Shoot the Piano Player

Directed by François Truffaut and adapted from David Goodis's novel Down There, Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) is a 1960 French New Wave crime drama that follows a pianist on the run from his own past. Edouard Saroyan, once a celebrated concert pianist, discovers that his entire career rested on his wife's affair with a talent agent. After her suicide, he reinvents himself under the name Charlie Kohler, playing piano in a modest bar, where a waitress named Léna falls in love with him. Trouble catches up when his brothers double-cross a pair of gangsters and steal their loot, making Charlie and Léna targets of the vengeful crooks, who try to kidnap them. Shot in black and white, the film stars Charles Aznavour in the title role, with Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger and Michèle Mercier as the three women in his life. Blending crime, melodrama and dark comedy, it was Truffaut's second feature film.