François Truffaut

Day for Night

Day for Night

This affectionate farce from François Truffaut about the joys and strife of moviemaking is one of his most beloved films. Truffaut himself appears as the harried director of a frivolous melodrama, the shooting of which is plagued by the whims of a neurotic actor (Jean-Pierre Léaud), an aging but still forceful Italian diva (Valentina Cortese), and a British ingenue haunted by personal scandal (Jacqueline Bisset). An irreverent paean to the prosaic craft of cinema as well as a delightful human comedy about the pitfalls of sex and romance, Day for Night is buoyed by robust performances and a sparkling score by the legendary Georges Delerue.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1973
  • 116 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #769

TWO-DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Pierre-William Glenn
  • New visual essay by filmmaker :: kogonada
  • New interviews with Glenn and assistant editor Martine Barraqué
  • New interview with film scholar Dudley Andrew
  • Documentary on the film from 2003, featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf
  • Archival interviews with director François Truffaut, editor Yann Dedet, and actors Jean-Pierre Aumont, Nathalie Baye, Jacqueline Bisset, Dani, and Bernard Menez
  • Archival television footage about the film, including footage of Truffaut on the set
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic David Cairns

    New cover by Roman K. Muradov


Purchase Options

TWO-DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Pierre-William Glenn
  • New visual essay by filmmaker :: kogonada
  • New interviews with Glenn and assistant editor Martine Barraqué
  • New interview with film scholar Dudley Andrew
  • Documentary on the film from 2003, featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf
  • Archival interviews with director François Truffaut, editor Yann Dedet, and actors Jean-Pierre Aumont, Nathalie Baye, Jacqueline Bisset, Dani, and Bernard Menez
  • Archival television footage about the film, including footage of Truffaut on the set
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic David Cairns

    New cover by Roman K. Muradov


Day for Night
Cast
Jacqueline Bisset
Julie Baker
Valentina Cortese
Séverine
Dani
Liliane
Alexandra Stewart
Stacey
Jean-Pierre Aumont
Alexandre
Jean Champion
Bertrand
Jean-Pierre Léaud
Alphonse
François Truffaut
Ferrand
Nike Arrighi
Odile
Nathalie Baye
Joëlle
Maurice Seveno
Television reporter
David Markham
Dr. Nelson
Bernard Menez
Bernard
Gaston Joly
Lajoie
Zénaïde Rossi
Madame Lajoie
Xavier Macary
Christian
Marc Boyle
Stuntman
Walter Bal
Walter
Jean-François Stévenin
Jean-François
Pierre Zucca
Pierrot
Credits
Director
François Truffaut
Screenplay
François Truffaut
Screenplay
Jean-Louis Richard
Screenplay
Suzanne Schiffman
Music
Georges Delerue
Cinematography
Pierre-William Glenn
Production design
Damien Lanfranchi
Produced by
Marcel Berbert
Edited by
Yann Dedet
Edited by
Martine Barraqué

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Georges Delerue

Composer

Georges Delerue
Georges Delerue

Composer Georges Delerue, once named “the Mozart of cinema” by the French newspaper Le Figaro, wrote more than 350 film and television scores, along with pop songs, ballads, and orchestral pieces. In the course of his work with such titans of cinema as Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Mike Nichols, and Oliver Stone, Delerue, a native of Roubaix, France, created some of the most evocative film music of all time. Although he was trained in metallurgy, and began his working life in a metal factory, his lineage was musical (grandfather a choral singer, mother a pianist), and he found himself drawn in that direction, first studying the clarinet and eventually beginning to compose. After doing some scoring for television and short films (including Agnès Varda’s early short L’opéra mouffe, which is available on Criterion’s edition of Cléo from 5 to 7), Delerue was approached by Resnais and Truffaut to write the themes to Hiroshima mon amour and Shoot the Piano Player, two works at the forefront of the French New Wave movement. The scores for which he is now best known followed close on their heels: his energetic, lovely melody for Jules and Jim and his grand, swoony, undulating theme for Contempt—the latter appropriated years later by Martin Scorsese for his 1995 drama Casino. Delerue’s stature grew, thanks to scores for such films as The Two of Us and King of Hearts, and eventually he would not only win an Oscar (for 1979’s A Little Romance) and three Césars in a row (for Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Love on the Run, and The Last Metro) but also be named a Commander of Arts and Letters, one of France’s highest cultural honors. He came to Hollywood in the eighties and wrote music for Platoon, Beaches, and Steel Magnolias, among others. Delerue died in 1992.

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