• About
  • Editorial Board
    • Staff Writers
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
The Wellesley News -
  • News and Features
    • The Wellesley (COVID) 100
      The Wellesley (COVID) 100
    • In memory of Professor Rebecca Summerhays
      In memory of Professor Rebecca Summerhays
    • Trans flag controversy: College power washes staircase after trans flag is painted over Harry Potter spray paint
      Trans flag controversy: College power washes staircase after trans flag is painted over Harry Potter spray paint
    • News
      • News in Brief
      • Nation & World
      • President’s Corner
      • Senate Report
    • Features
      • Alumnae Spotlight
      • Eye on Science
      • Faculty Focus
      • LGBTQIA+ Column
  • Opinions
    • The News in Conversation: Wellesley Against Mass Incarceration
      The News in Conversation: Wellesley Against Mass Incarceration
    • Editorial Board calls for keeping up trans flag murals
      Editorial Board calls for keeping up trans flag murals
    • No, Elon Musk’s Twitter will not restore free speech
      No, Elon Musk’s Twitter will not restore free speech
    • Staff Editorial
    • Letters to the Editor
    • The Elephant in the Room
  • Arts
    • Be/longing Centers Connection and Care
      Be/longing Centers Connection and Care
    • No image
      Birds Falling Upwards: Wellesley College Theater’s The Moors is a Must-See
    • No image
      Sometimes you just need to read a YA “Groundhog Day” to feel something
    • Arts In The News
    • Reviews
    • Music Peek
    • Books Before Boys
  • Health and Wellness
    • February Student Athlete of the Month
      February Student Athlete of the Month
    • Athletics Update
      Athletics Update
    • Victoria Garrick Speaks on Mental Health
      Victoria Garrick Speaks on Mental Health
    • Athlete of the Week
    • Boston Sports Update
    • The Vegan Digest
    • The SHE Corner
  • The Wellesley Snooze
    • Wellesley News Leadership Changes Completely Peacefully Without Any Suspicious Disappearances At All
      Wellesley News Leadership Changes Completely Peacefully Without Any Suspicious Disappearances At All
    • Solve Your Connection Problems With Wellesley Insecure
      Solve Your Connection Problems With Wellesley Insecure
    • Mayhem strikes Wellesley as paper towels removed from campus
      Mayhem strikes Wellesley as paper towels removed from campus
  • Miscellanea
    • President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
      President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
    • Administrators shocked to learn that students dislike being left in dark
      Administrators shocked to learn that students dislike being left in dark
    • 50 Lies You Tell Yourself in Order to Survive Until Graduation
      50 Lies You Tell Yourself in Order to Survive Until Graduation
    • The Dose
    • The Olive Branch
    • Multimedia
      • Galleries
      • Infographics
      • Videos
By Alice Ascoli Arts, Lousy Realities, ReviewsMarch 2, 2022

Lousy Realities: A French Film within a Film

“Les films avancent comme des trains, tu comprends, comme des trains dans la nuit. Des gens comme toi, comme moi, tu le sais bien, on est fait pour être heureux dans le travail, dans notre travail de cinéma.” 

— Day for Night (1973), François Truffaut 

What if a film director wants  a scene to be filmed at night, but circumstances can’t allow it? In our current age, characterized by the most advanced VFX to have ever existed in cinematic history, the demand doesn’t pose an issue at all. And yet, what if that question had been asked in, say, the ’70s? In that case, you’d most likely use the “day for night” technique, placing a filter on the camera’s lens or using an underexposed film stock. At least, that’s what one of the  — if not the — most acclaimed directors of the French Nouvelle Vague movement François Truffaut does in his 1973 ode to cinema, Day for Night. 

Day for Night makes use of the cinematic equivalent of the literary “framed narrative.” In the outer narrative, it’s summer on the Côte d’Azur as an international co-production is shooting the fictional Je vous présente Pamela, or, as commonly referred to, as just Pamela. As the “film within a film,” Pamela recounts the internal narrative of a newly-wed bride leaving her husband to elope with her father-in-law. Truffaut, in turn, becomes a “director within a director” and leaves the viewfinder to stand in front of the camera and play Ferrand — the exhausted, yet strikingly patient, director of Pamela. 

In the opening scene of Day for Night, a film set of a Parisian plaza — built within the rustic countryside of Nice — stands still. Alongside the low sounds of a crane or a dolly, a sense of calm pervades the scene. And then, the magic word: action! Alphonse — the betrayed husband played by Truffaut’s career-long companion Jean-Pierre Léaud — starts walking across the plaza until he finds his father, Alexandre, standing in front of him. The two look at each other. After three seconds of silence, an enraged Alphonse slaps Alexandre in the face. Then, another word: cut! With the same force in Alphonse’s slap, the frame cuts to Ferrand sitting by the camera and yelling directions through a megaphone. Alphonse’s slap, then, isn’t solely a reflection of a son’s anger towards his father. Rather, the gesture is a tool to immediately slap the audience itself. Within the first five minutes, Truffaut urges us to wake up, to resume our disbeliefs, and to pay attention to the chaotic, imprecise, struggle-ridden, yet nonetheless disarmingly beautiful, craft of cinema. 

When you watch Day for Night, you won’t be able to help but feel as though Truffaut himself was tugging at your sleeve, asking you to get closer, to see beyond the researched, acted and written two-dimensional product that will one day reach the screen of a theater.

He urges us to dwell in it, feel it, feel it all. Feel the disappointment of a malfunctioning prop, the pain of an actress on the verge of a nervous breakdown, the joy of dedicating one’s life to cinema, the frustration of an actor forgetting her lines over and over and over again or the shock of a cast member’s unexpected death. 

Feel it as if you were a part of it and take it with you when you leave the movie theater because, even when the lights turn back on, the spell won’t end as it usually does. No, not this time. This time, the spell is life itself.

Tags

Filmfilm reviewfrench filmfrench film reviewlousy realities

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleA Deconstruction, A Sanctuary and A Mirror
Next article“Yellowjackets” & the Unspoken Trauma in Survival

You may also like

Be/longing Centers Connection and Care

Birds Falling Upwards: Wellesley College Theater’s The Moors is a Must-See

Sometimes you just need to read a YA “Groundhog Day” to feel something

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

Top Articles

Sorry. No data so far.

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @Wellesley_News

The independent student newspaper of Wellesley College since 1901.

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

  • About
  • Editorial Board
    • Staff Writers
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
COPYRIGHT © 2022 THE WELLESLEY NEWS
Back to top