Shoot the Piano Player (; UK title: Shoot the Pianist) is a 1960 French New Wave crime drama film directed by François Truffaut that stars Charles Aznavour as the titular pianist with Marie Dubois, Nicole Berger, and Michèle Mercier as the three women in his life. It is based on the novel Down There by David Goodis. Plot In Paris, Édouard Saroyan hits rock bottom after his wife Thérèse confesses that his career as a concert pianist is due to her having slept with a top agent, and when he fails to respond, she kills herself. Under the assumed name of Charlie Koller, he now strokes the keys in Plyne's bar, and when she has no clients, he spends the rest of the night with Clarisse, a prostitute who cooks for his little brother Fido. Léna, the bar's waitress, is falling in love with Charlie, and she secretly knows his true identity. When his two older brothers steal the loot of a pair of gangsters, the gangsters abduct Charlie and Léna, who escape through Léna's quick thinking. Léna takes him to her room, where they make love. The gangsters then abduct Fido, who reveals his brothers' mountain hideout. Léna realises that the gangsters traced Charlie and Fido through Plyne, who wants to sleep with her and who is jealous of Charlie's luck. In a confrontation at the bar, Charlie accidentally kills Plyne, and Léna then smuggles him from Paris to the mountain hideout. Léna is killed in a shoot-out when the gangsters arrive with Fido. Differences from novel The film shares the novel's bleak plot about a man hiding from his shattered life by doing the only thing he knows how to do while remaining unable to escape the past. However, Truffaut's work resolves itself into both a tribute to the American genre of literary and cinematic film noir and a meditation on the relationship between art and commercialism. Truffaut significantly changes Charlie's personality. Originally, Goodis's Edward Webster Lynn (whom Truffaut adapts as Charlie) is "pictured as a relatively strong, self-confident guy who has chosen his solitude [whereas] Truffaut’s Charlie Kohler has found his isolation inevitably; he was always shy, withdrawn, reclusive". Cast Charles Aznavour as Charlie Koller / Edouard Saroyan Marie Dubois as Léna Nicole Berger as Thérèse Saroyan Michèle Mercier as Clarisse Serge Davri as Plyne Claude Mansard as Momo Richard Kanayan as Fido Saroyan Albert Rémy as