François Truffaut, the father of the auteur theory, expressed revolutionary ideas about cinema and his theories about growth of cinema and his ideas that stretched cinema to a true art form played a major role in cinemas development today. Unfortunately, I just can't seem to find the translation of his ideas into his own films. Shoot the Piano Player is about a man named Charlie Kohler who plays piano in a small bar. He used to be a huge piano virtuoso until he became too involved with his brothers who are part of the gangster world. And now he can't escape their world as much as he wants to. After one of his brothers comes to his bar looking for refuge, Charlie, whose real name is actually Edouard, a name he gave up after leaving his professional piano playing days, is reluctantly drawn back into his family's business.
Overall, Shoot the Piano Player was a pretty dull experience. There are certain things you can give it credit on. It tells an original story with characters that don't fall into particular stereotypes. The dialouge is witty and fluid, although I do have some issues with it. But I'll get to that in a second. I want to keep from sounding like I hated this film or that it is a bad film, because both of those are false. I didn't hate this film because it isn't a bad film, and it's not a bad film because Truffaut really does strive for something original here. I suppose that for the time it probably was pretty original, but today I'm not very impressed by any of it, and I hate to admit it but it sort of bored me. Maybe it is all just personal issues of mine, but for whatever reason I was never enthralled by the story here. I followed it just fine, but I was never moved by it and I never felt the motivation or obligation to invest much interest in the story, as much as I felt I should have been able to. Perhaps I just look for too much in a film and want to be emotionally gripped in every film I watch. But I don't want this review to devolve into a reflection of my own movie watching habits, so I'll move on.
Truffaut boasts a keen understanding of the human psyche and human condition in all of his films. He strives to include an abundance of comments on sociology in his dialouge, and that brings me back to the issue I mentioned earlier. There are odd moments when I start to feel like Truffaut is just throwing a line into the story to make some point about the human psyche. It seems like many of his scenarios are too well set up and only serve as a means to reflect on humanity. I give him kudos for addressing the thing which mystifies us all and is the subject of so many movies, but I just feel like the execution of some of his ideas fall flat. A lot of other films do this, and probably more blatantly than Truffaut, yet I guess I don't notice the blatancy as much as in a Truffaut film, because when I think of Truffaut I think of psychology and his theories relating back to auteurs. It's a weird idea that probably makes zero sense, but that's the best I can explain it.
So I'm not sure how much of this review has actually been about Shoot the Piano Player, so I apologize. But I suppose it goes to show how I was only able to become mildly interested in this film. There isn't a whole lot that grabbed my attention here, thus I just don't have a ton to say about this movie. It isn't a bad film, but to me it wasn't memorable and I don't plan on seeing it again.
Overall, Shoot the Piano Player was a pretty dull experience. There are certain things you can give it credit on. It tells an original story with characters that don't fall into particular stereotypes. The dialouge is witty and fluid, although I do have some issues with it. But I'll get to that in a second. I want to keep from sounding like I hated this film or that it is a bad film, because both of those are false. I didn't hate this film because it isn't a bad film, and it's not a bad film because Truffaut really does strive for something original here. I suppose that for the time it probably was pretty original, but today I'm not very impressed by any of it, and I hate to admit it but it sort of bored me. Maybe it is all just personal issues of mine, but for whatever reason I was never enthralled by the story here. I followed it just fine, but I was never moved by it and I never felt the motivation or obligation to invest much interest in the story, as much as I felt I should have been able to. Perhaps I just look for too much in a film and want to be emotionally gripped in every film I watch. But I don't want this review to devolve into a reflection of my own movie watching habits, so I'll move on.
Truffaut boasts a keen understanding of the human psyche and human condition in all of his films. He strives to include an abundance of comments on sociology in his dialouge, and that brings me back to the issue I mentioned earlier. There are odd moments when I start to feel like Truffaut is just throwing a line into the story to make some point about the human psyche. It seems like many of his scenarios are too well set up and only serve as a means to reflect on humanity. I give him kudos for addressing the thing which mystifies us all and is the subject of so many movies, but I just feel like the execution of some of his ideas fall flat. A lot of other films do this, and probably more blatantly than Truffaut, yet I guess I don't notice the blatancy as much as in a Truffaut film, because when I think of Truffaut I think of psychology and his theories relating back to auteurs. It's a weird idea that probably makes zero sense, but that's the best I can explain it.
So I'm not sure how much of this review has actually been about Shoot the Piano Player, so I apologize. But I suppose it goes to show how I was only able to become mildly interested in this film. There isn't a whole lot that grabbed my attention here, thus I just don't have a ton to say about this movie. It isn't a bad film, but to me it wasn't memorable and I don't plan on seeing it again.