Shoot the Piano Player

François Truffaut plays the crime genre like jazz in this freewheeling adaptation of a novel by pulp master David Goodis, blending noir fatalism with the nervy freshness of the nouvelle vague.

The tragicomic story follows timid dance-hall pianist Charlie, played by Charles Aznavour, as he stumbles into a whirlwind romance and, through his gangster brothers, a violent underworld he never meant to enter.

With Raoul Coutard’s handheld camerawork, a wistful score by Georges Delerue, and playfully jagged editing, Truffaut shapes a rueful character study marked by his lasting obsessions: cinema, creativity, and the sting of romantic regret.