Chapter 9 Truffaut Man and Grief: Shot the Pianist, 1960

Truffaut Man and Grief: Shot the Pianist, 1960 Truffaut's second feature film, "Tirezsurlepianiste" (Tirezsurlepianiste), was adapted from the novel by the American writer Goodyce and changed the setting from New York to Paris.This may be Truffaut's most self-contained work, and he has gone too far in pursuit of a "complex and subtle cinematic feeling", completely disregarding the audience's reaction.The film develops as Charlie, the incognito bar pianist in the film, taps absently on the keyboard.This black-and-white film has a strong "new wave" atmosphere, and many people compare it with Godard's "Breathed".The two have the same style code—both were born out of American B-grade movies in the 1940s, and at the same time, they are subversion and parody of Hollywood genre films, combining various features of gangster movies, melodramas, and comedies, but they are mutually exclusive. Penetration and ablation.What is recognizable is that the romance and ambiguity of the emotions are very Truffaut.

Charlie was hunted down by gangsters because of his brother. At the same time, the waitress in the store confided his love to him and brought back his painful past.The film analyzes Charlie's past and present feelings, and the final ending is that his lover dies for him.In the past it was for his fame and fortune, now it is for his life.He returned to endless solitude.Charlie is a typical Truffaut man, or his alter ego, sensitive and sad.Personally, I can't say that I particularly like this movie, but I always agree with Truffaut-style men. Don Allen later commented, "The difference between "Shooting the Pianist" and other works of Truffaut, like "Stealing Kiss", is that the main structure is to let it happen at will. But it is these unpredictable atmospheric drifts that It gives the film an air of elusiveness." ("Goodbye Chufu")

Love Is Fidelity, Marriage Isn't: Italian Divorce, 1961 On the DVD jacket of the standard edition of Divorce Italian Style, there are several cartoons drawn, each depicting the way a husband kills his wife.The title of the popular TV series "Chinese Divorce" in recent years comes from this 1961 black and white movie.Another "legal name" for "Italian-style divorce" is murder.Italy is a Catholic country, which banned divorce until 1970. According to Pope Paul VI, divorce is "an indicator of fatal moral depravity."So if you want to separate from your spouse, you have to send him/her to another world - which means getting married is also life-threatening.

The first half of the film is like an absurd drama, with poetic scenes of small-town life often interrupted by the protagonist's terrifying fantasies.The protagonist, Mr. Feifei, a fallen aristocrat who has been married for twelve years, has already experienced more than the "seven-year itch". The screaming wretched wife is going crazy.As a result, he often entered into a state of hallucinations, standing at the window and fantasizing that his wife was assassinated in a large soap-making vat; sunbathing on the beach, fantasizing that his wife fell into a swamp and drowning; reading newspaper news about spaceships, fantasizing that his wife was loaded into a rocket and launched to the moon go…….After the "surreal" didn't work, Mr. Feifei started to do it "very realistically".According to the law, if a criminal who kills his lover is found to be unfaithful, he only needs to be sentenced to three to seven years in prison.He calculated the ages of himself and his little cousin, and the ending was pretty perfect, so he started to do it.Mr. Feifei specially puts on sexy clothes for his wife, and introduces good men to her when he has nothing to do.After all this was fruitless, his wife's old lover unexpectedly returned to the small town. The overjoyed Mr. Feifei immediately designed to make the two of them relapse and elope.As a result, Mr. Feifei became a "cuckold" with great joy. He collected all the letters scolding him as a coward, deliberately humiliated in public - and finally shot his wife "unbearable". I got my wish and got three years in prison.

But "Italian Divorce" is not as impressive as the synopsis or the new DVD cover. It is far from a comic farce.In the second half of the plot, after Mr. Feifei's wife elopes, he seems to be involved in a huge whirlpool. Personal honor, family fate, and public opinion are all carried on his shoulders. He "has to" go forward. To be a murderer.At the time, the film was a ruthless mockery and a powerful critique of Italian law: the murderer was treated like a hero and married to a beautiful cousin, and the price was only three years in prison.But "Italian Divorce" has a more meaningful ending. Mr. Feifei and his little bride are driving a yacht to make love at sea, but his bride's legs are stretched out to a young and handsome sailor beside him... Then our Mr. Feifei One can imagine his fate.For the audience, this ending is a kind of "wrongness", because this little cousin has always loved Mr. Feifei incomparably before becoming a wife. In order to protect his reputation, he would rather be beaten by his father and swear that "it is not the king, not the wife." marry", and so on.However, not long after the wedding, she quickly grew into a "red apricot".This is no longer just a mockery of the law, but a mockery of marriage.

It seems -- love is fidelity, but marriage is not.