FILMS to Review + absorb as Inspiration

Day for Night

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1973 ‧ Romance/Drama ‧ 1h 55m

A film director (François Truffaut) tries to get his movie made while observing the real-life dramas in his actors' lives. Fading icon Severine (Valentina Cortese) forgets her lines when she drinks, while her co-star, Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont), is fixated on his lover's imminent arrival. Meanwhile, insecure young star Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) has emotional outbursts, yet seems well-balanced compared to Julie (Jacqueline Bisset), a British actress recuperating from a nervous breakdown.

Release date: May 24, 1973 (France)

Director: François Truffaut

Cinematography: Pierre-William Glenn

Music composed by: Georges Delerue

Awards: Academy Award for Best International Feature Film,

Nominations: Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, 

Cast : François Truffaut, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Valentina Cortese, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Dan

Synopsis 

Truffaut plays a director who is actualy a pastiche of several directors in this reflexive look at the arduous conditions of filmmaking. Day for Night was awarded an Oscar as 1973 s Best Foreign Film, as well as citations from the New York Film Critics who named Truffaut the years s Best Director and Valentina Cortese Best Supporting Actress. Also starring Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Leaud 

Truffaut joue un directeur qui est actualy un pastiche de plusieurs directeurs dans ce regard réfléchi dans les conditions laborieuses de tournage. On a attribué le jour pendant la Nuit Oscar comme les années 1973 Le mieux le Film Étranger, aussi bien que des citations des Critiques de Film de New York qui ont nommé Truffaut le Meilleur Directeur des années et Valentina Cortese Le mieux Soutenant l Actrice. Aussi Jacqueline Bisset étoilée et Jean-Pierre Leaud

Jules and Jim _ Truffaut 

The Last Metro – Truffaut 

Stolen Kisses - Truffaut

• Day for Night / Le Nuit American by François Truffaut 

• Jules and , Fahrenheit 451 by François Truffaut  (selected scenes)

• Hitchcock / Truffaut by Kent Jones

• Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

• Dogville Confessions by Sami Saif

• Berberian Sound Studio by Peter Strickland

• Making of the Shining by Vivian Kubrick 

• Stanley Kubrick: A life in pictures 

• In the Mood for Love, Happy Together and Chungking Express directed by Wong Kar Wai (selected scenes (Making of)

• Agnès Varda and the Makings of a Film Movement

• Claire Denis (Selected films and articles on the difficulty of being a woman filmmaker) 

• Moonlight by Barry Jenkins

• Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse directed by Eleanor Coppola, Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper

• Burden of Dreams (1992) directed by Les Blank

• Lost in la Mancha (2002)

• Official Competition by Directors: Gastón Duprat, Mariano Cohn 

• Dangerous Days : Making Blade Runner 

• The Making of Fanny and Alexander (Bergman, 1982)

• Vision of Light: The Art of Cinematography 

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

Filmmaker William Greaves is shooting a series of screen tests in New York City's Central Park for the two leads of a feature length movie, with the working title of "Over the Cliff". Simultaneously, he has a documentary filmmaking crew filming the behind the scenes making of the movie. In addition to seeing these two sets of footage (the film and the film of the film), the viewer also sees footage of a third film crew filming the these two in relation to what is happening overall as they film in the park while real life goes on around them, which in Bill's mind is part of the realism of the movie. "Over the Cliff" itself has no plot and no full script but only a working concept of sexuality being the movie's theme and snippets of scripted dialogue. This unstructured approach is to give the movie a sense of realism. The actors imply as much, but many of the crew, discussing in Grieves-less bullpen sessions, believe Greaves is unfocused and inept at what he is doing, while a minority believe his experimental process will yield a special and great end product.—Huggo

After completing the film in 1971, William Greaves believed that he had made a masterpiece, and that the only place to première it was the Cannes Film Festival. So he carried the print to France himself, where it was screened for programmers. However, the projectionist made the mistake of showing the reels out of order. The film was turned down. Greaves came home, figured he had made a mistake, and put the film in his closet.

8½ (1963) https://media3.criterionpic.com/htbin/wwform/006?T=566047&ALIAS=566047_EST.KF&M=0_ttjw23pl&DSTYLE=0#multimedia_resources_566047

Director: Federico Fellini

“Guido (Marcello Mastroianni, playing Federico Fellini’s cipher) is a film director struggling to come up with ideas for his latest production. Desperate for inspiration, he looks inward, hoping that his dreams and memories will give him some clue as to what to do next. 8½ gave us two of cinema’s most iconic dream sequences: the opening, where Guido dreams he is escaping a stifling traffic jam and flying high over Italy, and Guido’s harem fantasy, in which he imagines all of the many women in his life living in harmony, ready to attend to his every desire (although amusingly, despite it being his fantasy, the women still conspire and threaten to overthrow him). In the most personal of all of Fellini’s films, even reality seems like a dream. The characters are exaggerated, the sets are cavernous, the high-contrast black-and-white cinematography gives everything a surreal edge. The Italian tradition of post-synching dialogue, which means the actors’ mouth movements rarely match what they’re saying, only adds to the effect.” https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-great-films-about-dreaming

Dogville Confessions (2003) 

https://www.imdb.com › title

This film depicts the intense drama that takes place during the making of Dogville. Lars von Trier and Nicole Kidman work through this creative process

Making of the Shining by Vivian Kubrick 

Berberian Sound Studio

is a 2012 British psychological horror film. It is the second feature film by British director and screenwriter Peter Strickland. An Englishman is hired to create sound effects for a horror film studio in 1970s Rome, but the job ends up taking a heavy toll on his mental health.

Contempt (1963)  Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife (Brigitte Bardot).

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)_Former cinema superhero Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is mounting an ambitious Broadway production that he hopes will breathe new life into his stagnant career. It's risky, but he hopes that his creative gamble will prove that he's a real artist and not just a washed-up movie star. As opening night approaches, a castmate is injured, forcing Riggan to hire an actor (Edward Norton) who is guaranteed to shake things up. Meanwhile, Riggan must deal with his girlfriend, daughter and ex-wife.

Living in Oblivion (1995) https://media3.criterionpic.com/htbin/wwform/006?T=566047&ALIAS=566047_EST.KF&M=0_ttjw23pl&DSTYLE=0#multimedia_resources_566047

Independent film director Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi) is making his first feature. Everything that can go wrong does: the rebellious catering crew refuses to replace spoiled milk, his actors are flaky and getting an unspoiled take is nearly impossible. Tension between lead actress Nicole (Catherine Keener) and actor Chad (James LeGros), who have just slept together, contributes to the many problems on set. As money and time run out, Nick struggles to complete his film.

Contempt (1963)

Day for Night (1973) - Cinema is King Scene (6/10) | Movieclips

Suggested books to read

Francois Truffaut The Films in My Life

Francois Truffaut at work -Phaidon

Fassbinder: The Anarchy of Imagination (book)

Gilles Deleuze: Two Regimes of Madness (book)

Bill Viola: Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House (book)

John Boorman& Walter Donohoe: Projections 8: Film-makers on Film-making (book)

Tihis is how you make a movie: Tim Grierson