François Truffaut’s SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER kicks off Janus Classics series at Lincoln Center
SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (François Truffaut, 1960)
JULES AND JIM (François Truffaut, 1962)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St.
Thursday, March 24, 1:00 & 3:00
Series runs through April 1
212-875-5610
www.filmlinc.com
François Truffaut shot out of the blocks in 1959 with the classic 400 Blows, and he followed it up with Shoot the Piano Player, a magnificent noir about a virtuoso saloon piano player and his always-in-trouble brother. French crooner Charles Aznavour is super-cool as the secretive, shy pianist with a hidden past who gets caught up in his crooked brother’s dangerous predicament, against his better judgment. Comedy mixes with pathos, dance-hall jollies lead to murder and kidnapping, and lost love holds a curse in a dark, haunting film you will never forget. Two years later, Truffaut made Jules and Jim, a triangle classic about two best friends, played by Oskar Werner (Jules) and Henri Serre (Jim), World War I, and the woman they both love, the free-spirited Catherine (the marvelous Jeanne Moreau), one of the most charming, entertaining films you will ever see. Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim kick off the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Janus Classics series on March 24, followed by Milos Forman’s Loves of a Blonde (1963) and The Firemen’s Ball (1967) on March 25, Jean Renoir’s The Golden Coach (1952) and The Rules of the Game (1939) on March 28, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) and Cries and Whispers (1972) on March 29, and more.
Over the last fifty years, the former Soviet Union has experienced monumental social, cultural, economic, and political change, from the Cold War through Glasnost and Perestroika and its ultimate downfall as a world power. Making her feature-length directing debut, Robin Hessman gets up close and personal with five men and women who lived through those tumultuous years and share their fascinating experiences: Borya and Lyuba Meyerson, married history teachers who live with their son, Mark, in the apartment where Borya grew up; Ruslan Stupin, Borya’s childhood friend who was a punk rock star and is now passing on his counterculture values to his son, Nikita, who is worried about fitting in at school; Olga Durikova, a single mother also living in her childhoold apartment; and Andrei Yevgrafov, who has firmly embraced capitalism, owning a series of fancy men’s dress shirt stores. Combining archival footage and home movies with contemporary interviews, Hessman talks to the five protagonists about their early days as members of such Communist youth groups as the Octoberists, the Pioneers, and the Komsomol as well as how their lives changed as the Soviet leadership moved from Leonid Brezhnev to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. They speak open and honestly about the Soviet Union in ways rarely seen in the West, resulting in an intimate portrait of a momentous time of upheaval that is often misunderstood and has never before been so personalized on-screen.
Raoul Ruiz’s overly long dramatization of Marcel Proust on his deathbed, thinking back on his own life as well as the fictional life of his characters, has charm and wit and a whole lot of bizarrely entertaining set movements. Despite a cast that includes Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Béart, Marie-France Pisier, Chiara Mastroianni (Deneuve’s real-life daughter), and John Malkovich, the acting is only so-so, and it helps if you know a little Proust, but Ruiz is a director always worth watching, so give it a chance—if you have the time. Time Regained is screening March 23 as part of BAMcinématek’s “Deneuve” series, which continues through March 31 with such films as Scene of the Crime (Le lieu du crime) (André Téchiné, 1986), Donkey Skin (Peau d’âne) (Jacques Demy, 1970) , and A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008).
