Film Une Nuit

[Lorna Schildt]

Detective Vincent plans to rob a pair of drug couriers where he manages to steal a bag of cocaine, only to learn that the cocaine is actually owned by nightclub owner and drug dealer Jose Marciano. Marciano kidnaps Vincent's son and demands to return the cocaine in exchange for his son's safety. After finalizing the deal, Vincent finds that his cocaine has vanished and sets out to form an alternate plan to save his son from Marciano.

Actor Tomer Sisley took the role immediately after reading the script.[4] Sisley performed all his own stunts in the film, stating "I think that it is always better for the movie because it allows him [Frdric Jardin] to put the camera wherever he wants."[4]

Sleepless Night premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.[5] It was also shown at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.[6] In September 2011, Warner Bros. Studios bought the rights for an American remake.[5] The film was released in France on November 11, 2011.[7] The film was the 15th highest-grossing film in France on its opening week and grossed a total of $298,383.[7]

Sleepless Night was received positively by critics on its original release. The film ranking website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 97% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 32 review with an average score of 7.53/10.[8] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 75, based on 11 reviews.[9]

Two remakes were announced in 2015, an American adaptation titled, Sleepless, starring Jamie Foxx and Michelle Monaghan with Swiss director, Baran bo Odar, attached to the project,[10] and a Tamil adaptation titled Thoongaa Vanam,[11] starring Kamal Haasan directed by Rajesh M. Selva, a former assistant in the actor's directorial ventures.[11]

The film premiered out of competition at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the following year.[5] At the 1975 Oscars, the film was nominated for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for Valentina Cortese. The film also won three BAFTA Awards, for Best Film, Best Direction, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Cortese.

The original French title, La Nuit amricaine, refers to the French name for the filmmaking process whereby sequences filmed outdoors in daylight are shot with a filter over the camera lens (a technique described in the dialogue of Truffaut's film) or also using film stock balanced for tungsten (indoor) light and underexposed (or adjusted during post-production) to appear as if they are taking place at night. In English, the technique is called day for night.

The film chronicles the production of Je Vous Prsente Pamla (Meet Pamela, or literally I Introduce You to Pamela), a clichd melodrama starring aging screen icon Alexandre, former Italian diva Sverine, young heartthrob Alphonse and British actress Julie Baker, who is recovering from both a nervous breakdown and the controversy over her marriage to her much older doctor.

In between are several vignettes chronicling the stories of the crew members and the director, Ferrand, who deals with the practical problems of making a film. Behind the camera, the actors and crew experience several romances, affairs, break-ups and sorrows. The production is especially shaken up when one of the supporting actresses is revealed to be pregnant.

Later, Alphonse's lover leaves him for the film's stuntman, which leads Alphonse into a palliative one-night stand with an accommodating Julie; thereupon, mistaking Julie's pity for true love, the infantile Alphonse informs Julie's husband of the affair. Finally, Alexandre dies on the way to hospital after a car accident.

One of the film's themes is whether cinema is more important than life to those who make it. It makes many allusions both to filmmaking and to movies themselves, perhaps unsurprisingly since Truffaut began his career as a film critic who championed cinema as an art form. The film opens with a picture of Lillian and Dorothy Gish, to whom it is dedicated. In one scene, Ferrand opens a package of books he has ordered on directors such as Luis Buuel, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Jean-Luc Godard, Ernst Lubitsch, Roberto Rossellini and Robert Bresson.

The film's French title could sound like L'ennui amricain ("American boredom"): Truffaut wrote elsewhere of the way French cinema critics inevitably make this pun of any title that uses nuit. Here, he deliberately invites his viewers to recognise the artificiality of cinema, particularly American-style studio film, with its reliance on effects such as day for night, that Je Vous Prsente Pamla exemplifies.[8]

The film was based on an original idea by Truffaut who said he wanted the picture to do for film what Fahrenheit 451 did for books "to show why it is good to love the cinema". He dedicated the film to Dorothy and Lillian Gish, whom Truffaut called "the first two actresses of the cinema"; he said the film was made in "the spirit of friendship for all the people in the movie business".[9]

Truffaut used international actors because he felt French cinema did not have the mythological aspect he wanted. He said the film was influenced by The Golden Coach and Singin' in the Rain (both 1952); the latter was his favourite film about filmmaking because it showed everyone involved in a film, not just the director and star.[10]

Author Graham Greene makes a cameo appearance as an insurance company representative, billed as "Henry Graham".[13] On the film's DVD, it was reported that Greene was a great admirer of Truffaut, and had always wanted to meet him, so when the small part came up where he actually talks to the director, he was delighted to have the opportunity. It was reported that Truffaut was disappointed he was not told until later that the actor playing the insurance company representative was Greene, as he would have liked to have made his acquaintance, being an admirer of Greene's work.

The film is often considered one of Truffaut's best. It is one of two Truffaut films on Time magazine's list of the 100 Best Films of the Century, along with The 400 Blows (1959).[6] It has also been called "the most beloved film ever made about filmmaking".[7]

Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, writing, "it is not only the best movie ever made about the movies but is also a great entertainment."[15] He added it to his "The Great Movies" list in 1997.[16] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "hilarious, wise and moving," with "superb" performances.[17] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "a movie about the making of a movie; it also is a wonderfully tender story of the fragile, funny, and tough people who populate the film business."[18] He named it the best film of 1973 in his year-end list.[19] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called the film "a return to form" for Truffaut, "though it's a return only to form." She added, "It has a pretty touch. But when it was over, I found myself thinking, Can this be all there is to it? The picture has no center and not much spirit."[20] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "one of the most sheerly enjoyable movies of any year, for any audience. For those who love the movies as Truffault loves them, 'Day for Night' is a very special testament of that love."[21] Richard Combs of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Easily classifiable as a lightweight work, and never digging much below the surface of either its characters or its director's particular concept of cinema, the film still manages to be an irresistable [sic?] delight simply because of the lan and ingenious craftsmanship with which its traditionally dangerous, self-conscious format is handled."[22] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 40 reviews, with an average score of 8.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A sweet counterpoint to Godard's Contempt, Truffaut's Day for Night is a congenial tribute to the self-afflicted madness that is making a movie".[23]

Jean-Luc Godard walked out of Day for Night in disgust, and accused Truffaut of making a film that was a "lie". Truffaut responded with a long letter critical of Godard, and the two former friends never met again.[24]

The title of the film, in both French and English, references a type of filmmaking that a number of movies use for technical appearance. Day for night, in film terms, means filming sequences in outdoor daylight with tungsten or another type of artificial light to make the piece of film appear as if it is taking place in the evening. Many of the best films have done this. The film within this particular film also uses this technique. A simple yet brilliant idea by Truffaut went a long way to show the audience how much he loved making movies and how the specific technique of day for night worked.

That is another thing that I love. The realistic yet magical approach that Truffaut takes to showing the audience how movies are made. He is able to show the audience that yes, it takes a lot to make a film, that yes it is not easy, but that it is something you do for the love and joy of entertaining others; something that is certainly done with this particular film.

This is one of those films that you have to see for yourself to really get a true understanding of how it conveys filmmaking. Despite my point, I will tell you: while I knew quite a bit about movie techniques already, I learned a lot from watching this film. Truffaut educates the audience on many techniques, including, but not limited to, multiple shots of one scene, camera angle, hiding details, and working with actors on delivery. What he presents is truly amazing.

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