However, there is commonality in all of the times that he acts boldly. When he fights and kills Plyne, when he is having sex with Clarissa (she screams "and to think people call you timid!"), and in the flashback when he is a virtuoso pianist (having his picture taken by the media and so forth) he certainly appears to be bold. However, all these times are the times when he has a woman, or a girlfriend in his life. Without a girlfriend, he becomes very timid and afraid. This relationship makes it very easy to understand Charlie's character, and all of his actions can be made sense of. Consequently, Charlie's character is not quite as complex as he seems. Admittedly, he is more complex than most characters that are found in classical cinema, however he is certainly less complex and contradictory than most characters found in art cinema.
An art cinema film is also said to contain discontinuous editing. Shoot the Piano Player appears to have aspects of discontinuity in it's editing, as it seems to use the occasional jump cut, and at one time it uses an unusual triple iris shot. However, closer examination of most of these supposed jump cuts reveals an interesting fact. A jump cut is "a break or jump in a shot's continuity of time, caused by removing a section of a shot then splicing together what remains of it." For example, in the scene where Ernest and Momo jump out of their car after Fido drops the milk on the windshield there appears to be a jump cut. However, although we see the jerky screen shift, there is absolutely no break in time, and thus this is not a true jump cut. This is the case for nearly all of the supposed jump cuts in this film. Take the example of when Fido buys the milk and runs to the top floor of the building, before he drops it on Ernest and Momo. This also appears to be a jump cut because there is an obvious break in time when Fido enters the building, and then three seconds later he is on the roof.
