 François
Truffaut
An influential film critic who became a director
during the French New Wave, François Truffaut was
one of the most prominent figures in French cinema
for the better part of three decades, until his
untimely death in 1984. Best known today among
international movie audiences for his role as
Claude Lacombe in Spielberg's Close Encounters
of the Third Kind, Truffaut did act in his
own films on occasion, but his best work has been
as a director of bright films invigorated by their
clear love for film, including such highlights
as The 400 Blows, Jules et Jim, Day
for Night and The Last Metro.
With the Criterion Collection's recent release
of Truffaut's unique five-film chronicle of a single
character across twenty years in The Adventures
of Antoine Doinel, we took the opportunity
not only to review this incredible box set in full,
but to devote a page in our slowly expanding
list of featured filmmakers to this unique director,
featuring a summary
of DVD releases of his work from past, present
and future, ordered chronologically.
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The 400 Blows [Les 400 Coups]
Truffaut's first feature-length film as a director
is a cornerstone work of the French New Wave that
has aged remarkably well. The universal appeal of
its portrait of painful adolescence along with the
heartbreaking first performance by the teenaged Jean-Pierre
Léaud makes this one stand out from the rest.
The masterful short Antoine et Colette is
also included in full on this disc.
read
the review
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Stolen Kisses [Baisers Volés]
Doinel's second feature film appearance catches
up with him as he is discharged from military service,
after which we follow him through various jobs and
a love life that soon becomes rather complicated.
Deliciously offhand and endearingly bittersweet in
tone, this highly successful recasts the teenage
outsider as a playfully maladjusted young adult.
read
the review
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Mississippi Mermaid [La Sirène du
Mississippi]
Truffaut's most overtly Hitchcock-inspired film
has the structure of a thriller, but subverts the
genre by focusing almost exclusively on the weird
relationship between its two central characters.
read
the review
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The Wild Child [L'Enfant Sauvage]
A movingly austere recreation of the true story
of a young boy returned to 19th-Century society after
growing up in the wild.
read
the review
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Bed and Board [Domicile Conjugal]
Neither marriage nor fatherhood brings much
of a change to Antoine Doinel's impetuous choices.
Basically offering a continuation of the previous
film, Truffaut further investigates his main character's
refusal to adapt while delighting in his mercurial
nature.
read
the review
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Day for Night [La Nuit Américaine]
One of Truffaut's most successful films, offering
an intimate, highly comic look behind the scenes
of a French film production, with Truffaut making
fun of himself by playing the overly sincere director
of an inconsequential romantic B-movie.
read
the review
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Love on the Run [L'Amour en Fuite]
The final film in the Doinel cycle is also the
weakest, though it does offer a nicely handled sense
of closure to a character who had seemed destined
to remain a man-child forever.
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the review
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Les Salades de l'Amour - the Antoine
Doinel Supplements
A separate discful of supplements sheds further
light on the series as a whole, and on the director's
working methods and motivations.
read
the review
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