they look like they are shooting at the same direction like jump cutting (from right to left). Of course, it is necessary to emphasize that Charlie's character is not authoritative enough to dominate and control of the narrative, then, he has to be helped and protected by the women in the film all the time against the generic convention of the gangster films and film noir. Charlie's symbolical point of view shot of highway in the night suggests Lena as the narrator enforcing the narrative (She drives the car) and saving him to the direction in which the threatening and the overshadowing elements of darkness of the city have to be eliminated and substituted by the brightness of the shiny day in the country.

In the case of framing, Chico and Charlie are being shown and framed most often in absolutely different compositions through the sequences, except the last one. For instance, in the beginning of the film Chico comes backstage to visit his brother Charlie after four years, and then his head is framed in the broken window from Charlie's point of view shot looking like a tableau among the other objects in Charlie's room. In general, Trauffaut emphasizes Charlie's isolation and alienation from his past, family and environment by putting Chico and him in the split frames. In other words, Charlie's obsession to search for his identity and his freedom is suggested by being entrapped in different frames and tableaux, such as painted on Lars Schmeel's canvas, reflected in mirrors in Theresa's bedroom, shown in a mirror hanging on the wall of the bar, represented in the broken one of the cottage in the country at the final sequence, and finally painted as a caricature on the ads for Plyne and Lars Schmeel.

Perhaps the single most significant outcome of the semi-success of Tirez sur le Pianiste rather than Les Quatre cent Coups was that it gave Truffaut the enough confidence to experience with French New Wave's critical and theoretical approaches to film making. The film is complex in mixing genres and tones. It is the presence of more than one genre, in other words, it includes gangster, western and even comedy genres. Like all French new wave directors, as an Auteur, he preferred to set out his own world-view to favor using his own scenario. Tirez sur le Pianiste originates Truffaut's obsessive fascination with women, thus, gender politics is an important aspect of his film. For these reasons, Truffaut defined his cinematic ideals consciously and intentionally through using variety of techniques such as rapid pan, long take, fast editing, depth of field, framing, dissolve and superimposition. Finally, the last zoom on Lena's face dead in the snow is the symbolical element of Truffaut's character in searching for any concept of absolute in life, which is typically being interrupted by the intervention of fatal elements and accidental death. Therefore, Trauffaut's final sequence of the film is the emblematic signification of the recurrent motif and its author's signature. Similarly, Charlie goes back to play the same piano in the bar which helps him to relieve his fearful pains against obsession of death and violation in the world outside. Interestingly, Trauffaut's camera cranes 90 degrees from Charlie hands to his close up, in which his face is entrapped in the split screen with dark background, reminds the audiences of the final freeze frame(the technique to visualize the element of fate and death or entrapment in Truffaut's films)on Antoine Doinel's close up at the end of Les Quatre cent Coups. In other words, in searching for his self-realization Charlie's hands are the only required tools to construct and establish the last frame of the film which give him his final identity to survive: Charlie, Pianiste.

In conclusion, in the search for absolute freedom in the film both long takes and camera movements give the characters enough space and time to overcome the claustrophobic feeling of entrapment and framing, and the editing gives them driving force and the potential to struggle with the contradictions of the life and establish a new order through confrontation with chaotic world. Trauffaut's autobiographical comment about cinema saving his life reminds the audience of Charlie's passion for his piano and profession where Truffaut as a film director identifies with his character as a piano player at the end of the movie: Truffaut, Director.


By: Morad Sadeghi