Institute History
Description
Truffaut’s lifelong love for the cinema found its natural and most lyrical expression in a film about the making of a film, Day For Night. He called it the “crossroads where the major characters of my other film meet” from which we can infer that Day For Night is the meeting place for all his major themes as well. Surrounded by old friends and an eccentric crew Truffaut, in the persona of the director Ferrand, orchestrates the production of a film called Meet Pamela, a project beset by technical and personal problems. the chaos is finally synthesized into a whole, interlaced with scenes and quotes from Truffaut’s earlier films, allusions to other filmmakers and tributes to his favorite actors. In short, Day For Night is Truffaut’s celebratory homage to “Cinema”—its history, purity, hardships but, most of all, the joy he found in its making.