The 10 best Franois Truffaut films

The gentlest of the major directors of the French New Wave, Franois Truffaut made some of
the movements best-loved classics, from Jules et Jim to Day for Night.
David Parkinson
6 February 2015

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Franois Truffaut on the set of Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

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Grard Depardieu reportedly resisted starring in The Last Metro (1979) because he thought
director Franois Truffaut had gone bourgeois. Truffaut may no longer have been the fiery
critic who had denounced cinma du papa in the pages of Cahiers du Cinma in the 1950s
or even the fearless auteur who had been in the vanguard of the French New Wave. But he
remained a consummate filmmaker, whose love of cinema and respect for its past masters

was evident in every frame of his oeuvre. Later pictures may have been less stylistically
ambitious and even contained traces of the despised tradition of quality. But Truffaut never
really changed at all, as he was always the last of the poetic realists.
Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959)

Intended to be an anthology vignette set during the occupation, the shoestring feature that
ignited the nouvelle vague is rooted heavily in Truffauts own experiences. Indeed, the 27year-olds relationship with teenage star Jean-Pierre Laud would come to reflect his own
with mentor Andr Bazin, as the Antoine Doinel cycle continued. Belying Truffauts
reputation as a firebrand critic at Cahiers du Cinma, this study in juvenile alienation is

conventionally linear and owes much to neorealism, film noir and idolised auteurs like Jean
Vigo, Jean Renoir and Roberto Rossellini. But Henri Decas visceral handheld imagery and
the ambiguous climactic freeze-frame made it an instant classic whose raw power remains
undiminished.
Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Lacing David Goodiss hardboiled novel Down There with the frantic zaniness of the Marx
Brothers and Raymond Queneau, Truffauts sophomore outing was a gleeful grab bag of

tropes, tones and techniques that came closest to translating his critical theories into
cinematic practice. Theres more than a hint of Truffaut in Charles Aznavours taciturn
concert pianist, who becomes embroiled with gangsters after he starts playing honky tonk in a
Parisian dive. Comedy and tragedy jostle for position, as Truffaut stuffs the unpredictable
action with self-reflexive sight gags that seem all the more audacious given the austere
realism of Raoul Coutards imagery. Irresistible and unrepeatable.
Jules et Jim (1962)

Accompanied by the exquisite melodies of Georges Delerue, this timeless adaptation of

Henri-Pierre Roches novel surprisingly suggested the compatibility of the nouvelle vague
and the tradition of quality that Truffaut had railed against in his 1954 Cahiers essay, A
Certain Tendency in French Cinema. The exuberance of the Belle poque section is
intoxicating, as inseparable friends Henri Serre and Oskar Werner become besotted with free
spirit, Jeanne Moreau. However, Truffaut slows the pace in the postwar sequences to convey
the changing mood, as the mnage heads inexorably towards tragedy. Some accused him of
betraying his critical ideals, but this sublime melodrama demonstrates Truffauts directorial
maturity.
La Peau douce (1964)

A delay in shooting his sole English-language venture, Fahrenheit 451 (1966), afforded the
opportunity to make this adulterous saga, which reveals the influence of Alfred Hitchcock,
with whom Truffaut had just conducted a book-length interview. Although the narrative was
based on newspaper stories, autobiographical details fleck the action, which turns on prim
wife Nelly Benedettis discovery of academic husband Jean Desaillys affair with air
hostessFranoise Dorlac. The cool elegance Truffaut displays in turning a Sirkian

melodrama into a Hitchcockian thriller is beguiling. Yet contemporary critics branded it

cynical and sordid and it has only comparatively recently been recognised as an astute
dissection of middle-class mores.
Stolen Kisses (1968)

Truffaut had never intended Les Quatre Cent Coups Antoine Doinel to become a recurring
character. But he returned four times to the alter ego who seemed to serve as a safety valve
after particularly demanding projects. Coming off the revenge thriller, The Bride Wore
Black (1968), Truffaut clearly felt the need to revisit his earlier cinma libre style and he
pitches Jean-Pierre Laud into a series of comic misadventures that begin with his
dishonourable discharge from the army and involve hapless stints as a hotel clerk, a private
detective and a TV repairman. Romantic entanglements with Claude Jade and Delphine
Seyrig further complicate matters, but Truffauts passion for film remains charmingly pure.
Day for Night (1973)

Managing to reconcile auteur theory with his affection for the communality of filmmaking,
Truffaut cast himself as a half-deaf director in this highly personal paean, which he packs
with anecdotes, in-jokes and homages to convey the pleasure and pain of creating cinema. No
one would pretend that film-within-the-film Meet Pamela is a work of art, but Truffaut uses
its studio shoot to celebrate and satirise the chaos, insecurity, artifice, egotism and lust that
moil away behind the scenes. He earned nominations for his direction and screenplay, as well

as the Oscar for best foreign language film, but probably derived greater satisfaction from
authentically depicting his world on screen.
Small Change (1976)

Having endured such a chastening childhood, Truffaut returned to the theme of growing up in
pictures as different as Les Mistons (1957) and The Wild Child (1969). However, this
episodic collage set in the provincial town of Thiers is his sunniest insight into the psyche of
kids confronted with a range of everyday issues. The principle focus falls on Geory
Desmouceaux and Philippe Goldman, who respectively have to cope with a disabled father
and an abusive mother. But, once again mining his own memories, Truffaut deftly juxtaposes

moments of longing, discovery, peril, rebellion and reprisal to reinforce his contention that
children exist in a state of grace.
The Green Room (1978)

Henry Jamess short story The Altar of the Dead preoccupied Truffaut for much of the
1970s, as he collaborated with screenwriter Jean Gruault in incorporating ideas from Tolstoy,
Chekhov and Proust to convey the reverential melancholy he felt towards the growing
number of friends and inspirations who were passing away. The loss of Roberto
Rossellini and Henri Langlois finally goaded him into action and, having enlisted costarNathalie Baye and cinematographer Nestor Almendros, he cast himself as the guilt-

wracked, obituary-writing Great War survivor who builds a shrine to his late wife, in order to
give the film the sincere, if imperfect feel of a handwritten letter.
The Last Metro (1979)

Truffaut was frequently denounced for failing to address political topics and some accused
him of ducking issues still traumatising France in this sombre but romanticised depiction of
the Nazi occupation. He insisted, however, that his memoir of wartime Paris reflected the
childhood incomprehension with which he had viewed events. The tension between
innocence and experience is evident throughout a story that centres on Catherine Deneuves
efforts to mount a production while hiding Jewish husband Heinz Bennent under the stage of
their Montmartre theatre. Maquis agent Grard Depardieu and gay directorJean Poiret also

have secrets to hide, but wry wit dapples the intense drama as delicately as Nestor
Almendross lighting.
Vivement dimanche! (1983)

Pulp fiction was a recurring source of inspiration throughout Truffauts career and he
reworked Charles Williamss The Long Saturday Night for what proved to be his final
feature. It was conceived as a billet doux to new partner Fanny Ardant, who excels as the
Provenal secretary who turns private eye to clear estate agent boss Jean-Louis Trintignantof

murdering his wife and her lover. But this was also a homage to the screwball antics
ofHoward Hawks and the MacGuffins of Alfred Hitchcock, and the relish with which
Truffaut laces the action with sly cinematic allusions is as enchanting as the evocative
monochrome imagery. A bittersweet goodbye.
The next 11
1. Two English Girls (1971)
2. The Wild Child (1969)
3. The Story of Adele H. (1975)
4. Bed and Board (1970)
5. Une belle fille comme moi (1972)
6. Love on the Run (1979)
7. The Bride Wore Black (1967)
8. Mississippi Mermaid (1969)
9. The Man Who Loved Women (1977)
10. The Woman Next Door (1981)
11. Fahrenheit 451 (1966)