Film Journal Comparison of Similarities

Film Journal comparison of similarities and differences of "Day for Night" (Truffaut, 1973) and "Living in Oblivion"(DiCillo, 1995)

Making a movie about making a movie. This may hardly sound like a gripping subject matter, merely annoying self-commentary and self-analysis on the part of the screenwriters, directors, and actors involved in the self-referential and navel-gazing project. However, this subject matter has proved popular fodder since Francois Truffaut filmed "Day for Night" in 1973. "Living in Oblivion," directed by Tom DiCillo in 1995 is only the most recent film to take up this now familiar plotline.

Truffaut's film despite the French director's reputation as a cutting edge auteur of cinema seems to play to many common assumptions the audience might have about 'creative types' and film. The plotline of the film within a film is melodramatic and inchoate. The film is over its budget, the director's vision, he feels, is being ruined. The leading actress abuses alcohol. The leading actor is sexually involved, to the evident detriment of his performance, with a behind-the-scenes member of the crew.

While Truffaut's film depicts the difficulties of temperamental animal and human actors -- "Living in Oblivion" depicts a temperamental dwarf who is angry about the misrepresentation of his people. "Living in Oblivion" depicts a cameraman, as opposed to a leading actor, who has romantic difficulties. The leading lady of the film within the film is crazy, without the need for abusing any form of intoxicating substance. But the primary difference between the contemporary and the past film does not lie in any of these imperfect parallel details involved in their mutually chaotic plots, nor the minute distinctions in the minds and portrayals of stock characters. Rather, the difference lies in the way that DiCillo's style of storytelling constantly forces the audience to remain on edge, unaware if they are watching real life or the film that is being filmed -- or the director or actor's idealized dream of what the creative product should be. Thus, the later film has an added nuance about how the creative process can take over the lives of actors and directors, as well as seem absurd to individuals outside of the movie business. It also forces the viewer not simply to laugh ironically at the lives of the people before them, but to realize that both the viewer, the actors, and the people behind the set are all engaging in a kind of fantasy, whenever the process of filmmaking or viewing occurs.