François Truffaut

In the age of the auteur,
François Truffaut (1932-1984)
was le roi;

Every year, hipsters expected to be one-upping each other with "seen the new Truffaut yet?" - with, as well, an expectation of entertainment beyond that of the other titans. He and his compères of the Nouvelle Vague brought a fresh, new way of seeing to the cinema; and, as the fortunes of others came and went, his films remained events, for two decades epitomizing France on film to the world. If, as the avatar of the first generation of movie brats, he lovingly evoked the beloved Saturday matinees of his youth, he also, unlike later followers, called on literature and real life - one that he had actually lived - for his subject matter; and if his brand name immediately conjures up gentle comedy, tender romance, charm, lightness, and grace, his range encompassed amour fou, the Occupation, suicide, multiple murder, madness, and death, served up throughout with a supple narrative fluidity and technical assurance - aided by cameramen Raoul Coutard and Nestor Almendros and composers Georges Delerue and Bernard Herrmann - that can be finally seen as the epitome of "Truffaut-esque."

Special thanks to Wendy Lidell (Fox Lorber Features), John Kirk (MGM Technical Services), Roger Lewin (Warner Bros. Classics), Michael Schlesinger (Columbia Repertory), Pascal Bourdon and Véronique Godard (French Cultural Services), Rodney Hill (Fox Lorber Features), Dick Costello (President, Universal NBI), Peter Langs (IPMA, Inc.) and Yves Seban (agnès b.).
Truffaut: A Biography, by Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana (current editors of Cahiers du cinéma), will be published this April by Knopf. And, in conjunction with the Film Forum festival, Posteritati Gallery (241 Centre St.) will host an exhibition of original Truffaut movie posters from around the world.

ANTOINE & FRANCOIS
Although from the beginning "Antoine Doinel" has been identified as François Truffaut's alter ego, boyhood pal Robert Lachenay (the original of René in 400 Blows) always claimed there was more of himself than Truffaut in the character. Truffaut himself described star Jean-Pierre Léaud as "more aggressive, less submissive" than the character he imagined; and as the series progressed, "Doinel," moving from j.d. to bourgeois, becomes less and less like either director or star - one could hardly imagine him as a filmmaker. But the initial family situation, updated from the Occupation era, was parallel enough to cause acute embarrassment to his mother, and as "Antoine Doinel" never quite grows up, he always seemed to be the character closest to Truffaut's heart. The cycle of Doinel films - four features and one short - includes:

THE 400 Blows & ANTOINE & COLETTE
STOLEN KISSES
BED AND BOARD
LOVE ON THE RUN

PREVIOUSLY SHOWN AT FILM FORUM:

Scene from THE 400 BLOWS

THE 400 BLOWS

(1959, François Truffaut) Growing up is tough for Jean-Pierre Léaud's Antoine Doinel, as he gets caught in class adding a moustache to a pinup and plagiarizing Balzac - leading to even worse trouble. Truffaut's autobiographical first feature was the New Wave's first worldwide international hit, garnering him Cannes' Best Director prize.
THE 400 BLOWS IS SHOWING WITH STOLEN KISSES ON FRI & SAT, JANUARY 25 & 26, 2002, AS PART OF OUR GREATEST HITS FILM SERIES

Scene from JULES AND JIM

JULES AND JIM

(1961, François Truffaut) Across two decades and through WWI, Oskar Werner (the Austrian Jules) and Henri Serre (the French Jeem) remain obsessed with Jeanne Moreau, whose enigmatic smile matches the Greek statue of their youth. The worldwide smash success of Truffaut's third feature vaulted him to the front line of international directors. JULES AND JIM IS SHOWING WITH DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID ON TUE & WED, JANUARY 29 & 20, 2002, AS PART OF OUR GREATEST HITS FILM SERIES

THE SOFT SKIN

(1964, François Truffaut) 40ish lit prof Jean Desailly enjoys a Lisbon tryst with 20ish stewardess Françoise Dorléac (Catherine Deneuve's real-life sis), then decides to pursue things back in Paris. Truffaut's attack on conventional treatments of adultery emphasized the practical difficulties of dalliance, the personal anguish, even the ridiculousness of leaving a more-passionate-then-a-mistress wife.

Shown as part of THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE FOREIGN FILM Series

DAY FOR NIGHT

La Nuit américaine (1973) "Cinema is king" on the set of Meet Pamela, where the off-the-set complications - tipsy Valentina Cortese's preference for numbers, à la "Federico," instead of lines; Jean-Pierre Aumont's suprise guest; movie-crazed Jean-Pierre Léaud's crush on troubled leading lady Jacqueline Bisset; etc. etc.; all presided by hard-of-hearing director Truffaut, aided by Nathalie Baye in a star-making turn as his assistant - threaten to out-soap-opera the plot, in the director's smash hit tribute to his greatest love. With Third Man author Graham Greene unbilled as a British insurance man and, in an hommage to an actual Soft Skin contretemps, a cat who won't take direction. "A must for anyone besotten with the glamorous trivialities of the cinematic medium." - Geoff Andrew, Time Out.

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER

(1960) Burnt-out pianist Charles Aznavour, tuned out after an aborted concert career and a failed marriage, finds involvement again in love with a barmaid and in rescuing his brothers from goofball gangsters. Based on David Goodis' pulp classic Down There.
Shown as part of our NEO-NOIR Film Series