Hommage to Howard Hawks. ... Francois Truffaut's In a film as dense with cinematic allusions as Francois ‘Truffaut’s Day for Night, it is easy to overlook Ferrand’s remark that “shoot- ing a film is exactly like crossing the Old West in a stagecoach. At first you hope to have a good trip. But, very soon, you start wondering if you'll even reach your destination.”! This fanciful comparison can be regarded as a sign of Ferrand’s totally cine- matic imagination (what, after all, does he know about crossing the Old West except what he has seen in American movies?), or it ean be dismissed as another nouvelle vague inside joke. Yet the comparison is not entirely fanciful, for Day for Night, which is about shooting a film, is a kind of Western—at least according to the definition Truffaut supplies in The Films in My Life: “As in all good Westerns, we find the structure of an itinerant film; action-filled daytime scenes alternate with more static nighttime scenes, which are always convenient for discussions around a camp- fire, discussions about ideology or feelings.” This is admittedly a broad definition embracing not only American Westerns but also Jean Renoir’s La Marseillaise (the context of Truffaut’s definition) and Day for Night, which alternates between action-filled day- time scenes (albeit the “action” before a movie camera rather than the struggle against natural elements or battles with hostile Indians and outlaws) and more static nighttime scenes in the hotel where the filmmakers throw parties, exchange intimacies, face crises, quarrel with each other. Missing from the film is the geographical sweep of the Western; the company is mostly re- stricted to the confines of the Victorine Studios in Nice, but significantly their one outside excursion to film the car stunt is accompanied by the “‘wagons-ho” theme music associated with Westerns. The stagecoach comparison immediately evokes the films of John Ford, but in the Foreword to the screenplay of Day for Night Truffaut proposes another filmmaker as a model: “The movie itself being shot would be the equivalent of the cattle trek vee72|Day for Night from Texas to Missouri in Howard Hawks’s beautiful film, Red River. My movie would also consist of a long crossing, a difficult journey; and at the end of this trek a real goal would also be at- tained” (ix). Upon reflection, Hawks is a natural choice because he represents the filmmaker par excellence to the auteuristic critics who later became nouvelle vague directors. Indeed, the politique des auteurs was chiefly responsible for defining Hawks’s artistic standing in the pantheon of American directors. While American critics dismissed Hawks as a competent hack, Truffaut, Rivette and other Cahiers du Cinéma critics noted consistent stylistic and thematic elements which marked his personal touch on apparently standardized Hollywood products. It is appropriate, then, that a study of Hawks should come tumbling out when Ferrand opens a package of film books devoted mostly to Euro- pean directors. In_ pointing out similarities to Red River, Truffaut insists that, despite the physical confinement, Day for Night is a journey, a trek. As Molly Haskell has observed, Hawks’s films are also journeys “even when the locales are stationary.”4 In some of Hawks’s adventure films the physical journey is replaced by the goal to be accomplished: winning the race (The Crowd Roars, Red Line 7000), delivering the mail (Ceiling Zero, Only Angels Have Wings), destroying the creature from another world (The Thing), holding a prisoner for the U.S. Marshal (Rio Bravo). In other films the journey and the goal are both present (Red River, The Big Sky, Hatari!, Rio Lobo). In Truffaut's film the goal, which is to complete Meet Pamela, replaces the physical destin- ation and just as the cattle drive in Red River is diverted from Missouri to Abilene, Kansas, so too does the shape of Meet Pamela change to meet changing circumstances, especially the death of Alexandre. The change is dramatized by the opening and closing scenes of Day for Night, which show the shooting of the ending of Meet Pamela, The busy square at the beginning is now mostly deserted; the season has become winter; instead of slapping his father, Alphonse will shoot him in the back. Although Ferrand’s original plan has not been realized, these modifications are signs not of his defeat but rather his triumph over circumstances, The goal has been accomplished; Meet Pamela is in the can. The filmmakers at the Victorine Studios are Truffaut’s version of the archetypal Hawksian enclave of professionals dedicated to a common goal, who must battle not only external forces (the destruction of the dailies during a power failure at the lab) but also internal conflicts which threaten the production (Severine’s alcoholism, Julie’s emotional instability, Alphonse’s jealousy.) As in Hawks, characters are aligned and judged according to their dedication to the task. In fact, Truffaut’s characters parallel closely some of the character types found in Hawks’s films. Liliane, for example, is the outsider who cannot be integrated into the group. Very often in Hawks this character is a woman who disrupts the equilibrium of the group because of her eroticDay for Night/73 attraction. The offscreen love interest dividing Neil Hamilton and Richard Barthelmess in Dawn Patrol is one example of such a figure; Zita Johan in Tiger Shark and Miriam Hopkins in Barbary Coast are onscreen variations of the same type. In Hawks these disruptive influences are acceptable only when they devote them- selves to the professional standards and goals of the group. Liliane, however, has no professional dedication to the company or to her job, which she has obtained through Alphonse’s influence. She tires as quickly of Alphonse as she does of her job, flirting with the still photographer and eventually running off with the stunt- man. Fortunately, her position is not so important that the en- tire production is placed in jeopardy, but her betrayal of the group is judged by Joelle, the supreme professional, who says,‘‘I might leave a guy for a film—but I’d never leave a film for a guy” (125). Liliane’s departure has a more serious effect on Alphonse, who represents what Robin Wood has termed “‘the lure of irresponsi- bility,”” which he finds chiefly in Hawks’s comedies but also in Scarface—the temptation to abandon adult responsiblity and re- gress to childish dependence. Throughout the film Alphonse is referred to as a child. For example, before she leaves Liliane says, “He’s a moody child, completely spoiled, and he will never be a man” (122). And after he has abandoned the production he is found on a go-cart track, an appropriately scaled-down version of the Hawksian arena for separating the men from the boys in The Crowd Roars and Red Line 7000. In order to become a man, Alphonse must throw off his selfishness and submit himself to professional discipline. In short, he must do his job. “People like us are happy only in our work, you must realize that,” Ferrand tells him (135), a sentiment echoed shortly afterward by Julie, who says, ‘“You must remain here and finish your work” (137). Eventually, Alphonse takes this advice and retums to the production. Although we may not be convinced that Alphonse has at last put away the things of a child, he has at least taken the first step toward growing up. In Julie Baker Truffaut creates another familiar Hawksian character, the disgraced professional who is given a second chance for redemption. Richard Barthelmess in Only Angels Have Wings, Dean Martin in Rio Bravo and Robert Mitchum in HI Dorado are only a few examples of this figure in Hawks’s work. Julie’s disgrace is that she walked away from a film two years before during a personal crisis resulting in a nervous breakdown. Like Alphonse. she is crucial to the production. Indeed, she is liter- ally irreplaceable since the insurance company will not cover her because of her past. As the producer puts it early in the film, “Tf she doesn’t finish our film, we'll be up shit creek without a paddle’’ (46). Given this background, Julie’s efforts to keep first Liliane and then Alphonse in the company are genuinely heroic. She even sleeps with Alphonse to keep him on the film, a sac- rifice which redounds against her when Alphonse calls her hus-‘14[Day for Night band to demand that he set her free. Fearing the loss of the man who tried to make her into a “responsible woman” (151), as she puts it, Julie locks herself in her dressing room and in- explicably demands tub butter. To her credit, Julie finds the inner strength to surmount this crisis and go on with her work. She asks the forgiveness of the company saying, “I realize I’m not acting like a professional” (151). Significantly, she makes this decision on her own before her husband arrives on the set, demonstrating her independence as well as her sense of respon- sibility. Truffaut casts himself to play the Hawksian hero who over- comes both external and internal obstacles and directs the group toward its goal. In this respect, Ferrand joins the company of Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings, Montgomery Clift in Red River and John Wayne in Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo, ‘‘The Hawks hero,” writes V.F. Perkins, “does what he can with the materials at his disposal.’ In other words, he im- provises and Ferrand is “famous for improvising” (68). This talent allows Ferrand to reshape his film to meet changing circumstances, incorporating the accidents befalling the production into his design, whether it be finding a way to disguise Stacey’s pregnancy or revising the ending of Meet Pamela to complete the shooting. There are limits to his ability, however. Ferrand will not make Stacey’s pregnancy part of the plot nor will he insist on the fancy-dress ball sequence when it cannot be shot without Alexandre’s close-ups. This, too, is a characteristic of Hawks’s heroes, who “are constantly testing their abilities, and, particular- ly, their limitations. They have to see how far they can impose their own terms on nature and on life.”6 The Hawksian hero is eminently practical and Truffaut dwells on the many decisions Ferrand makes, whether it be choosing the gun Alphonse will use or eliminating the fancy-dress ball sequence. To underline his point, Truffaut rigorously restricts the scope of Day for Night to the shooting of a film; there is no mention of preparing a film or of post-production work. Indeed, we never see an assembly of the footage, although the scene where Ferrand indicates with his fingers where to cut the car stunt footage comes close. In his own way, then, Ferrand is a man of action; he con- fronts problems as they come, resolving questions of how to do his job and not inquiring why it should be done. Truffaut himself sees filmmaking in the same terms: “The preparation (of a film) is the most onerous part. Fellini has shown this magnificently in 8%. During this phase you feel like an imposter because you have to resolve many questions which don’t have answers yet. During the shooting you find yourself confronted with concrete problems that you can solve practically.”” For Truffaut, then, the film artist is inevitably a man of action, for only by resolving the concrete problems facing him does he prove his mettle. By playing Ferrand himself, Truffaut narrows the gap be- tween art and life, giving the film a personal aspect it might not have otherwise. The effect is doubled by the casting of Jean-Day for Night/75 Pierre Leaud, who has played Truffaut’s alter-ego, Antoine Doinel, as Alphonse. Alphonse embodies all of the qualities of Antoine Doinel in their least attractive aspect; certainly Leaud has never seemed more petulant and childish than in this film. Ferrand’s urging Alphonse to grow up, to do his job, to accept responsi- bility, can thus be seen as a kind of auto-critique of Truffaut’s early career when he concentrated on youthful, spontaneous, rebellious characters. As he has grown older, Truffaut has begun to emphasize more adult values similar to the ethos of Howard Hawks. In fact, he has taken to playing these adult roles him- self—as Dr. Itard in The Wild Child and the Jamesian ar«ist in his most recent film, The Green Room, It is significant that, one sign of Alphonse’s immaturity is that he would rather watch films than eat, while Ferrand goes ahead and makes films. Like Hawks, the mature Truffaut prefers the participants over the bystanders. Action is the important thing. Besides these specific parallels, Day for Night reveals that Truffaut and Hawks share a larger area of agreement—they both work within the conventions of classical Hollywood cinema. In brief, classical construction implies a commitment to storytelling, to linear narrative. Using the star system, studio style encourages the naive belief that what happens on the screen is “real,” an effect produced through an unobtrusive camera style and so- called “invisible” editing. Having made most of his films during the heyday of the Hollywood studios, Hawks had little choice but to adopt prevailing conventions, but there is evidence that the studio style suited his temperament. On many occasions he has said that a director is a storyteller and he has complained more than once that “‘in some of today’s pictures you don’t know where you are, who’s talking, or anything, and that’s why they’ve got motion pictures lying around over in Hollywood that they can’t make head or tail out of.”8 A sign of Hawks’s concen for story values is his involvement in preparing the scripts for his films, even those for which he received no story credit. In some respects, Hawks is more classic than classical construction: his narratives are severely linear to the exclusion of flashbacks; his camera work is not only unobtrusive but it is usually placed at eye level so as not to distract from the action. In his study of Truffaut Don Allen writes: ‘With rare ex- ceptions his films are ‘well made’ and tell a story. His emphasis tends to be on narrative and character study.”® In Day for Night Truffaut dramatizes his emphasis on narrative in the scene where Ferrand and Joelle write dialogue for the next day’s shooting of Meet Pamela. Their main concerns are setting and character-- Hawks’s where you are and who’s talking. When Joelle wonders why the scene takes place in the kitchen, Ferrand explains that “we have to avoid anything suspicious at all costs” (96). Later Joelle objects to the line “I think so” because “Pamela isn’t vague. She must be certain by this time that she’s in love with her father-in-law” (96). These details have to be worked out to76/Day for Night promote audience identification—as Joelle says, “‘It’s absolutely necessary that the audience understandsher feelings’(97). Although his visual style is less severe than Hawk’s, Truffaut’s stylistic pyrotechnics are not very distracting because they are subordinated to a story line. His effects are usually nothing more than the revival of cinematic conventions, like the iris shot, which have fallen out of fashion and which he sometimes employs in unexpected contexts. His frequent references to other films are meant to be affectionate homages to past masters and not devices designed to make the audience conscious of the codes by which filmmakers construct their meaning. Because they resemble Holly- wood products so closely, Truffaut's films have been more popular and accessible to American audiences than the more radical experiments of Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette. And Holly- wood, which has a way of recognizing one of its own, has rewarded Truffaut by giving Day for Night the Academy Award as Best Foreign Film of 1973. The French title of the film, La Nuit americaine, not only denotes the photographic process of shooting nighttime scenes during the day, but also suggests the twilight of American dom- inance of the cinema. “Along with Alexandre,” Ferrand says, “a whole era of moviemaking is fast disappearing. Films will soon be shot in the streets—without stars, without scripts. A production like Meet Pamela will soon be obsolete” (161). The old Hollywood may be dead but its influence still lives in Truffaut. Day for Night is his tribute to the American cinema—thus the “Western” structure, the dedication to Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and the homage to the pre-eminent American director, Howard Hawks. Wayne J. Douglass Notes 1 Francois Truffaut, Day for Night, trans. Sam Flores (New York: Grove Press, 1975), p. 35. Subsequent references are given in the text. 2 Trans, Leonard Mayhew (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 40. 3 Hawks is, in fact, the only native American director in the group, The rest were born in Europe: Carl Dreyer, Ernst Lubitsch, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Hitchcock, Roberto Rossellini, Robert Bresson, Luis Bufluel and Luchino Visconti. Lubitsch and Hitchcock, of course, had lengthy Hollywood careers. 4 “Howard Hawks Masculine Feminine,” Film Comment, 10 No. 2(1974), 34. 5 “Hatari!” in Movie Reader, ed. Ian Cameron (New York: Praeger, 1972), p. 63. 6 Ipid., p. 63.Day for Night/77 7 «Frangois T.,” L’Express, 13-19 Mars, 1978, p. 84. My translation. Even here Truffaut seems to be echoing Hawks. In a Cahiers du Cinéma interview conducted by Truffaut, Jacquest Becker and Jacques Rivette Hawks says: “The difficult work is the preparation: finding the story, deciding how to tell it, what to show and what not to show. Once you begin shooting you see everything in the best light, develop certain details, and improve the whole,” The interview is in Andrew Sarris, ed., Interviews with Film Directors (New York: Avon Books, 1969), p. 234. 8 “A Discussion with the Audience of the 1970 Chicago Film Festival,” in Joseph McBride, ed., Focus on Howard Hawks (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 25. Hawks expresses a similar complaint in Richard Schickel, The Men Who Made the Movies (New York: Atheneum, 1975), p. 127. Hawks’s opinion that directors are storytellers can be found in Saris, p. 231; McBride, p. 25; Schickel, p. 127. 9 Truffaut (New York: Viking, 1974), p. 9. cineaste AMERICA’S LEADING MAGAZINE ON THE ART AND POLITICS OF THE CINEMA Published quarterly, each issue features articles, re- views and interviews on everything from the latest Hollywood films and the American independent scene to the newest European releases and the emerging cine- mas of the Third World. 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