François Roland Truffaut ( , ; ; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor, and critic, who is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. He came under the tutelage of film critic Andre Bazin as a young man and was hired to write for Bazin's Cahiers du Cinéma, where he became a proponent of the auteur theory, which posits that a film's director is its true author. The 400 Blows (1959), starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Truffaut's alter ego Antoine Doinel, was a defining film of the New Wave. The films Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979) continued to chronicle the story of the couple Antoine and Christine (Claude Jade). Truffaut contributed to another significant milestone of the movement with his work on Breathless (1960), a film directed by his Cahiers colleague Jean-Luc Godard.
His other notable films include Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Jules and Jim (1962), The Soft Skin (1964), Two English Girls (1971) and The Last Metro (1980). Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He played the doctor in The Wild Child (1970), the director of the film-within-the-film in Day For Night and the scientist in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He starred in The Green Room (1978), based on Henry James's "The Altar of the Dead". He wrote Hitchcock/Truffaut (1966), a book-length interview with his hero Alfred Hitchcock which tied for second on Sight and Sounds list of the greatest books on film. Truffaut paid homage to Hitchcock in The Bride Wore Black (1968), Mississippi Mermaid (1969) and his last film, Confidentially Yours (1983).
He was married from 1957 until 1964 to Madeleine Morgenstern, in 1968 became engaged to leading actress Claude Jade from three of his films, and lived together with Fanny Ardant, actress in his two last films, until his death. David Thomson writes that "for many people who love film Truffaut will always seem like the most accessible and engaging crest of the New Wave".
Early life
Truffaut was born in Paris on 6 February 1932. His mother was Janine de Montferrand. His mother's future husband, Roland Truffaut, accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. He was passed around to live with various nannies and his grandmother for a number of years. His grandmother instilled in him her love of books and music. He lived with her until her death, when Truffaut was eight years old. It was only after her death that he lived with his parents. Truffaut's biological father's identity is unknown, but a private detective agency in 1968 revealed that its inquiry into the matter led to a Roland Levy, a Jewish dentist from Bayonne. Truffaut's mother's family disputed the finding but Truffaut believed and embraced it.
Truffaut often stayed with friends and tried to be out of the house as much as possible. He knew Robert Lachenay from childhood, and they were lifelong best friends. Lachenay was the inspiration for the character René Bigey in The 400 Blows and worked as an assistant on some of Truffaut's films. Cinema offered Truffaut the greatest escape from an unsatisfying home life. He was eight years old when he saw his first movie, Abel Gance's Paradis Perdu (Paradise Lost, 1939), beginning his obsession. He frequently skipped school and sneaked into theaters because he lacked the money for admission. At age eleven, he read Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1868), which inspired him to become a novelist.
"What switched me to films was the flood of American pictures into Paris after the Liberation".
Career
André Bazin
After starting his own film club in 1948, Truffaut met André Bazin, who had a great effect on his professional and personal life. Bazin was a critic and the head of another film society at the time. He became a personal friend of Truffaut's and helped him out of various financial and criminal situations during his formative years.
Truffaut joined the French Army in 1950, aged 18, but spent the next two years trying to escape. He was arrested for attempting to desert the army and incarcerated in military prison. Bazin used his political contacts to get Truffaut released and set him up with a job at his new film magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma.
Cahiers du Cinéma
Over the next few years, Truffaut became a critic (and later editor) at Cahiers, where he became notorious for his brutal, unforgiving reviews. He was called "The Gravedigger of French Cinema" and was the only French critic not invited to the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. He supported Bazin in developing one of the most influential theories of cinema, the auteur theory.
In 1954, Truffaut wrote an article in Cahiers du cinéma, "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français" ("A Certain Trend of French Cinema"),
Thomson writes that "The speed of farce chasing pathos was very influential, not least on the writers of Bonnie and Clyde. In Jules et Jim, Truffaut formed his most fruitful collaboration, with the novelist Henri-Pierre Roché, author of Les Deux Anglaises and of a situation dear to Truffaut—the passionate triangle in which three people are trapped, all in love with all, all reluctant to hurt the others." A 2014 consideration of the film by Charles Silver praises it.
Thrillers and Stolen Kisses
Stolen Kisses (1968) was a continuation of the Antoine Doinel Cycle starring Claude Jade as Antoine's fiancée and later wife Christine Darbon. During its filming Truffaut fell in love with Jade and was briefly engaged to her. It was a big hit on the international art circuit. A short time later, Jade made her Hollywood debut in Hitchcock's Topaz.
Truffaut worked on projects with varied subjects. The Bride Wore Black (1968), a brutal tale of revenge, is a stylish homage to the films of Hitchcock, once again starring Moreau. Mississippi Mermaid (1969), with Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo, is an identity-bending romantic thriller. Both films are based on novels by Cornell Woolrich.
The Wild Child (1970) included Truffaut's acting debut in the lead role of 18th-century physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who treated the feral child Victor of Aveyron.
Doinel marries Christine
Bed and Board (1970) was another Antoine Doinel film, also with Jade, now Léaud's on-screen-wife.
Two English Girls (1971), a story of "Proust and the Brontë sisters" It is probably his most reflective work, telling the story of a film crew trying to finish a film while dealing with the personal and professional problems that accompany making a movie. Truffaut plays the director of the film-within-the film, Meet Pamela. Day For Night features scenes from his previous films. It is considered his best film since his early work. Thomson notes "the pleasure with all cinema's tricks and the way it makes them clear to a lay audience."
In 1975, Truffaut gained more notoriety with The Story of Adèle H.; Isabelle Adjani in the title role earned a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Small Change (1976) was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Final films
The Man Who Loved Women (1977), a romantic drama, was a minor hit.
Truffaut appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) as scientist Claude Lacombe. He also starred in his own The Green Room (1978), based on Henry James's "The Altar of the Dead". It was a box-office flop, so he made Love on the Run (1979) starring Léaud and Jade as the final movie of the Doinel Cycle.
One of Truffaut's final films gave him an international revival. The Last Metro (1980) garnered 12 César Award nominations and 10 wins, including Best Director.
Truffaut's last film was black and white, making it a bookend to his career: Confidentially Yours (1983), Truffaut's homage to Hitchcock. It touches on numerous Hitchcockian themes such as private guilt vis-à-vis public innocence, a woman investigating a murder, and anonymous locations.
Legacy
Many filmmakers admire Truffaut, and homages to his work have appeared in films such as Almost Famous, Face and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and in Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore. In conversation with Michael Ondaatje, film editor Walter Murch mentions the influence Truffaut had on him as a young man, saying he was "electrified" by the freeze-frame at the end of The 400 Blows, and that Godard's Breathless and Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player reinforced the idea that he could make films. In the estimation of the historian Tony Judt, "it was the incomparable François Truffaut who would come to incarnate the style and impact of the New Wave...Truffaut was not only the main theorist behind the revolution in French cinema, he was also by far its most consistently successful practitioner". Known as a lifelong cinephile, Truffaut once (according to the 1993 documentary film François Truffaut: Stolen Portraits) threw a hitchhiker out of his car after learning that he did not like films.
Roger Ebert included The 400 Blows in his canon of Great Movies, writing of Truffaut: <blockquote>one of his most curious, haunting films is The Green Room (1978), based on the Henry James story "The Altar of the Dead", about a man and a woman who share a passion for remembering their dead loved ones. Jonathan Rosenbaum, who thinks The Green Room may be Truffaut's best film, told me he thinks of it as the director's homage to the auteur theory. That theory, created by Bazin and his disciples (Truffaut, Godard, Resnais, Chabrol, Rohmer, Malle), declared that the director was the true author of a film—not the studio, the screenwriter, the star, the genre. If the figures in the green room stand for the great directors of the past, perhaps there is a shrine there now to Truffaut. One likes to think of the ghost of Antoine Doinel lighting a candle before it.</blockquote>
Commentary on other filmmakers
In his book The Film in My Life Truffaut wrote "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema."
Truffaut expressed his admiration for filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini and Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote Hitchcock/Truffaut, a book about Hitchcock, based on a lengthy series of interviews.
Of Jean Renoir, he said: "I think Renoir is the only filmmaker who's practically infallible, who has never made a mistake on film. And I think if he never made mistakes, it's because he always found solutions based on simplicity—human solutions. He's one film director who never pretended. He never tried to have a style, and if you know his work—which is very comprehensive, since he dealt with all sorts of subjects—when you get stuck, especially as a young filmmaker, you can think of how Renoir would have handled the situation, and you generally find a solution". Truffaut named his production company "Les Films du Carrosse" after Renoir's The Golden Coach (La Carrosse d'Or).
Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, his colleague from Les Cahiers du Cinéma, worked together closely during their start as film directors although they had different working methods. Tensions came to the surface after May 68: Godard wanted a more political, specifically Marxist cinema, Truffaut was critical of creating films for primarily political purposes. In 1973, Godard wrote Truffaut a lengthy and raucous private letter peppered with accusations and insinuations, several times stating that as a filmmaker "you're a liar" and that his latest film (Day for Night) had been unsatisfying, lying and evasive: "You're a liar, because the scene between you and Jacqueline Bisset last week at Francis [a Paris restaurant] isn't included in your movie, and one also can't help wondering why the director is the only guy who isn't sleeping around in Day for Night" (Truffaut directed the film, wrote it and played the role of the director). Godard also implied that Truffaut had gone commercial and easy.
Truffaut replied with an angry 20-page letter in which he accused Godard of being a radical-chic hypocrite, a man who believed everyone to be "equal" in theory only. "The Ursula Andress of militancy—like Brando—a piece of shit on a pedestal." Godard later tried to reconcile with Truffaut, but they never spoke to or saw each other again. After Truffaut's death, Godard wrote the introduction to a generous selection of his correspondence, and included his own 1973 letter. He also offered a long tribute in his film Histoire(s) du cinéma.
Truffaut was philosophically opposed to attempts to portray anti-war themes through cinema, famously stating that "there is no such thing as an anti-war film" due to the medium's inherent glorification of such subjects, no matter how they are portrayed.
Personal life
Truffaut was married to Madeleine Morgenstern from 1957 to 1965, and they had two daughters, Laura (born 1959) and Eva (born 1961). Madeleine was the daughter of Ignace Morgenstern, managing director of one of France's largest film distribution companies, Cocinor, and was largely responsible for securing funding for Truffaut's first films.
In 1968, Truffaut was engaged to actress Claude Jade (Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, Love on the Run); he and Fanny Ardant (The Woman Next Door, Confidentially Yours) lived together from 1981 to 1984 and had a daughter, Joséphine Truffaut (born 28 September 1983).
Unusually for a Frenchman, Truffaut took no particular interest in food. He also had a "fetishistic collection of Eiffel Towers".
Truffaut was an atheist, but had great respect for the Catholic Church and requested a Requiem Mass for his funeral.
Death
thumb|Truffaut's grave in [[Montmartre Cemetery, Paris]]
In July 1983, following his first stroke and being diagnosed with a brain tumour, Truffaut rented France Gall's and Michel Berger's house outside Honfleur, Normandy. He was expected to attend his friend Miloš Forman's Amadeus premiere when he died on 21 October 1984, aged 52, at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France.
At the time of his death, he was said to have numerous further films in preparation. He is buried in Montmartre Cemetery.
Filmography
Short film
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
!width=65| Director
!width=65| Writer
! Notes
|-
| 1955
| Une Visite
|
|
|
|-
| 1957
| Les Mistons
|
|
|
|-
| 1961
| A Story of Water
|
|
| Co-directed with Jean-Luc Godard
|-
| 1962
| Antoine and Colette
|
|
| Segment from Love at Twenty
|}
Feature film
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
!width=65| Director
!width=65| Writer
!width=65| Producer
! Notes
|-
| 1959
| The 400 Blows
|
|
|
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1960
| Breathless
|
|
|
|
|-
| Shoot the Piano Player
|
|
|
|
|-
| The Army Game
|
|
|
| Co-directed with Claude de Givray
|-
| 1962
| Jules and Jim
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1964
| The Soft Skin
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1966
| Fahrenheit 451
|
|
|
| English debut
|-
|rowspan=2| 1968
| The Bride Wore Black
|
|
|
|
|-
| Stolen Kisses
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1969
| Mississippi Mermaid
|
|
|
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1970
| The Wild Child
|
|
|
|
|-
| Bed and Board
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1971
| Two English Girls
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1972
| A Gorgeous Girl Like Me
|
|
|
|based on Henry Farrell’s novel ‘’Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me’’
|-
| 1973
| Day for Night
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1975
| The Story of Adèle H.
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1976
| Small Change
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1977
| The Man Who Loved Women
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1978
| The Green Room
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1979
| Love on the Run
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1980
| The Last Metro
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1981
| The Woman Next Door
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1983
| Confidentially Yours
|
|
|
|
|-
| 1988
| The Little Thief
|
|
|
| Posthumous release
|-
|}
TV writer (Posthumous releases)
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Notes
|-
| 1995
| Belle Époque
| Miniseries
|-
| 2019–2022
| Lire
| 3 episodes
|}
Acting roles
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
|-
|rowspan=2|1956 || Fool's Mate || Party guest || Uncredited
|-
| La sonate à Kreutzer || ||
|-
|1959 || The 400 Blows || Man in Funfair ||rowspan=3| Uncredited
|-
|1963 || À tout prendre || Himself
|-
|1964 || The Soft Skin || Petrol pump attendant (Voice)
|-
|rowspan=2|1970 || The Wild Child || Dr. Jean Itard ||
|-
| Bed and Board || Newspaper vendor ||rowspan=3| Voice, Uncredited
|-
|1971 || Two English Girls || Récitant / Narrator
|-
|1972 || Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me ||
|-
|1973 || Day for Night || Ferrand, the film director||
|-
|1975 || The Story of Adèle H. || Officer ||rowspan=3| Uncredited
|-
|1976 || Small Change || Martine's Father
|-
|rowspan=2|1977 || The Man Who Loved Women || Man at Funeral
|-
| Close Encounters of the Third Kind || Claude Lacombe ||
|-
|1978 || The Green Room || Julien Davenne || Lead role
|-
|1981 || The Woman Next Door || Cameo || Uncredited
|}
Awards and nominations
Academy Awards
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| 1959
| The 400 Blows
| Best Original Screenplay
|
|
|-
| 1968
| Stolen Kisses
|rowspan=2| Best Foreign Language Film
|
|
|-
|rowspan=3| 1973
|rowspan=3| Day for Night
|
|rowspan=3|
|}
BAFTA Awards
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
|-
|rowspan=2| 1973
|rowspan=2| Day for Night
| Best Film
|
|-
| Best Direction
|
|-
| 1977
| Close Encounters of the Third Kind
| Best Actor in a Supporting Role
|
|}
Berlin International Film Festival
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
! Ref.
|-
| 1976
| Small Change
|rowspan=3| Golden Bear
|
|
|-
| 1977
| The Man Who Loved Women
|
|
|-
| 1979
| Love on the Run
|
|
|}
Cannes Film Festival
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
|-
|rowspan=2| 1959
|rowspan=2| The 400 Blows
| Palme d'Or
|
|-
| Best Director
|
|-
| 1964
| The Soft Skin
| Palme d'Or
|
|}
César Awards
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
|-
| 1975
| The Story of Adèle H.
| Best Director
|
|-
|rowspan=3| 1980
|rowspan=3| The Last Metro
| Best Film
|
|-
| Best Director
|
|-
| Best Screenplay, Dialogue or Adaptation
|
|-
| 1983
| Confidentially Yours
| Best Director
|
|}
Mar del Plata International Film Festival
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
|-
|rowspan=2| 1962
|rowspan=2| Jules and Jim
| Best Film
|
|-
| Best Director
|
|}
Venice International Film Festival
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Category
! Result
|-
| 1966
| Fahrenheit 451
| Golden Lion
|
|-
|}
{|class="wikitable"
|+Accolades for Truffaut's directed features
|-
!rowspan="2"|Year
!rowspan="2"|Title
!colspan="2"|Academy Awards
!colspan="2"|BAFTA Film Awards
!colspan="2"|Golden Globes Awards
!colspan="2"|César Awards
|-
!Nominations
!Wins
!Nominations
!Wins
!Nominations
!Wins
!Nominations
!Wins
|-
|1959
|The 400 Blows
|align=center|1
|
|align=center|2
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|1962
|Jules and Jim
|
|
|align=center|2
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|1966
|Fahrenheit 451
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|1968
|The Bride Wore Black
|
|
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|-
|Stolen Kisses
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|-
|1973
|Day for Night
|align=center|4
|align=center|1
|align=center|3
|align=center|3
|align=center|2
|
|
|
|-
|1975
|The Story of Adele H.
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|
|
|align=center|3
|
|-
|1976
|Small Change
|
|
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|-
|1977
|The Man Who Loved Women
|
|
|
|
|
|
|align=center|3
|
|-
|1978
|The Green Room
|
|
|
|
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|-
|1979
|Love on the Run
|
|
|
|
|
|
|align=center|1
|align=center|1
|-
|1980
|The Last Metro
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|align=center|12
|align=center|10
|-
|1981
|The Woman Next Door
|
|
|
|
|
|
|align=center|2
|
|-
|1983
|Confidentially Yours
|
|
|align=center|1
|
|
|
|align=center|2
|
|-
!colspan="2"|Total
!8
!1
!9
!3
!6
!
!24
!11
|-
|}
Bibliography
- Les 400 Coups (1960) with M. Moussy (English translation: The 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: The Films in My Life, translated by Leonard Mayhew)
- ' (1988) (English translation: Correspondence, 1945–1984; translated by Gilbert Adair, released posthumously)
- Le Cinéma selon François Truffaut (1988) edited by Anne Gillain (released posthumously)
- Belle époque (1996) with Jean Gruault (released posthumously)
See also
- List of atheists in film, radio, television and theater
- François Truffaut Award
- Paris Belongs to Us
- Two in the Wave, a 2010 documentary film about Truffaut's relationship with Jean-Luc Godard
- La Cinémathèque Française will offer a full retrospective and an exhibition of François Truffaut's work in 2014 / 2015
References
External links
- New Wave Film Encyclopedia: "François Truffaut" an extensive biography
- François Truffaut complete biography: "François Truffaut"
- François Truffaut bibliography via the UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
- Francois Truffaut at The Guardian Film
- Francois Truffaut at The New York Times Movies
- Legendary interview with Truffaut from 1970
- AllMovie.com Biography