Fran'ois Truffaut's name is by now synonymous with the French New Wave. The movement's birth was heralded when Truffaut printed his official manifesto against "le cinema de papa" in the journal Cahiers du Cinema. "A Certain Tendency in French Cinema," appearing...
[more]Fran'ois Truffaut's name is by now synonymous with the French New Wave. The movement's birth was heralded when Truffaut printed his official manifesto against "le cinema de papa" in the journal Cahiers du Cinema. "A Certain Tendency in French Cinema," appearing in 1954, rocked the French film world's foundations; the ripple effects would eventually be felt throughout Europe and across the Atlantic. French directors like Resnais and Godard were first to hear the call and put the 'auteur theory,' which demands more personal vision and directorial control, into practice.
But Truffaut did not leave his theories to be applied only by others. He began his own filmmaking career producing shorts as an apprentice to a gifted master -- 'Une Visite' (1954) and 'Les Mistons' (1957) were made while Truffaut learned the tricks of the trade from the great Italian Neo-Realist Roberto Rossellini. His first feature, a heavily autobiographical coming-of-age epic entitled "The 400 Blows," came shortly thereafter. Oddly, these early works are rather conventional, carrying a bit of the romantic Realism that Truffaut had attacked so vehemently as a young critic with Cahiers. Still, 'The 400 Blows' garnered enthusiasm from international audiences and did much to increase the legitimacy of the French New Wave.
In subsequent films, Truffaut continued to follow the protagonist of 'The 400 Blows' through his fictional adult life. The now-famous character Antoine Doinel loosely follows Truffaut's own life experiences: mirroring the director's dishonorable military discharge in 1968's 'Stolen Kisses" and his divorce in 1979's 'Love on the Run.'
However, Truffaut's best work can be seen outside the Antoine Doinel series. His first real stunner came with 'Jules and Jim' (1961), universally considered one of the great masterworks of 1960s cinema. A lush love-triangle story, the film sacrifices camera dynamics for character study and period atmosphere. Unlike his New Wave contemporary Jean-Luc Godard, Truffaut invited audience identification with such lyrical films.
Indeed, Truffaut is known for his humanistic tendencies, which are modeled after film master Jean Renoir. Films like 'The Wild Child' (1970), 'Small Change' (1976), and 'The Man Who Loved Women' (1977) certainly support this vision. But Truffaut exhibited an artistic schizophrenia of sorts, also producing an array of dard, fatalistic works. He was a devout admirer of Hitchcock, and emulated his style with the adultery study 'The Soft Skin' (1964) and the suspense flick 'The Bride Wore Black' (1968).
Though best known as New Wave auteur extraordinaire, Truffaut certainly did not remain in a directorial pigeon-hole. He put his own face on the big screen, most notably starring in Steven Spielberg's extra-terrestrial flick 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind.' His writing is even more impressive -- a complete bibliography of his film theory would fill pages. Truffaut died suddenly of a brain tumor in 1984, an oddly arbitrary end to an intensely deliberate life.
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