You have a dark superpower. Deep within your retina, the rod and cone photoreceptors optimize the blue end of the color spectrum so that you can see better in low-light conditions.
To recreate a spectral adaptation similar to your eye, cinematic techniques known as Day for Night are used to simulate a night scene while filming in outdoor daylight. We’ll hear this technique described in the film’s dialogue.
Truffaut opens Day for Night with a long tracking shot voiced with detailed technical direction to the cast and crew by director Ferrand (played by Truffaut). The manifestation of auteur theory, Day for Night becomes a tribute to cinema and a tribute to making cinema. It is a film made by a film lover, with film lovers, for film lovers. We, as an essential part of this isosceles arrangement, become entangled in the crisis amid chaos, the diplomacy amid frustration, and the order amid disruption as Ferrrand shoots Meet Pamela, the film within.
Meet Pamela may not be the type of movie a cinephile would invest time in, but we can invest ourselves in the talents and efforts of the people who make those movies. Interspersed with the shooting of Pamela, we are served mini exposés of life on a movie set. Part gossip page, part documentary, we get vignettes of cast and crew as they meander with purpose. Oh no, there’s imminent danger! But then, comforting safety. We’re at a breaking point! OK, time for soothing reassurance. Oh my gosh, be careful! But it’s all going to be just fine. Such is the life for Truffaut’s Ferrand.
Jacqueline Bisset plays Julie Baker, a British actress playing Pamela, an alluring beauty who captures the heart of her new father-in-law, with whom she runs off. But then he dies.
Jean-Pierre Léaud plays Alphonse, a young French actor playing Pamela’s husband. Mirroring his wife running off in the film within, Alphonse is heartbroken when his girlfriend/script girl runs off with a stuntman during production. He’s gonna need money for the whorehouse.
Valentina Cortese plays Severine, a volatile Italian actress playing Pamela’s mother-in-law. She’s past her starlet prime, can’t find her way around on set, and only works with the aid of champagne. For reasons no one knows, but everyone understands, we all have confidence that she’ll come through for us.
Meet Pamela gives us the absurd (perhaps that’s a strong word, but you get where I’m going) so that we can appreciate the reality. Day for Night gives us the reality to appreciate the illusion. (PW)
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