Happy Francois Truffaut's Birthday Everyone!

The great French director Francois Truffaut was born on this day 78 years ago. It's hard to believe that he has been dead for a quarter of a century. Though taken from the world much, much too soon, he left behind 25 films including some of the greats of French -- or for that matter any -- cinema.


That would be enough cause to sing his praises, but Traffaut was also an important film critic and author. His works include a book-length interview with one of his heroes, Alfred Hitchcock.


Truffaut was not just a very good director, he was an influential one, being a pioneer of the French New Wave. He thus helped establish a new style of cinema which departed from the traditional film making of the time. Now there were clever uses of the camera in the name of story telling. Now there were experiments in themes often dealing with existentialism. Now there was cinema that kept pace and influenced a rapidly changing Western Culture. The New Wave style would help bring about the cinematic revolution of the Seventies (that actually began in 1967).

Follows are a few thoughts on some of Truffaut's films:

400 Blows (1959) is considered by many the forerunner of New Wave, it was certainly the film that propelled Truffaut's career. Here was everyday realism told with verve. The film ended with one of the most iconic freeze frames in film history.


My favorite Truffaut film soon followed, Shoot the Piano Player (1960), a satire of American gangster films. I wrote about it at length in September 2008. Two years later there was another of my favorites, Jules et Jim (1962) a film featuring a potpourri of visual styles including stills, newsreels, panning shots and freeze frames. This story of a decades long love triangle was probably even more influential  for future directors than 400 Blows.


Stolen Kisses (1968) was the third of five films, starting with 400 Blows, to feature the character Antoine Doinel who was played by Jean-Pierre Leaud. It is interesting to have a series of films following the life of a relatively ordinary bloke. Indeed in Stolen Kisses he is something of a loser, though successful enough with the ladies. Day for Night (1973) is one of the best films on film making ever made. The cast includes Truffaut as the director. He appeared in or provided narration for over a dozen films.


Small Change (1976) was perhaps his most sentimental film as it follows the fortunes of various members of a small town, focusing on its children. I wrote about it last June. Truffuat's last great film was The Last Metro (1980). This is a compelling film set in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II. A Jewish stage director is in hiding beneath the stage of his still active theater. From there he guides his wife (Catherine Deneuve) in running the latest production.


I've actually yet to see The Wild Child (1970), a film based on the discovery in 1798 of a 13 year old boy who'd lived his entire life in the wilds. However I'll be watching it shortly after completing this post. It's kind of nice to have not seen that and a couple of other Truffaut films, it's giving me something to look forward. Then again once I've seen them all I'll have the joy of enjoying some for a second, third or fourth time.

Take These Valium and Watch 7 Hours of TV a Day and You Should Be Fine

In the antebellum South slaves were discouraged from reading. Oppressive limits on slave education were imposed as a reaction to Nat Turner's 1851 Slave revolt in Virginia in 1831. The murderous nature of the insurrection caused shock throughout the South. It had a particularly far-reaching impact on education over the next three decades. The fears of slave insurrections and the spread of abolitionist materials and ideology led to radical restrictions on gatherings, travel, and—of course—literacy. The ignorance of the slaves was considered necessary to the security of the slaveholders. Not only did owners fear the spread of specifically abolitionist materials, they did not want slaves to question their lot; thus, reading and reflection were to be prevented at any cost.

It's difficult for a bibliophile like me to imagine a more horrific world than the one depicted in Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966).

Based on the novel of the same named penned by Ray Bradbury, the film depicts a world in which books and all other printed material are banned. Any books found are burned on the spot and their possessors arrested.

It is a compelling movie for its subject matter. But at the same time awkward in the way one might expect from a film made in English by a French director with a star and  director at odds. Truffaut and Oskar Werner differed on how Werner should play Guy Montag, the ambitious "fireman" who discovers a love of books. Werner played Montag as somewhat of a robot reasoning that this was, after all, science fiction. Truffaut wanted more passion out of his lead, especially in his discovery of reading books which was quite a leap for someone charged with their destruction. Truffaut was right. We simply see Montag mechanically sit down with a book and read, then develop an appetite for more. Witnessing the transformation would have been perhaps instructive, and definitely better cinema.

Be that as it may Fahrenheit 451, which I watched for the first time today, is a fascinating look at a future that's not so unimaginable. No, one doesn't expect books to be forever banned and destroyed, but they are already being crowded to the fringes of a society obsessed with instant information in bite size form. Meanwhile we have a significant segment of society that, if it reads at all, only bothers with the occasional political tome (and at that ones which re-enforce their existing beliefs) and eschews novels and philosophy --  the most despised books in the world of Fahrenheit 451.

In F451 TV dominates the home, with wall screens in the living rooms and smaller sets in every other (welcome to the future)! Indeed TV is family with on air personalities cousins. Content is totally sanitized for mass consumption. It helps that the entire population seems to be taking one form of sedative or another at all times. This is a scary future world.  People taking addictive drugs that, rather than stimulate thought, deaden the senses. It's all not hard to envision what with the prevalence of all manner of mood stabilizers in use today. And it's no stretch to say that our TVs serve a similar purpose. There are scores of channels featuring mindless dribble in the form of "reality" shows, cookie cutter sit coms, dramas that resonate all the way until they're closing credits (if that long) and political commentary meant to rally the forces, not stimulate discussion. We have a population of docile citizens constantly "vegging out" in front of the idiot box, only occasionally stirring  if spurred by their TV.

Books are reviled in F451 for their supposed propensity to make one sad. Point taken. Books do cause one to think and we all know the hazards of utilizing our intellect. Books open up entire worlds to us and God knows that many of those worlds are rife with tragedy and heartache. But how reading stirs the imagination! What insight is to be gained, what visions of worlds that are no more, worlds we'll never see, but most importantly worlds that could someday be! And what a wonderful way to explore the human condition, to understand those alien to us and to recognize the commonalities we enjoy (or suffer). Reading is the antithesis of a world where TV does our thinking for us.

Books provide adventure, excitement, romance, knowledge, opinion and perhaps best of all feeling. To really read is to feel. We engage our heart and minds and best of all exercise our imaginations in the accomplishment. A world without books is a world where corporate-approved factoids reign supreme over the intellectual process.

451's Montag is a believer in his world (don't we all want to be? I mean wouldn't be nice if the established order had nothing but everyone's best interests at heart?). But when he dares sample the forbidden fruit, he hungers for orchards.

Montag starts with David Copperfield (excellent choice!) and there's no turning back. We know that Montag will eventually be found out and can only hope that before being caught he'll find his way to the pockets of resistance. These are not groups of people who fight back. However, they not only do not tote guns, they don't even possess books. They become books. Each person commits a book to memory then destroys it so that he'll not be subject to arrest.

One person is Machiavelli's The Prince, another is Plato's The Republic, identical twins are both volumes of Pride & Prejudice. They all thus aim to preserve these books for a time when future generations may someday revel in the printed word.

Julie Christie plays two parts in F451. She is Montag's TV and drug addicted wife and Clarisse, Montag's neighbor who seduces him -- with questions, books and stories of the human literature. Would that Werner's performance was as interesting as hers.

Despite some basic flaws with the film, it's message is powerful and timeless. Now if you'll excuse I'm smack in the middle of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tools....

The Joys and Sorrows but Mostly The Joys of Being A Child, Truffaut Style

Being a child is the best. Being a child is the worst. Being a child is to know freedom. Being a child is like serving a sentence. Being a child is wasted on the young.

Being a child was explored wonderfully by the late great French director, Francois Truffaut in L'Argent de Poche (1976) known to most in the U.S. by its American title, Small Change.

Here's what Vincent Canby said about the film in his review of October 1976:

"'Small Change' has the air of a child's Saturday afternoon when no special activities have been planned. It ambles through the lives of these children, observing them in school, at home, going to the movies, making do on a Sunday morning when parents sleep late, trying to pawn some textbooks, making painful and hilarious discoveries that, by the time we reach the end, have encompassed most of the ordinary expressions of childhood in ways not possible in the conventional fiction film."

The great American sitcom Seinfeld was supposedly a show about nothing. That was, of course, a misnomer, it was about everything. An uncommonly hilarious look at four pixilated New Yorkers that managed to say a lot about relationships, culture and people. In the same sense Small Change is about nothing in particular and everything in general.

It takes a brave director like Truffaut to follow so many different threads in a film of just under an hour and three quarters and to do so with child actors, most of whom had never acted before. To make such a charming and insightful movie in the bargain is a mark of a true genius.

The children of the small French town of Thiers are the stars of Small Change. You may not be surprised to learn that they are no different than children in other industrialized part of the world.

Bored by school and thus adept clock watchers. Always looking for a good time. Curious about the world and their place in it, even ready to be defiant and push boundaries. Children, as I know especially well from 20 years of teaching, are great boundary pushers. Let's see just how much we can get away with before trouble starts is the common credo.

Happily the term mischievous is becoming archaic. It implied that children were "up to no good" though pure at heart. One shouldn't put such a value judgement upon what children are "up to." Who says its no good? We stuffy old adults do and by golly everyone knows the worth of our opinions. No, what children are "up to" is testing. Toes are forever poking into water to discover what's cold and what's hot and what's just right. What children are "up to" is learning, figuring out, negotiating, reconciling. They really want to know what it's all about. And for that matter, what "it" is.

That's the dad blasted thing about adults. Many of us stop looking. We decide rather quickly that we know what it's all about. We develop a world view and stick with it. All actions and events are observed through the same prism. Children take things on their own terms, unfiltered.

This is just some of what Truffuat gives us through Small Change as he follows some of the the young uns around through the last month of a school year. The kiddies range in age from about 18 months to about 14 years. Those are your prime growing up years. No longer a baby, not yet a corrupted teen who knows what it's all about.

Boys and girls are equally represented, as is when their two worlds collide at around 12 or 13. Oh sure they may play together before then but its without the complications that plague the sexes forever after puberty sets in. (There is a first kiss scene in Small Change that is oh so sweet without being at all cloying or exploitative.)

Among its other gifts, Small Change is kind to its adults. Teachers, parents and other oldsters are not the bad guys. Truffuat wouldn't cheapen his story like that, for one thing he's not dealing in stereotypes. Nor types of any kind for that matter. Everything is quite natural. Adults are seen as coping the best they can, whether with a pregnancy, a spouse who's split or a son whose friends cut his hair. Children and adults are not at war here, they just often have conflicting goals.

It is not all Pollyanna sweetness. We do have the abused child who in turn is the local delinquent. Poor lad. Truffaut handles him and his scenes appropriately, that is, without comment. A good director trusts the audience to make up their own minds.

Some films about childhood make one nostalgic for a time that in actuality never existed. That's, I suppose, the definition of nostalgia, a false memory that sanitizes the past. By being more true to reality, Small Change does a greater service to our mental meanderings. Small Change had me reflecting on childhood from the perspective of a former child, a teacher and a parent.

Parenting has been about as rewarding a venture as I could ever imagine. Both my childhood and teaching experiences have been incredibly mixed with much to recommend and much to rue. I appreciate the fact that Small Change does not sentimentalize. It does however capture more the joys than the disappointments of childhood and parenting.

TCM just showed it last night so it'll not be appearing there anytime soon. So jump, hop, skip to your local video store (imagine being part of a great adventure as you go) and rent a copy this weekend. Or if you must, go to your online account and book it for immediate delivery (by a stork!).

As the kids would say: it's fun!

The Greatness of French Cinema, 15 Examples From 15 Different Directors

In my previous post I positively gushed about French cinema and promised the list that follows. I had a made a particular point about how French film is more about making the audience think and feel than making the producers a quick buck. Story, character development and exploration and avant garde cinema photography, style and editing are at the heart of French film making.

I can't add much to the title of this post except to say that I have intentionally left out a few of the better known French films, including some my favorites of all time. For examples I have omitted Renoirs's Grand Illusion (my favorite of all French films) and Melville's Army of Shadows (second favorite) as well as such films as Truffaut's 400 Blows, Carne's Children of Paradise and Godard's Breathless. In some cases its because I've already written about that film on this blog (such as Army of Shadows) or because I like the lesser known film better (such as Carne's Port of Shadows).

I restricted myself to one film per director partially to show the breadth of French cinema but also to help myself narrow it down. This could have been a very long list indeed. Anyway I offer these films, all available on DVD and hope that you discover or re-discover one. I've linked them all to IMDb, as per my custom. The order is chronological.

Le Million (1931) Rene Clair. What a fun movie! Comedy, romance, musical numbers, even a touch of intrigue. A struggling artist on the brink of eviction wins the lottery but can't find the ticket. Sacrebleu! The fun never stops. The songs and romance flow right along with the narrative. Absolutely delightful!

Boudo Saved From Drowning (1932) Jean Renoir. It took Hollywood until the late 1960's to make a film like this. Michael Simon is Boudo, a tramp who jumps into the Seine. He is rescued and taken in by a mild mannered book store owner. Boudo makes quite an impact on the family -- a leopard can't change its spots. It is great commentary on society and the human condition. Funny too.

Port of Shadows (1938) Marcel Carne. Jean Gabin was one of the greatest stars of all time. If you never seen him before or only in Grand Illusion check out this film. Gabin plays a military deserter who finds love and a rather odd company of protectors and rivals. The performances are matched by strong atmospheric cinematography. A noir ahead of its time.

Forbidden Games (1952) Rene Clement. Utterly heart breaking, sweet, sentimental and about a central truth of war. Two children are thrown together at the outset of the Nazi invasion of France. One an instant war orphan, the other part of a large farm family. In the wrong hands its the type of story that can go horribly wrong and be maudlin or too depressing. It's simply and honestly told here and not easily forgotten.

Madame De... (1953) Max Ophuls. Opulent. Gorgeous. A beautiful movie to watch. Best to see on the big screen but what are the odds of it coming soon to a theater near you? It's a costume tradition but that's selling the story short. There's real depth to the story and its characters.

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) Agnes Varda. At last a female director and an outstanding one at that. It's Varda's tale of a woman who awaits word of medical tests that could bear the worst possible news by killing time in Paris. There's not an ounce of sentiment to the character of Cleo, a popular and vain singer. What she does with those two hours! Great character study.

Le Doulos (1962) Jean-Pierre Melville. Just out on DVD this is in my mind the best of Melville's many outstanding hard boiled crime films, which is saying a lot considering what preceded and followed it (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samourai, etc.). There is double dealing aplenty as a recently released crook seeks the proverbial last big score. Jean Paul Belmondo is among the strong cast.

Band of Outsiders (1964) Jean-Luc Godard. How to see the Louvre in 15 minutes. One of a seemingly endless stream of films from New Wave directors that was supposed to be the trend setter and barrier breaker of them all. Never mind that, just enjoy the hi jinks of two young wannabe crooks and a the girl they enlist in their capers. There's a number of scenes not to be missed highlighted by the cafe dance (pictured above). Paris in a brooding, bleak, black and white was never lovelier.

Two of Us (1967) Claude Berri. A young Jewish boy is sent to live with an elderly family on a farm during World War II for his own protection. Fair enough, but what if the the man of the house is an anti semite? Fortunately this Petain-loving patriot doesn't know the young lad's true religion -- at first. The two form one of the more unlikely and extraordinary friendships in film. Michael Simon stars 35 years after playing Boudo. His gruff exterior hides the the real heart behind this heart warming story.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) Luis Bunel. If you like surrealism, symbolism and riffs on decadence this is your film. By turns frustrating and hilarious it is ultimately a series of interesting statements of society, at least circa 1967 when everything was changing.

La Cage Aux Folles (1978) Edouard Molinaro. There was an adequate remake starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane but as is so often the case the original is superior. Two gay men who live together and own a nightclub where transvestites are featured must hide their true natures when one of their sons marries. A hilarious set up is fully realized.

The Last Metro (1980) Francois Truffaut. In occupied France a Jewish theater owner is being hid from the Nazis by his actress wife played by Catherine Deneuve. Inevitably further complications ensue as the show must go on -- that is, plays in the theater. Our man in hiding is trying to run the show from his hideout meanwhile his wife is falling for her co-star. A new DVD release is scheduled for March 24.

Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987) Louis Malle. A boarding school in the early 1940's seems happily secluded from the war that is ravaging Europe. Even to a the newly arrived Jewish student. Inevitably, the war intrudes. Meanwhile the Jewish boy befriends a fellow student. Malle based the story on his own war-time experiences. One of the great films of our time.

Read My Lips (2001) Jaques Audiard. One of the better thrillers ever made, period. The good citizen, a 35 year old hearing impaired woman, hires the bad citizen a 20 something ex con, at her company. A plot is hatched, trouble ensues, danger, romance and surprises. Vastly underrated.

I Loved You For So Long (2008) Philippe Claudel. The highlight is an extraordinary performance by Kristin Scott Thomas. We meet Thomas' character as she is being picked up at the airport by her younger sister. We slowly learn where the older sister has been for so long, then why, then the real reason. But mostly we learn about her and the people around her. Fascinating.

Don't Shoot the Unemotional Man

I'm intrigued by the laconic post modern protagonist. One example is Charles Aznavour in Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Azavou's Charlie Kohler (nee Eduoard Sayroan) shows as much emotion as a sleeping cat. Smiles and frowns make infrequent and abbreviated appearances on Charlie's rather ordinary face. Alaim Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouri (1967) is another Frenchmen who can't be bothered with visible displays of emotion. He is the anti Pacino in his studied calm.

There is something engaging about these stoic characters, seemingly unruffled by fate or circumstance. Of course, seemingly is a key word for we can only guess at their inner turmoils. Given what we don't know about these men they are all the more interesting for their outward placidity.

A viewer has a certain confidence in a character who doesn't bark or blush. He allows events and other people to swirl around him reacting appropriately but betraying nothing of his feelings. Here is another key, these men act. There is little discussion, no conferences or negotiations they just do. Of course these men are loners although they usually have a beautiful woman nearby who loves him. His love for her will be expressed physically, not through words.

The French do not have a monopoly on such characters, witness Steve McQueen's Doc McCoy in The Getaway (1972) or Ryan O'Neal as the tile character in The Driver (1978). Both films were written by Walter Hill who was obviously parital to quiet men of action.

These are methodical men almost to the point of being robotic. Audiences root for them with the same fervor they do more effusive men. Perhaps because they intrigue us. Why are they so quiet? Does nothing stir them? Is there some trauma that robbed them of feeling? Or are they simply so purposeful as to be unaffected by the rest of us mortals? Perhaps that's it, while the rest of us expose our thoughts and feelings these men are in control. How wonderful to be in command of the one thing that we actually can be -- ourselves.

I love Shoot the Piano Player in part for how unflappable Charlie acts. Whether in the face of a kidnappers, a murder, or a new love he keeps on keepin' on. Given the events of the film, he is like the eye of the storm. But Charlie is not a simple man. His virtuosity on the piano and desire to raise a younger sibling suggest depth. So it is with these post modern silent types. They always suggest that there is a lot below those silent surfaces.

Such characters certainly are best suited for a particular type of film. Often European or North American movies of the 1960's and '70's. Sometimes a neo noir or crime film. Certainly where extraordinary events take place. (Being stoic in the face of washing the dishes is hardly remarkable.)

And it is not by accident that I used the masculine pronoun. This is a male type of role. Women are constitutionally incapable of such self repression -- thankfully. But, at least in film, women are drawn to the stoics, often with tragic results. Tragedy dances about and sometimes visits our silent heroes. And they never even bat an eye.

Finally it may be that in their very calm they act as mirrors for the surrounding action. In Shoot the Piano Player Charlie has brothers and co workers and neighbors who set in motion events and in turn respond outwardly and dramatically. Through Charlie the audience has a lens for the ongoing action. Charlie's mien provides our locus. We need him to stay cool he provides order.

Perhaps that's the true definition of being cool.