Framing Film Day For Night example essay topic

The Film about Filmmaking Truffaut's irresistibly charming 'film about filmmaking' is an enormously affectionate homage to cinema, as well as a portrayal of the joy and anguish of filmmaking. The framing film Day for Night tells the story of a director; Ferrand (Truffaut) and his crew shooting a romantic family melodrama entitled Meet Pamela at the Studio Victorie in Nice. As the shooting proceeds, the personal crises of the crewmember's engulf the professional sphere of their lives, and threaten the smooth progress of the filming: one of the leading actresses, S'eveline (Valentina Cortese), is anguished by her son's terminal illness and unable to remember her lines because of her alcoholism; Stacey (Alexandra Stewart) is three-months pregnant and refuses to shoot a swimming scene in a bathing suit; Alphonse (Jean-Pierre L'e aud) seeks feminine / maternal affection and lingers over the same question: 'Are women magic?' Ferrand realizes that films are more harmonious than life: there are 'no traffic jams or no dead waits,' and people like them are happy only in their work of making films. Despite a series of difficulties and the accidental death of Alexandre (played by Jean-Pierre Aumont) in a car crash, the crew manages to complete the filming and then disperse to future destinations. From the outset Day for Night is full of Truffaut's nostalgia for cinema of the past. A title sequence accompanied by orchestral music gradually turns into a melancholic accordion tune; a still of Dorothy and Lillian Gish with subtitle announces that the film is dedicated to these legendary stars of the silent screen.

The spectator is then led to a square seemingly in Paris, a rather chic landscape dotted with a metro station, a fashionable caf'e, stoned buildings, the sound of busy traffic and pedestrians. A young man (Jean-Pierre L'e aud) with a solemn expression on his face appears from the metro station and walks towards an elderly man. After a while the young male slaps the latter on his face. As soon as an immense tension occurs we hear the voice 'Cut' and the camera tracks back to reveal that it was a shooting of a film. The camera pulls back further and we see the film crew, a television presenter and her crew. The television crew interviews the actors and they provide us with a synopsis of the film they are shooting: Meet Pamela is the story of a tragic affair of an adulterous couple.

As the director Ferrand gives direction to the extras, actors and technicians, the camera soars up and shows the square from a high angle, while classical music glorifies the scene. This fascinating establishing sequence is not as self-dramatizing or exaggeratedly romantic as it sounds. It establishes the awe-inspiring, exhilarating atmosphere that flows through the entire film, as well as making the spectator aware of the construction of the film. It is apparent that the two films are trying to remain separate throughout to avoid the possibility of cheap effects by causing confusion in the audience's mind between the scenes of real life and the scenes of fiction. Hence the distinctive difference in tone, style, and subject matter between the framing film and the film within film: the contrast between the excerpts with highly dramatic dialogues and actions, and the framing film with its much lighter tone of day-to-day shooting is noticeable. Day for Night's construction is also a clear departure from the conventions of classical Hollywood style narration: the events employed to depict the process of shooting often halt the plot's advancement; the framing film portrays ten people of the equal importance whether they are international stars or a script person; its 'open' ending.

In contrast, Meet Pamela's narrative is centered on a father-and-son-conflict in a respectful middle-class family caused by the father's adultery with his son's fianc " ee, and the story ends with patricide. The emotionally loaded tragedy of Meet Pamela strikingly differs from the crew's relatively relaxed attitude towards relationships depicted in Day for Night. Meet Pamela strongly evokes Truffaut's fascination with 'good and old days' of classical Hollywood filmmaking, the traditional cinema of a strong subject and the presence of a star. Truffaut's alter ego character Ferrand murmurs after Alexandre's death: Along with Alexandre, a whole era of movie making is fast disappearing. Films will soon be shot in the streets - without stars, without scripts. A production like Meet Pamela will soon be obsolete.

This enormous sense of nostalgia is further elaborated by the casting. The leading actors Alexandre and S'eveline in Meet Pamela are played by real-life stars of both classical Hollywood and European cinema: the tall, blond, blue-eyed, romantic Jean-Pierre Aumont and Italian leading actress Valentina Cortese (in Hollywood: Cortese). Cortese's performance as S'eveline, unable to cope with change of the practice in film industry, drinking down champagne during the shooting, is reminiscent of the grotesque portrayal of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. In shooting a sequence in which her make-up assistant Odile plays a maid in Meet Pamela, she opens the wrong door three times. Being terribly confused and upset she cries: 'I no longer know if Odile is my make-up girl or if she's an actress. In my day make-up girls remained make-up girls, and actresses were actresses!' The film's fascination lies partly in the way it combines cinematic references (including actors) belonging to a bygone era with those of Truffaut's own generation: dedication to the Gish sisters; Ferrand's bizarre dream in which numerous neon lights of cinemas flicker; a boy stealing stills of Citizen Kane; a street sign reading RUE JEAN VIGO; and Ferrand's mention of The Godfather's box office success.

Truffaut blends established stars such as Aumont and Cortese with Nathalie Base (then a recent graduate from the Paris Conservatory) and Jean-Pierre L'e aud, a rising star of the new French cinema. The books Ferrand receives and spreads out on the desk in the studio production office in Day for Night are on the works of various film directors ranging from Dreyer, Lubitsch, and Bergman to Godard, Hitchcock, and Rossellini. Ultimately, the presence of Meet Pamela within Day for Night allows Truffaut to suggest a film belonging to the past and present simultaneously, and works to glorify the cinematic traditions of both periods.