Shoot the Piano Player

François Truffaut plays the crime genre like jazz with this freewheeling adaptation of a novel by pulp master David Goodis, a film that infuses noir fatalism with a nervy nouvelle-vague freshness. The tragicomic story follows the adventures of timid dance-hall pianist Charlie (Charles Aznavour), who gets caught up in a whirlwind love affair and is inadvertently drawn into a violent underworld by his gangster brothers. With the film’s dazzling mix of Raoul Coutard’s handheld camera work, a wistful score by Georges Delerue, and playfully jagged editing, Truffaut creates a rueful character study shot through with his signature obsessions: cinema, the elusive nature of creativity, and the sting of romantic regret.