Some films need to be seen more than once to be fully appreciated, and sometimes this requires re-watching years later. Such is the case with François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianiste)—at least from my perspective. Initially disappointed with what I thought was a disjointed collage when I first saw the film a few decades ago, I still didn't value it highly on a subsequent viewing in the 90s. However, when learning that Bob Dylan was greatly influenced by Truffaut's offbeat film, I decided to check it out again after The Criterion Collection gave the film its patented treatment. Viva la différence!

Once again The Criterion Collection serves as a home bound film appreciation course, including two interview segments with Truffaut; present day interviews with lead actors Charles Aznavour and Marie Dubois; a revealing interview with his longtime collaborator Suzanne Schiffman; cogent comments about the production by cinematographer Raoul Coutard; engaging commentary by two film scholars who both love the film and have studied it closely—Annette Insdorf and Peter Brunette. Putting those features into play will prevent people from taking three decades to appreciate Truffaut's underrated second feature.

Determined to contrast this project with The 400 Blows, Truffaut adapted David Goodis' crime thriller to give the audience gangsters, prostitutes, and an enigmatic melancholy piano player. Shoot the Piano Player was a confidence shaking commercial failure when first released; Truffaut respected audience consensus and took their rejection to heart (unlike Godard, who didn't give a rat's ass about audience reception). Part of the challenge is due to mixing genres, so audiences weren't sure how to react to a film noir homage with a gangster thriller that mixes in romance, tragedy, dry humor, and music. Expecting a plot driven film, Truffaut invokes New Wave sensibility to craft a film that actually emphasizes character—a film that revolves primarily around a key flashback midway through.

Like Hitchcock in Psycho, Truffaut underscores the idea of double identities throughout the film, frequently using mirror motifs and carefully dividing the frames in two. Truffaut look-alike Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour) plays honky tonk piano in a small bar, where waitress Lena (Marie Dubois) quietly falls in love with him. She even knows that he is famous classical pianist Edouard Saroyan, and has a concert advertisement poster in her apartment. She doesn't know the reason for his change of identity—that is later revealed in a flashback about a life-changing day concerning Charlie's former wife.

One of Charlie's biggest challenges lies with his timidity and inability to communicate. Like many of us, he's continually holding conversations with himself, but is paralyzed from taking action. We see this during the flashback when Charlie initially ignores the "advice" he's told himself, and this leads to tragedy. Other examples include two classic scenes that Truffaut shoots with tremendous attention to detail: one with Charlie tentatively attempting to hold Lena's hand when walking her home and the other when he approaches his impresario's door. Note the four-part hesitation montage as the lens zooms closer and closer with each edit before the final long shot.

Before the tender love story begins to develop, however, we quickly learn that Charlie's brother Chico (Albert Rémy) is fleeing a couple of armed gangsters. We're not initially sure of the reason, but later discover that Chico is far from innocent. But that's beside the point. More important is the fact that the gangsters associate Chico with Charlie, and this leads to a later kidnapping and other complications.

The gangsters Momo (Claude Mansard) and Ernest (Daniel Boulanger) are both crude and comical, changed from being pure hoodlums by Truffaut because he discovered that such characters repulsed him. Truffaut initially drowned out their misogynistic torrent of clichés when they kidnap Charlie and Lena, but later softened the street noises so we can hear them (and roll our eyes). Censors eliminated a brief scene of dark humor when the gangsters flatten a cat, but other comical snatches remain. One that really struck me was the juxtaposed image that Truffaut inserts after one gangster declares that his mother would keel over and die if he was lying.