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, who was 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.
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.
The dynamics of relationships are a common thread throughout most of his films.
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 a "fake Hitchcock".
Truffaut's 1973 production of La Nuit américaine (known under the English title 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 & 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 filmed many novels:
- 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
- Shoot the Piano Player by David Goodis
- Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me by Henry Farrell
- Novels by Henri-Pierre Roché
- Henry James' short story "The Altar of the Dead", filmed as The Green Room, considered by some to be his deepest and most serious film
- Ray Bradbury's science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451
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 La Nuit américaine (or "The American Night" which is both the English translation and the French version of the cinema technique known as "Day For Night" which is the English title of the film), 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] As a director
| Year | Original French title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | Une Visite | ||
| 1957 | Les Mistons | The Misfits | |
| 1958 | Une Histoire d'eau | The Story of Water | Co-directed with Jean-Luc Godard |
| 1959 | Les Quatre cents coups | The 400 Blows | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1960 | Tirez sur le pianiste | Shoot the Piano Player | |
| 1962 | Jules et Jim | Jules and Jim | |
| 1962 | Antoine et Colette | Antoine and Colette | Antoine Doinel series, from L'Amour à vingt ans (Love at Twenty) |
| 1964 | La Peau douce | The Soft Skin | |
| 1965 | Fahrenheit 451 | Filmed in English | |
| 1967 | La Mariée était en noir | The Bride Wore Black | |
| 1968 | Baisers volés | Stolen Kisses | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1969 | La Sirène du Mississippi | Mississippi Mermaid | |
| 1970 | L'Enfant sauvage | The Wild Child / The Wild Boy | |
| 1970 | Domicile conjugal | Bed and Board | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1971 | Les Deux anglaises et le continent | Two English Girls | |
| 1972 | Une belle fille comme moi | Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me / A Gorgeous Bird Like Me | |
| 1973 | La Nuit américaine | Day for Night | Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film |
| 1975 | L'Histoire d'Adèle H. | The Story of Adele H. | |
| 1976 | L'Argent de poche | Small Change | |
| 1977 | L'Homme qui aimait les femmes | The Man Who Loved Women | |
| 1978 | La Chambre verte | The Green Room | |
| 1979 | L'Amour en fuite | Love on the Run | Antoine Doinel series |
| 1980 | Le Dernier métro | The Last Metro | |
| 1981 | La Femme d'à côté | The Woman Next Door | |
| 1983 | Vivement dimanche! | Confidentially Yours |
[edit] As an actor only
| Year | Original French title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Directed by Stephen Spielberg |
[edit] As screenwriter only
| Year | Original French title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | À bout de souffle | Breathless | Directed by Jean-Luc Godard |
| 1988 | La petite voleuse | The Little Thief | Directed by Claude Miller |
| 1995 | Belle Époque | Television series |
[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.
