What makes it different from others?

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I found this French film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and from the description I read, it sounds like exactly the kind of film that would feature, a film about filmmaking, directed by François Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Shoot the Pianist, Jules et Jim), The title, originally la nuit américaine ("American night") is in reference to the filmmaking process, whereby sequences filmed outside in daylight are adjusted in post-production to appear as if they are taking place at night. Basically it chronicles the production of Je Vous Présente Paméla (Meet Pamela, or May I Present Pamela), a clichéd melodrama about a French man who marries English woman Pamela, brings her to France to introduce her to his parents, however his father and his the wife fall in love with each other, she leaves her husband to live with him. Victorine Studios is shooting the movie in Nice, it stars ageing screen icon Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont), former diva Séverine (Valentina Cortese), young heart-throb Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and British actress Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset) who is recovering from both a nervous breakdown. In between the production, many of the crew members have their own stories, including the director Ferrand (François Truffaut) who tangles with the many problems one deals with when making a movie. Behind the camera, the actors and crew go through several romances, affairs, break-ups, and sorrows, production is especially shaken when one of the secondary actresses is revealed to be pregnant. Later Alphonse's fiancée leaves him for the film's stuntman, which leads Alphonse into having a one-night stand with an accommodating Julie, he mistakes Julie's pity for true love, the infantile Alphonse informs Julie's husband of the affair. After actors having drinking problems, immaturity, neediness and emotional instability, and many other production problems, Ferrand and producer Bertrand (Jean Champion) do complete the film, but Alexandre dies in hospital, on the way to hospital. Also starring Dani as Liliane, Alexandra Stewart as Stacey, Nathalie Baye as Joëlle and David Markham as Dr. Michael Nelson. Everything that could possibly go wrong in a film within a film does go wrong, mishap after mishap, take after take, it spoofs everything that you expect in the making of movies, it is both funny and clever, a very interesting and watchable satirical drama. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Very good!

In La Nuit Américaine, François Truffaut plays the role of a film director, Ferrand. This film describes Ferrand faces the ups and downs when he is directing a movie. He needs to arrange the production, actors, design, creative partners, crew staff members, film fans and film critics. This movie depicts the various aspects of the film and life, as well as the professional and creative artists. It also interspersed with life, difficulties, frustrations of art, and the conflicting values of filmmakers and the public. The English name of La Nuit Américaine is Day For Night, which means filming the night's scenes during the daytime. In the meantime, it also implies the wonderful transformation between film and real life. François Truffaut uses this term to describe the busyness of the studio and the dream of a real life. As a world-famous Auteur director, François Truffaut still makes this movie be full of the bright and rhythmic feeling. The most impressive scene is that there is a teenager takes advantage to steal movie poster and stills with an umbrella. This is François Truffaut's childhood memory. At the end of that, the movie poster which he stoled was the most important film in the history, Big Nations. It implied that the love and pursuit of film lead François Truffaut become a film director after he grows up. La Nuit Américaine is a reflection of François Truffaut, especially François Truffaut rarely judges the complicated relationship between male and female by moral standards. François Truffaut usually uses a more tolerant way to show the humanity. Whether it is Two English Girls, Stolen Kisses, The 400 Blows, or Day For Night, they all fully show the French-style view of love and life. Those movies make him become an outstanding Auteur director.

Truffaut -how shall I say this?- is grossly overrated. I did my homework: I have now seen 5 of his movies and I am stunned by the attention such an inept filmmaker has commanded over the years in critics' writings. What on earth is there to praise in Truffaut's flaccid movies? They all feel to me like a high school kid fond of cinema made them: immature and clichéd in both content and form. Critics, open your eyes: this a filmmaker who has botched every good plot he was given (Mississipi Siren, Les 2 Anglaises et le Continent, The Bride Wore Black) misused great actors (Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau) and overused very bad actors (Jean-Pierre Leaud, who, after his miraculous turn as a child in The 400 Blows, was never able to speak or act in a compelling or even noticeable manner. There he is again in Day For Night, flat as a failed soufflé, bland as porridge. And we are supposed to believe he seduces Jacqueline Bisset in this story?! Casting, people, casting!) Day For Night features characters that are cardboard cutouts, actors that have clichés dialogs to emote to, situations that feels forced or trite. It is lightweight material, from which you come out vaguely entertained, and mostly frustrated: what a waste of time, and all this national and international praise for such fluff? Did I learn anything from this movie? Did it make me think, did parts of it resonate in my life or mind, did it make me want to see more or do something better with my life? Was there any real emotion on screen?I saw recently in my local art house theater "A Nos Amours" of Maurice Pialat. Same country, same generation of filmmaker, but oh what a difference of authenticity and competency. Time to throw off the false gods and promote quality: bury Godard, forget Truffaut -watch Pialat, and feel something.

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.I find it interesting that in French the term "American night" means the same as our term "day for night", wherein scenes filmed during the day appear to be shot at night (although discerning eyes can still tell the difference). Why "American night"? Interesting.One of the film's themes is whether or not films are more important than life for those who make them, its many allusions both to film-making and to movies themselves (perhaps unsurprising given that Truffaut began his career as a film critic who championed cinema as an art form). The film opens with a picture of Lillian and Dorothy Gish, to whom it is dedicated. In one scene, Ferrand opens a package of books he had ordered: they are books on directors he admires such as Luis Buñuel, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, Ernst Lubitsch, Roberto Rossellini and Robert Bresson.