François Truffaut
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François Roland Truffaut (French IPA: [tʀyˈfo]) (February 6, 1932 – October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French "New Wave" in filmmaking, and remains an icon of the French film industry. In a film career lasting just over a quarter of a century, he fulfilled the functions of screenwriter, director, producer or actor in over twenty-five films.
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[edit] Life
Truffaut was born out of wedlock in Paris, where he was raised by his mother and his adoptive father, Roland Truffaut, both of whom were devout Catholics. He never met his biological father Roland Lévy, a Jewish dentist. Truffaut had a difficult childhood that resulted in rebellion against his parents in particular and authority in general. Truffaut reported that his film The 400 Blows (1959) was largely autobiographical. His love of films partly came from his elective father, the writer and critic André Bazin.
Truffaut came to filmmaking only after an early career as one of the most outspoken film critics in France, writing for Bazin's Cahiers du cinéma (of which he became an editor in 1953). Cahiers at this time was intensely critical of post-war French cinema which it saw as overtly literary at the time. As a result of the severity of his critiques, Truffaut was refused a press pass to the 1958 Cannes film festival. The dynamics of relationships are a common thread throughout most of his films.
Along with his Cahiers colleagues, including Jean-Luc Godard and Éric Rohmer, Truffaut was enamoured with Hollywood filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Howard Hawks, then often dismissed as mere genre film makers. In a 1954 article Truffaut expounded the politique des auteurs, or Auteur theory of cinema, which championed the idea that movies should reflect the personal vision and preoccupations of the director.
On October 29, 1957, he married Madeleine Morgenstern at the city hall in Paris. The couple had two children, Laura (b. January 22, 1959) and Eva (b. June 29, 1961). His father-in-law, a film producer and distributor, helped to get Truffaut's career off the ground by financing the making of his first film, the short Les Mistons (1958). He and Morgenstern divorced in 1965. In 1983, he had a daughter with actress and constant companion, Fanny Ardant, Joséphine Truffaut, who was born on September 28, 1983, a year before his death.
Truffaut was an expert on Sir Alfred Hitchcock, even publishing the book Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock (1962, also known as Hitchcock/Truffaut) which recorded interviews and conversations with Hitchcock. His last film Confidentially Yours, a comedy thriller in black and white, could be considered to be an homage to Hitchcock.
Truffaut's 1973 production of Day for Night won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Truffaut sometimes appeared as an actor in his own films, and appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Truffaut suffered from a brain tumour which was diagnosed in 1983. He died shortly thereafter in the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine at the age of 52. He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris.
[edit] Work
Among Truffaut's films one can discern a series featuring the character Antoine Doinel, played by the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud who began his career in The 400 Blows at the age of fourteen, continuing as the favourite actor and "double" of Truffaut himself. The series would continue with Antoine and Colette (a short film in the anthology Love at Twenty), Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board and finally Love on the Run
In most of these movies, Léaud's partner is Truffaut's favourite actress Claude Jade as his girlfriend (and then wife), "Christine Darbon".
A keen reader, Truffaut adapted many literary works:
- American detective novels:
- The Bride Wore Black by William Irish
- Mississippi Mermaid by William Irish
- The Long Saturday Night (filmed as Confidentially Yours) by Charles Williams
- Down There (filmed as Shoot the Piano Player) by David Goodis
- Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me by Henry Farrell
- Novels by Henri-Pierre Roché:
- A science fiction novel:
- A short story:
- Henry James' "The Altar of the Dead", filmed as The Green Room, considered by some to be his deepest and most serious film
Truffaut's other films result from original screenplays, often co-written by the screenwriters Suzanne Schiffman or Jean Gruault, films on very diverse subjects, the sombre The Story of Adele H., inspired by the life of the daughter of Victor Hugo, with Isabelle Adjani, or Day for Night, shot at the Studio La Victorine describing the ups and downs of film-making, or The Last Metro, set during the German occupation of France, a film rewarded by ten César Awards.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Director
| Year | Title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Une Visite | Une Visite | |
| 1957 | Les Mistons aka The Mischief Makers, aka The Misfits |
Les Mistons | |
| 1958 | Une Histoire d'eau aka A Story of Water |
Une Histoire d'eau | Co-directed with Jean-Luc Godard |
| 1959 | The 400 Blows | Les Quatre cents coups | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1960 | Shoot the Piano Player aka Shoot the Pianist |
Tirez sur le pianiste | |
| 1962 | Jules and Jim | Jules et Jim | |
| 1962 | Antoine and Colette | Antoine et Colette | Antoine Doinel series, segment from Love at Twenty |
| 1964 | The Soft Skin | La Peau douce | |
| 1965 | Fahrenheit 451 | n/a | Filmed in English |
| 1968 | The Bride Wore Black | La Mariée était en noir | |
| 1968 | Stolen Kisses | Baisers volés | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1969 | Mississippi Mermaid | La Sirène du Mississippi | |
| 1970 | The Wild Child aka The Wild Boy |
L'Enfant sauvage | |
| 1970 | Bed and Board | Domicile conjugal | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1971 | Two English Girls | Les Deux anglaises et le continent | |
| 1972 | Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me aka A Gorgeous Bird Like Me |
Une belle fille comme moi | |
| 1973 | Day for Night | La Nuit américaine | Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film |
| 1975 | The Story of Adele H. | L'Histoire d'Adèle H. | |
| 1976 | Small Change | L'Argent de poche | |
| 1977 | The Man Who Loved Women | L'Homme qui aimait les femmes | |
| 1978 | The Green Room | La Chambre verte | |
| 1979 | Love on the Run | L'Amour en fuite | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1980 | The Last Metro | Le Dernier métro | |
| 1981 | The Woman Next Door | La Femme d'à côté | |
| 1983 | Confidentially Yours | Vivement dimanche! |
[edit] Screenwriter only
| Year | Title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Breathless | À bout de souffle | Directed by Jean-Luc Godard |
| 1988 | The Little Thief | La Petite voleuse | Directed by Claude Miller |
| 1995 | Belle Époque | Belle Époque | Miniseries, with Jean Gruault; directed by Gavin Millar |
[edit] Actor
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Cameo as scientist | Directed by Steven Spielberg |
[edit] Bibliography
- Les 400 Coups (1960) with M. Moussy (English translation: 400 Blows)
- Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock (1967, second edition 1983) (English translation: Hitchcock and Hitchcock/Truffaut with the collaboration of Helen G. Scott)
- Les Aventures d'Antoine Doinel (1970) (English translation: Adventures of Antoine Doinel; translated by Helen G. Scott)
- Jules et Jim (film script) (1971) (English translation: Jules and Jim; translated by Nicholas Fry)
- La Nuit américaine et le Journal de Fahrenheit 451 (1974)
- Le Plaisir des yeux (1975)
- L'Argent de poche (1976) (English title: Small change: a film novel; translated by Anselm Hollo)
- L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1977)
- Les Films de ma vie (1981) (English translation: Films in my life; translated by Leonard Mayhew)
- Correspondance (1988) (English translation: Correspondence, 1945-1984; translated by Gilbert Adair)
- Le Cinéma selon François Truffaut (1988) edited by Anne Gillain
- Belle époque (1996) with Jean Gruault
[edit] Quotes
- "The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. The young filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them. It may be the story of their first love or their most recent; of their political awakening; the story of a trip, a sickness, their military service, their marriage, their last vacation...and it will be enjoyable because it will be true, and new...The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love." — François Truffaut, published in Arts magazine, May 1957 Source: Miami New Times
- "Film lovers are sick people."
- "In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs."
- "Hitchcock loves to be misunderstood, because he has based his whole life around misunderstandings."
- "An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal — falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox." Source: [1]
- "Is the cinema more important than life?"
- "I have always preferred the reflection of the life to life itself."
- "Taste is a result of a thousand distastes." Source: [2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Eric Pace. "Francois Truffaut, New Wave Director, Dies." The New York Times. October 22, 1984. A1.
[edit] External links
- François Truffaut at the Internet Movie Database
- Senses Of Cinema: François Truffaut
- Legendary interview with Truffaut from 1970
- An article on Truffaut and his influence by director Martin Scorsese as he commemorates him as one of the 60 greatest heroes from Europe as selected by Time magazine
| The Films of François Truffaut | |
|---|---|
| 1950s | Une Visite • Les Mistons • Une Histoire d'eau • The 400 Blows |
| 1960s | Shoot the Piano Player • Jules and Jim • Antoine and Colette • The Soft Skin • Fahrenheit 451 • The Bride Wore Black • Stolen Kisses • Mississippi Mermaid |
| 1970s | The Wild Child • Bed and Board • Two English Girls • Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me • Day for Night • The Story of Adele H. • Small Change • The Man Who Loved Women • The Green Room • Love on the Run |
| 1980s | The Last Metro • The Woman Next Door • Confidentially Yours |
| Screenplay only | Breathless • The Little Thief • Belle Époque (miniseries) |
 Cinema of France |
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Actors • Directors • Films A-Z • Film chronology • Cinematographers • Editors • Producers • Score composers • Screenwriters • |
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