User Reviews

Shoot the Pianist is Francois Truffaut's attempt at mirroring the greatness of the classic gangster films. And suffice to say; it is a very nice attempt indeed. The film follows Charlie Kohler, a simple bar-side piano player. Charlie's life takes a turn for the more exciting one day when his brother turns up at the bar, telling his brother that a couple of gangsters that he and his other brother cheated out of their side of the loot from a job that the four did together are after him. Charlie also has a secret admirer; Lena, a barmaid at the bar he works in. Now this once simple piano player has gone from a quiet life at a piano to having to deal with gangsters, his brothers and a new love interest. But wait...there's more; is Charlie all that he seems? Is he merely a simple piano player? That's what makes this film great; it's never black and white (if you'll excuse the pun), and it is always ready to throw in another plot turn to keep you guessing.

After the universally acclaimed "The 400 Blows", Francois Truffaut had his work cut out for his next movie. Many will disagree, but I actually think he surpassed it. The 400 Blows is undoubtedly a more important work; but this film hits more of the right notes and is very much more enjoyable. The cast is absolutely flawless throughout; Charles Aznavour stars in the lead role. He gets his characterization spot on; his melancholy comes naturally and is believable throughout. Marie Debois and Nicole Berger star alongside Aznavour, and although they are more in the background; they still manage to impress. There is also a role here for Michèle Mercier, whom you may remember from the Mario Bava masterpiece; Black Sabbath. Truffaut's cinematography is clean and crisp and the film is an aesthetic treat throughout. Despite being nearly 45 years old, the film also manages to retain a feeling of freshness, and that's something that not all crime thrillers of today can do after 4 years, let alone 45. Truffaut has also very obviously got an astute sense of humour - there's one part of the film involving one of the gangster's mother's dropping dead that made me laugh out loud. Let it never be said that the French can't be funny

The film features many anecdotes that ring true. My personal favourite is when Lena says that what you do today becomes a part of you tomorrow. It's simple, but very astute. Another good one is when one of the gangsters talks about all the lovely gadgets he has, and after listing them all he finishes with; "I'm bored". Truffaut obviously knows that material goods aren't what make people happy, and this film presents a rather amusing way of showing that. However, despite these and several other anecdotes; the film doesn't appear to have a defining point, which lessens its impact somewhat. Overall, however, Shoot the Pianist is a lovely little film that shouldn't be missed by anyone that professes to like gangster movies. It's amusing, has some points to make and its flawlessly acted and directed. Highest recommendations for this one.

You're a humble pianist inside a bar, when your brother barges in to pay regards, he's pursued by two tough villains, but your able to contain them, give him time to make escape, and go afar. But these rogues have found a way to track you down, and they know where you reside, which part of town, so they'll take something that's close, means your brother is exposed, and the place where he's escaped, is now well known.

The tale of how Charlie Koller went from obscurity to fame and back again, before all hell breaks loose when his brother, under pursuit, walks back into his life. Great performances, original in its presentation for the time, by a truly great, visionary director.

Sometimes you watch a classic for the first time and you don't understand the hype. This time I was more than pleasantly surprised. Wonderful, whimsical and sad little film noir. This movie completely plays with the audience, but in a loving way. The actors and actresses are almost uniformly great. Some incredible faces. Aznavour in particular has an amazingly distinctive look. Be warned, it takes about ten minutes to have an idea of what is going on. Just hang in there and go with it. Highly recommend.

'Shoot the Pianist' opens with the insides of a playing piano, the inner machinations of a musical instrument. This image points to the film's ambiguity. it says that this film will similarly uncover the insides (heart, soul) of a man who gives nothing away on the surface. it will suggest that his insides are like the piano's insides, the the only way he can express what's buried inside of him is through piano-playing - this is what gives the film its emotional pull. but it also suggests that Charlie Koller's fatal emotional timidity has warped or deadened that soul, made it a mere mechanism, alive only in a technical sense. More objectively, it amounts to a manifesto for Truffaut's intentions with the film, the way he will turn the gangster genre inside out, a genre he confessed to not really liking.

Although Truffaut would go on to make self-conscious and superficial tributes to his hero (e.g. 'La Peau Douce', 'The Bride Wore Black'), 'Shoot the Pianist' is his most Hitchcockian film. Most obviously, it is a reworking of 'Vertigo', the story of a homme fatal (Koller - black widower?) who kills two women because he couldn't say the right thing, because he behaved like a man should, rather than the way he really feels. Lena is in effect a reincarnation of his dead wife, a woman who wants to reinstate his 'original' identity. Like Scottie Ferguson, Charlie is a man paralysed by memory, shellshocked by his experiences with an elusive love that could so easily have been his.

But, again like 'Vertigo', 'Pianist' is the study of masculine identity and its dissolution. When we first see Charlie he is literally in a scrapheap, getting dressed in front of a mirror. This mirror motif recurs throughout, and with it the question: who is Charlie Koller? The farmboy sibling of gangsters; the renowned pianist; the back-room tinkler; the father to his young brother; the man who desires but cannot ask, who keeps destructively pulling back? Throughout the real 'man' is deluged by different names, images (posters, paintings), stories etc. about himself: his own personality is divided by the talks he conducts with himself. Even the heartbreaking flashback sequence about his past is related to him by someone else. In the fear of losing his identity, of giving himself in union, Charlie loses everything.

But 'Pianist' is also reminiscent of early, British Hitchcock films like 'The 39 Steps' and 'Young and Innocent', in its playful irreverence with genre. David Thomson has said it was a film Laurence Sterne might have made, and, like 'Tristam Shandy', like those Hitchcock movies, the main genre narrative is frequently broken off by digressions and bits of business. The film plunges us in media res in the gangster genre, a man being chased in the obscurity. He bangs into a lamppost, and is helped by a passer-by. They start talking about marriage. This is emblematic of the film as a whole - a gangster film that keeps stopping to talk about love, women, family, music, the past etc. When the genre kicks in again - Chico (gangster name, yes, but Marx Brother too) rushes into his brother's bar, the tension is somewhat undermined by the comedy bar-room singer bouncing to the cymbals. When Charlie and Lena are kidnapped by the two hoods, a fraught situation turns into an hilarious banter about women and dirty old men. the most frightening sequence - the abduction of young Fido - provokes the funniest scene, where captor and captive debate the authenticity of the former's Japanese metal scarf.

But the film works the other way too, when the comic unexpectedly flashes into the tragic. In an early scene, Charlie agonises to himself about the proper etiquette to be used in handling Lena - this is a touching, sad scene, but full of the comedy of embarrassment. Suddenly, having dithered so long, Charlie realises she's gone. The scrunched pain on his face is devastating.

'Pianist' is my favourite film. For Charles Aznavour's performance, the embodiment of shy timidity leading to emotional paralysis, and my altar ego. For the Godardian style, mixing abrupt, immediate, hand-held location shooting, and natural sound excitement, with a grasp of mise-en-scene worthy of the great 1950s melodramatists (the framing, cutting characters off from one another, trapping them in their decor; or the elaborate, Ophulsian camerawork, such as the 'Le Plaisir' gliding outside the bar; the circular narrative that sees continuity tragically affirmed in the shape of the new waitress). 'Pianist' couldn't have been made without Melville's 'Bob le Flambeur', and its flippancy and humanising of genre, but the influence of this on Cassavetes, Penn, Scorcese etc. was immense, for its generosity to all its characters, showing, despite Eustache, that a good woman can be a maman and putain. For the comic chutzpah, the dazzling abduction scene, the triptych revealing the boss's betrayal, the clumsy murder, the wonderfully bumbling hoods, Fido's Hawksian little dance. For Truffaut's concern with time and decay and art. For the haunting scene with the cello girl. For the music, fulfilling Noel Coward's dictum about the potency of cheap music, giving this short, strange movie its generous soul, a film that so humanely departs from genre it makes the generic climax grotesque, a DW Griffith nightmare in blinding white.

Francois Truffaut was a film critic for the magazine Cahiers du cinéma. He was disenchanted with what he saw as a lack of originality and honesty in contemporary cinema. He developed the theory of the auteur in cinema - an idiosyncratic force such as his hero Hitchcock rather than a 'civil servant of the cinema'.

His motivation for entering the cinema was to make films which he, and others like him, wanted to see and which then didn't exist. Cinema with breadth and imagination, which took risks and broke rules. The zest and vitality of his vision is still evident so many years on.

After his impeccable full -length debut, Les Quatre Cents Coups (aka The 400 Blows), which was a slice of life / coming of age tale, Truffaut took a completely different subject matter for this second feature. The source novel is 'Down There', typical US pulp fiction by the little known David Goodis. Its a tale of crime set in seedy locations with a graceless linear plot. Obviously its the way the filmmakers use this source that makes Tirez Sur Le Pianiste the film it is.

Charles Aznavour, a mainstream celebrity in France, is the bizarre but perfect choice for the lead role of Charlie Kohler. His passive, indifferent demeanour makes him an anti-hero of a different kind to Cagney or Brando - one who is ineffective in either solving or preventing crime. This minor cinematic tradition I see as continuing with John Klute in Klute (1971), Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973), reaching its comical apex with The Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998).

Not, in fact, that Charlie has to solve any crimes. He is simply out to save his skin - and those of his brothers. His life is in danger throughout the film yet he is more preoccupied with whether or not he should take the arm of the attractive waitress Lena (Marie Dubois) from the dive where he plays the piano, as he walks her home in a scene that is a perfect marriage of its imagery and internal monologue. It is this kind of juxtaposition of themes (threat to life and romantic shyness) which makes this film such compelling and unpredictable viewing.

The film opens with a charming conversation about the secrets of a happy marriage, spoken by a character we never see again who simply runs into Charlie's brother Chico (Albert Rémy) - who is the catalyst for the 'plot'. The throwaway conversations are really more important to the creative spirit of the film than any of the plot's major concerns. This trend continues with the characters of Ernest and Momo, the pursuing heavies. Though evidently dangerous men, they speak tangentially on a range of subjects (mostly women, though) which cannot help but remind a modern audience of Tarantino's hit men in Pulp Fiction. Indeed much of what I said about Truffaut - how he was compelled to make rule-changing cinema that he and others wanted to see - could of course equally be applied to Tarantino.

The centrepiece of the film goes back to Charlie' past where he was a classical concert pianist. This beautiful vignette explains to us why Charlie is in the pits now. Nicole Berger as Thérèse Saroyan, Charlie's wife absolutely owns this part of the film. This section also features the celebrated and beautiful sequence where the camera chooses to follow a female violinist from the door of an apartment and out into the courtyard. Why? Just for the sake of artistic freedom, it seems.

As well as Aznavour and Berger, the casting is uniformly perfect. Claude Mansard and Daniel Boulanger as the waffling heavies, Marie Dubois as the sweet, maternal young waitress Léna, Michèle Mercier as a tart with a heart with a body to die for (bringing the total of female 'leads' to three!), Serge Davri and Catherine Lutz as Charlie's antagonistic and ultimately tragic employers. The obscure threesome (the latter two brothers have their only major film roles here) of Albert Rémy, Jean-Jacques Aslanian and the young Richard Kanayan are brilliantly effective as Charlie's brothers, all of whom display varying degrees of the criminal element - the 'curse' of Charlie and his family. Early on in the film there is also a terrifically amusing song (complete with karaoke-style lyrics) performed by Boby Lapointe, a real-life Parisian entertainer.

For all its wealth of ideas, though, this is generally not a pacey movie. Its pace is as laidback as Charlie himself at times. But with patience this will reward the audience with all kinds of unexpected delights.

François Truffaut's second feature, Tirez sur le pianiste, is a deliberately wild and chaotic satire of the American gangster pictures of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Truffaut tried to make Tirez sur le pianiste, or Shoot the Pianist, the complete opposite of his first picture, The 400 Blows, doing away with the sentimentality of the predecessor and making his second feature far more vicious, nonlinear and, occasionally, quite funny.

Based off of a pulp novel by David Goodis, the movie is about a once-famous piano player (Charles Aznavour) who gives up looking for the reason his wife left him, and now plays piano in a run-down Paris bar where he falls for a waitress, and must overcome his natural shyness in order to express his love for her. Unfortunately his brother gets him involved in a gangland feud, which gives the story an unnecessary (but welcomed) edge to the romance.

There are some highly amusing scenes, such as when Charles and his soon-to-be-girlfriend walk down a Paris sidewalk and he contemplates what to say, do, and how to act, without offending her or making a fool out of himself. We hear Charles' neurotic thoughts in voice-over – an effect now overused in cinema but back in 1960, very new. It wasn't until the intrusion of Woody Allen comedies such as Annie Hall that sporadic first-person narratives became popular – in the noir movies of the earlier decades voice-overs were sometimes used by narrators (such as in the cult classic Detour) but never in such a way as Shoot the Pianist's. It's one of the best scenes in the movie, and a great way of expressing the inner-workings of Charles, the character.

Shoot the Pianist's chaotic structure confused and overwhelmed many audiences when the film was released in 1960. Its content (violence, nudity, etc.) was not as welcomed by audiences as it is now, and as a result the film was a financial and critical failure. The humor was not appreciated, the insightful look at a French Everyman was not even noticed – it was ruled out as a dud, and that's all that mattered to anyone.

Over the years it has picked up a rather small cult following and fans of Truffaut's films have declared it to be one of his best pictures. Looking back now in light of such recent gangster genre hybrids such as Reservoir Dogs and Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Truffaut's movie not only seems more understandable but far ahead of its time. In relation to Reservoir Dogs it contains the same sort of standard, everyday nonchalance in accordance with gangsters – while it contains the narrative flow of Guy Ritchie's British gangster cult hit.

Regardless of how brilliant Shoot the Pianist seems forty years later, Truffaut was scarred by the negative press surrounding his second feature and never made another movie as daring (so to speak) or, more likely, downright fun as Tirez sur le pianiste. It's a very amusing movie, and it is one of the few 1960s films that doesn't seem dated compared to the film-making standards of modern-day Hollywood. The performances are flawless, the characters likable and realistic, the movie overall highly enjoyable and worth seeing more than just once. It is sadly one of Truffaut's most underrated movies, although hopefully in another forty years it will only be all the more appreciated for its qualities.

5/5

I read mixed reviews about this film - some interesting elements but it doesn't work completely as a whole. Having seen it recently, I would tend to agree with these comments. Shoot the Piano Player is about a famous piano player who falls in love with and loses two women who care for him. After the death of the first, his wife, he changes his name and becomes a piano player in an obscure bar where he meets the second love of his life, a waitress. There are some sub-plots regarding his criminal brothers, the kidnapping of his son and the bar-owner also falling for the same waitress.

There are very interesting individual scenes - interesting, not brilliant. On the whole, the film is a mish-mash of ideas and plots, all told very confusingly. Even if the narration had been more coherent, another problem is the visual look. There are noir themes in the narrative, but the visual style is in no way reminiscent of those films. It is more rooted in realism but has the visual look of a TV film.

I don't know! I'm still confused by this film...

It doesn't feel like a typical Truffaut film - though I've only seen two others from his filmography - in that it's as stylish and self-reflexive as a Godard film. I had got the sense that Truffaut was more 'conventional' in his films, and this one certainly went against it. Not that I'm complaining, though - it's probably the funniest New Wave flick that I've seen. There are loads of little comic moments that reminded me of the modern British comedies - stuff like Snatch and Shaun of the Dead - that I love. But it's also got a dark edge, and not in the black comedy sense. It's pretty depressing, and that's where it fits in line with Truffaut's other films. It's not the relatively light-hearted depression of Godard's films, it's full-fledged tragedy. However, the combination of drama and comedy doesn't always mesh well, as it rarely does for me, and the characters seem too short-changed to justify such an ending. Still, it's very witty and fairly entertaining.

Truffaut's homage to the American gangster film stars Charles Aznavour as a smalltime piano player in a bar who has a secret past that he keeps hidden. The film almost falls into the trap of not being an homage to the gangster film, but rather being one itself. What saves it is the film's unique wit and charm - it's a blend of humor, romance, and gangster film. The gangsters themselves are quite funny, casually discussing everyday matters in a way that certainly had to influence Quentin Tarantino when he was writing Pulp Fiction. Some of the jokes are funny just because they are so silly (i.e., the gangster swearing his truth on his mother's grave). It's this sense of humor and the fact that the movie doesn't take itself seriously that sets it apart from other gangster movies of the day.

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.

The opening scene is of a man running in dark streets. We only hear his steps and the menacing mechanical sound of traffic which we assume to be made by the pursuer. He collides with a post and is stunned. A man carrying a bouquet of flowers, helps him to his feet. As they walk, the man is expansive and briefly describes the course of his relationship with his wife, from simple selfish lust leading to marriage and only later, leading to true love. The man excuses himself, turning towards his home, and in an instant the original victim returns to his role as prey to some all-pervasive, inhuman, pursuer.

For me, this is Truffaut, the viewer identifying with the victim for a few moments, being safe in the domestic harmony of the man, only to be launched anew into the role of the hopeless quarry. The talkative man's recognition of his dependence on his wife contrasts with a later scene, in a car, where the two gangsters reveal highly cynical attitudes towards women. The irony is that their cynicism is capped by Charlie (Edward), who quotes his father as saying "when you've seen one woman, you've seen them all". It is significant how timid and respectful he is when daring to interrupt the macho diatribe of the two hoods. With this one statement, we have the background to the whole story.

Big brother, Chico, the "prey", needs help from Eddy, who is very reluctant to be drawn in, but family ties prove too strong. We see Chico as being a demanding,selfish, brute and can guess he takes after his father. We also guess where Eddy's timidity originates.

In the dialogue between Eddy and the brutish bar-owner, who is jealous of Eddy's attractiveness to the waitress, Lena, Eddy even offers to leave. When the bar-owner tells Eddy he is scared, Eddy repeats the phrase, playing with it as if it were a new flavour. This seems to be the ultimate in humility or humiliation, yet Eddy respectfully almost accepts it as advice. This short conversation suggests a life of victimisation, from father and big brother. Yet, most touching of all, is that his submission does not mask underlying contempt; Eddy still cares for the bar-owner as he does for his brother. Later, when the two are collapsed in the alley after a struggle, Eddy tosses aside his advantage of the knife and is then tricked by the bar-owner, who appears to be offering to make peace with a manly hug, but then attempts to strangle Eddy.

In his relations with Lena, Therese and Clarisse we witness tenderness, spontaneity, playfulness and trust. I don't know if it's my imagination, but these scenes seem to have brighter lighting. With each woman, there is a different mood. For instance, those involving Therese are all flashbacks and seem to involve more classical, static camera-work, lending an appropriate quality of distance. With Clarisse, the prostitute, there is bawdy, but innocent humour and no physical embarrassment, while with Lena there is adolescent awkwardness, reminiscent of Woody Allen, followed by such delicate, romantic scenes of physical discovery.

There are unexpected cameos, such as Boby Lapointe, in the bar singing "Framboises" and Fido, Eddy's kid brother being fascinated by the two gangsters who have kidnapped him. The final moment of the film, ignores the outcome of the feud between gangsters and brothers. We are only concerned with Lena.

While playing piano in a bar, the pianist Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) is approached by his crook brother Chico Saroyan (Albert Rémy), who has been chased by two gangsters. Charlie helps him to escape, but he upsets the two criminals, and they stalk Charlie and the waitress Lena (Marie Dubois), who is in love with him. The shy Charlie tells his past to Lena, when he was the former famous pianist Edouard Saroyan, and he quitted his successful career after the suicide of his wife, the also waitress Thérèse Saroyan (Nicole Berger). When his brother Fido Saroyan (Richard Kanayan), who is raised by Charlie, is kidnapped by the gangsters that want to know where Chico is, Charlie has to take an attitude with tragic consequences.

The film-noir "Tirez Sur le Pianiste" is a weird movie about a timid man that has difficulties to express and to have the correct timing with the words. He seems to communicate only through the piano keys playing music, causing the death of his beloved wife and girlfriend for not saying the right words in the right time. The story is original, and it is difficult to label a genre for this movie: is it a film-noir, a drama, a romance, a thriller, a dark comedy? I believe all the answers are correct. The result is an enjoyable movie, mostly recommended for fans of Truffault. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Tiro no Pianista" ("The Shot in the Piano Player")

Note: On 02 October 2011, I saw this film again.

With singer/actor Charles Aznavour in the lead (his expressive face is priceless), "Shoot the Piano Player" is one of Truffaut's most charming and inventive works. Aznavour plays Charlie/Edouard -- a former concert pianist who becomes an anonymous piano player in a dive bar in order to escape his past. After his brother (Remy, who Truffaut also used wonderfully in "The 400 Blows") gets in trouble with some borderline inept gangsters, chaos ensues.

Truffaut's winsome camera and editing techniques blend perfectly with Aznavour's performance. A must for fans of the French New Wave.

This film is about a man who has been cast into a realm where he has found comfort from huge amounts of baggage. He has been a successful concert pianist whose failed marriage (and the suicide of his wife) have destroyed any real ambition. Enter his brother, who gets him involved in a circumstance he did not create. At times things are comedic, but there is always an undercurrent of threat. Charles Aznevour is an outstanding actor. He reminds me a bit of our Kevin Spacey, but with much more moodiness. He is really gun shy and would like a relationship with a beautiful young woman who is playing hard to get. Eventually, while the threat increases, an event pulls them together and she becomes embroiled in the same circumstances. There are two other stunning women in the film, one a hooker who lives next door, and, of course, his wife, who dominates the screen. I found this to be a totally involving experience. Outstanding acting and an excellent editing. The black and white winter scenes are especially striking.

Made in 1960, 'Tirez sur le pianiste' (the English title is 'Shoot the Piano Player') is François Truffaut's second film, released after his formidable debut with 'Les quatre cent coups'. The main source of inspiration here is the genre of American mob movies and, as in the previous film, the lead hero is a kind of alter-ego of the director himself. What is special about 'Tirez sur le pianiste' is that Truffaut, probably encouraged by the success of the debut film, boldly experiments cinematically and makes a real slalom between genres combining comedy with melodrama, gangster films with romantic stories. In just 81 minutes, he manages to bring to the screen numerous quotes from the films and genres he admires, as well as cinematographic inventions that make 'Tirez sur le pianiste' a reference film, with cult film status among many generations of filmmakers (it is, for example, one of the favourite movies of Tarantino ). In addition, admirably, it is an alert film, combining comedy with action, without hesitation in seeking to be an entertaining film that seeks to please its viewers. In Truffaut's view, good cinema is never boring.

The hero of the film is Charlie Kohler ( Charles Aznavour), a pianist in a band that plays jazz in a small dancing bar. Every night he delights his customers with his music, with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, with a quarter of a shy smile on his lips. His seemingly banal character, however, hides a tumultuous past, a concert pianist career abandoned after a personal tragedy, a family with two gangster brothers who will re-involve him in the world of crime, another younger brother in his care that Charlie tries to save from a similar fate. Women swarm around him, but luck seems to avoid him. Just when he may have found his salvation in the person of the young and beautiful Lena (Marie Dubois), troubles resume.

Truffaut builds the whole story around Charlie and his loves. His introverted character has an indisputable magnetism amplified by the jazz music, which is also part of the role adopted by the brilliant pianist fleeing his past. Charles Aznavour is perfect in this role and makes us regret that he did not dedicate more time in his career to cinema. Among the women around him (past and present) stands out the luminous presence of Marie Dubois. The pace of the story is fast and all the characters are accurately sketched, leaving a trace even if they appear for a short time on the screen. There are scenes that start in comedy and end in 'film noir', others that slip into horror with visual inventions and props reminiscent of the films of Hitchcock, the ultimate idol of Truffaut. Spectators do not have time to get bored at any time. Even when the action is not terribly original, gags or cinematic angles or soundtrack elements appear that ensure continuity and give the film a unique visual and musical look and feel. 60 years after its making 'Tirez sur le pianiste' continues to fascinate, for good reason.

May be i expected more from this flick....but it started like a comedy,slowly into a melo drama with more plots added to the film. the suspense factor wasn't there though it had his moments..

but the main disappointment for me is sometimes the characters weren't aware wat happening around them.... the protagonist didn't care of his rico(if i am correct) his brother child was with the gangsters..at the time he doesn't care abt him,but instead he thinks of philosophy and all...its out of normal to me. but a brilliant camera works..some dialogues was funny...truffaut did with what thought i cant understand.. i read review saying great movie. but it falls short not being great or bad movie.... not tat much recommended i give 6 out of 10...

When is a low-budget gangster movie not a low-budget gangster movie? When it's Francois Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player."

Truffaut had given himself a tough act to follow. His first feature film, "The 400 Blows," was one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. So it's not surprising that critics were at first somewhat disappointed by this, his second film. Most initially dismissed it as a failure. But "Shoot" is looking better and better as the years go by.

Charles Aznavour is perfect as Charlie Kohler, the piano player at a run down Paris cafe. The barmaid, Lena (Marie Dubois) is secretly in love with Charlie. She knows the secret of his past and that Charlie is not just another two-bit piano player.

But Charlie has more than one secret in his past, and even Lena doesn't know them all. He is one of the most famous men in Paris and, at the same time, an anonymous, penniless bum. His past is a million miles behind him and, at the same time, walking through his back door.

"Shoot the Piano Player" is an excellent movie made by one of the greatest film directors of all time. It is also one of those rare movies that seems to get better and better upon successive viewings. This is certainly one low-budget gangster movie that is not to be missed.

"Shoot the Piano Player" was a solid ride.

The film has some clever and witty dialogue (specifically involving women) that injected some humor and fun into an otherwise moody film. The film also stayed immersive throughout thanks to the effective narration putting you firmly into the protagonist's head, so you almost always knew what he was thinking, and it being perfectly timed with the actor's facial expressions makes the viewer feel attached to the character on screen. Acting was strong across the board, and the two gangster antagonists were surprisingly charismatic and fun to watch, especially when interacting with the two leads. The plot isn't the most complex of the genre, but the actors inject just enough life into the proceedings to keep you engaged. The camerawork was stylish and inventive, especially for a film of it's age, and especially during the action scenes, and the atmosphere varied appropriately with each scene, with moments of light banter between a prostitute and the main character, and a more foreboding tone during his interactions with his brother Chico, who is the reason for the gangsters being after them. During the film, you get to learn the origin of the main character Charlie and what happened to his former lover. Overall, not the director's most important work, but perhaps his most accessible and it was cool seeing him try his hand at a gangster film after crafting a coming of age film like "The 400 Blows", as it shows he's able to cross genres with ease.

Charles Aznavour as Charlie Kohler, a down-on-his-luck virtuoso from a poor background who finds himself involved in the criminal troubles of his crooked brother. The film is enlivened by exotic scenes of life in the quartiers of Paris, not least the neighbourhood bar in which Charlie is the pianist. The most engaging characters are the leading lady Marie Dubois and a luminous supporting turn from Michèle Mercier, although there is an enthusiastic cameo from Boby Lapointe, his first film role. The treatment of social taboos (the film includes nudity and overt reference to prostitution) must have made this a daring work for the period. Strong cinematography and good use of music in what is ultimately an overly melodramatic crime drama. 6.5/10 may be harsh, but for me Aznavour fails to convince as a leading man, and the story is barely credible.