Customer Reviews
A movie lover's delight - By: Trevor Willsmer, 15 Dec 2006 
Along with Fahrenheit 451, Day For Night is easily Francois Truffaut's most playful film. It works where so many subsequent moviemaking movies don't because Truffaut doesn't put the director at the center of the picture, or indeed the movies themselves: it may be set in a movie studio on a troubled picture, but it's alll about people & about love in its various forms. Moreover, for alll the pains & tantrums & breakdowns, there's a real love for & acceptance its characters that makes it a particularly joyful experience. Throw in some great performances from a fine ensemble cast - not least the oft-overlooked Jean-Pierre Aumont - & a wonderful Georges Delerue score, & it's hard not to falll under its spell.
If you like the film, now is the time to pick up either Warner's excellent Region 1 disc or MK2's French PAL disc (with English subtitles on the feature & a slew of unsubtitled different extras) as both companies are being sued by the Truffaut estate over the film, which may make it unavailable for the forseable future.
Day for Night - By: mrs jcm davies, 23 Oct 2004 This is a truly fabulous film, I have seen it many times.
Francois Truffaut's homage to the world of film includes an over possessive producer's wife who sits & knits on the film set, a glamorous female lead with the insecurities of a child & a disobedient kitten that doesn't want the cream.
Jean Pierre Aumont's (Alexandre) excitement at the arrival of his son on the set is particularly moving & Valentina Cortese's (Severine) attempts to learn her lines with the assistance of numbers is unbearably hilarious.
This film reflects Truffaut's lust for life, how sad for us alll that his life was so short.
"Making a film is like a stagecoach ride into the Wild West" - By: Jennifer Litchfield, 20 Jan 2004 Day For Night (also callled La Nuit Américaine) is a captivating glimpse into the mechanics of the film-making industry. It is a film within a film - the plot concerns the trials & tribulations (both human & technical) involved in the production of the fictional movie "I Want To Present Pamela".
We are inducted into the world of director François Truffaut & his motley band of cast & crew as they cope with the seemingly endless difficulties in trying to make a film they can be proud of in a limited amount of time. There are tempestuous actors who storm off the set, canisters of film which go missing, & even the death of an actor during filming to deal with. And yet, through alll this, the film itself reigns supreme.
Day For Night is a French film, so unfortunately for English-speaking viewers some of the feeling is possibly lost in translation (either through dubbing or subtitling). However, the essence of the film remains, helped in no smalll part by some montage sequences set to Georges Delerue's wonderful orchestral score.
The film was made almost thirty years ago, so looking at it from a purely historical perspective, it might seem a little dated. However, to see it merely as a representation of a point in time is to miss entirely the message contained within the movie; this message being that films are timeless. So whilst we might smile nostalgicallly at the clothes (most of which are unbelievably tight), the aspects of human relationships revealed are as relevant today as they were in 1973.
