Shoot the Piano Player 4K 1960 Ultra HD 2160p

Trying to forget about the tragedy that happened to his wife, the once famous pianist Edward Saroyan works in a bar under the name of Charly Kohler. But his attempts to escape from life are unsuccessful: Charly falls in love with the waitress Lena. Comically shy at the sight of Lena, Charly in the meantime easily starts an affair with his neighbor - a prostitute Clarissa. In the bar appears Chico, Charly's brother, who is being chased by two gangsters. Charly can not refuse his brother and helps him to escape from the chase. But he does not suspect that now he has unwittingly implicated not only himself, but also Lena and his younger brother Fido....

User Review
The Guardian and the New York Times rank the film among the thousand best films ever made, and Jonathan Demme (“The Silence of the Lambs”) ranks it among his ten favorites (along with “King Kong,” “The Conformist,” “The Wizard of Oz” and six others), which is a bit odd, since the influence of “Shoot the Piano Player” is easier to trace to the work of Mr. Tarantino (some quotes and allusions are obvious).

This is Truffaut's second feature film, after “400 Blows.” As is further in the director's oeuvre - terrific, informative and engaging dialog (in Tarantino, often just engaging); interesting and original directorial techniques; and a wonderful noir atmosphere.

Perhaps noir is a bit late for America, but in my opinion, the French have always made a more sophisticated and emotional “black movie”, the last example I saw was the 2007 movie “Second Breath”. But at the same time, the script of the movie was written on the basis of a novel by an American writer, David Goodis. On the other hand, the tape traces some parody notes over the genre.

But still, some active, dynamic moments look a little incongruous. For example, when the girl presses the gas pedal when the other is driving and they stop abruptly near the policeman; even at the very beginning of the movie, when the pianist helps his brother to escape by overturning the crates in front of the bandits who were chasing him.

But all in all, a wonderful movie by a talented (or perhaps brilliant) director. Gripping, dramatic, emotional, informative and, as I said, making a bit of a mockery of the canons of the genre.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (78.7 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1

Info Audio

#French: FLAC 1.0
#French: FLAC 2.0 (Commentary with cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Truffaut scholar Serge Toubiana)
#French: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Commentary with actress Marie Dubois and Truffaut scholar Serge Toubiana)
#English: Dolby Digital 1.0 (Commentary with film scholars Annette Insdorf and Peter Brunette)

Info Subtitles

English, French SDH.