'Shoot The Piano Player'

What you often run into on the the 1,001 film list are films that are particularly good films (in terms of the ordinary requirements of a good story, decent acting, developed characters), but they're just singularly important.

"Shoot The Piano Player" isn't a particularly a good movie outside of Francois Truffaut's filmmaking and it being a seminal chronicle in the French new wave.

"Charlie" the piano player isn't particularly interesting -- kind of a schmuck -- until three-quarters through the film when you learn that he was a vaunted classical pianist, who went off the deep end when his wife committed suicide. The audience was not feed the good stuff until late in the film and then, when the revelation came down, there was nothing in the previous 45 minutes to make us think differently about Charlie.

Knowing what you know at 50 minutes doesn't make you think or change your thoughts about Charlie the previous 49. Even his kid -- not like single parenthood is altogether rare -- wasn't his kid, but his kid brother, brought into the city to escape the rabble-rousing prospects of his other brothers in the country.

Again, it's a film where you can't just watch it for the story, but for the production. A classic example from a very deep and inspirational era of films.