An old favorite: Truffaut's film has everything

I returned home from work last night and popped an old favorite into the DVD player.
"TIREZ SUR LE PIANISTE (SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER)" by FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT is more than an "old favorite" -- it is easily one of my top-five films.
CHARLES AZNAVOUR plays Charlie Koller/Edouard Saroyan, a classical pianist driven by personal tragedy to shed his identity and start anew as the anonymous piano player in a rundown nightclub.
The film seems to have a little bit of everything. It's funny, it's sad. There is love and betrayal. There is bawdy nightclub singer and a pair of incompetent but lethal gangsters.
As with other Nouvelle Vague films, I am thrilled to see Truffaut break film's rules -- not just for the sake of breaking them, but to wring more emotional resonance from the scenes.
A classic case point concerns Edouard's audition with a famous musical impresario. The film's viewers hear Edouard's playing but we don't see it. Instead, Truffaut's camera follows the trail of a violinist (pictured) who apparently failed her audition just before Edouard's arrival. How can a filmmaker bring into sharper focus the triumph of Edouard? Truffaut accomplishes this feat by showing us the disappointment of a failure.
It had been ages since I last watched "Tirez Sur Le Pianiste," and as I watched it last night, I chastised myself for taking so long a break from one of my favorite films.