Don’t Shoot the Composer

Plot: Far from an ordinary profile of Georges Delerue; it also serves as a calling card for Russell, whose work would define the 1970s as Delerue’s did in the 1960s. Opening with a sly work of pastiche, parodying the conventions of French noir, it goes on to encompass slapstick, verité scenes of the Delerue family and a harrowing montage of the Vietnam War.