FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT BOOKSHELF
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Truffaut: a Biography by Antoine De Baecque
The best biography about Truffaut available. Antoine de Baecque is the former editor of the Cahiers du Cinema and a brilliant writer whose prose cunningly folds you into Truffaut's life, a life more extraordinary than the plots of any of his movies.
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The Films in My Life by Francois Truffaut
Taken from his writings for Cahiers du Cinema in the 50’s and 60’s. Great reviews and essays.
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Truffaut at Work by Carole Le Berre
A beautifully illustrated insight into his working methods.
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Francois Truffaut: Interviews by Ronald Bergan
Through the course of these interviews, we can see the filmmaker’s creative evolution. As a critic himself, Truffaut is excellent at analyzing his own films.
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Francois Truffaut by Annette Insdorf
Perceptive analysis of the man and his films.
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Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut
The classic study of the great director and his films comprising a series of interviews between Hitchcock and Truffaut.
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An invaluable insight into the personal and professional life of Truffaut.
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Francois Roland Truffaut (February 6, 1932 – October 21, 1984) was one of the founders of the French New Wave, and remains an icon of international cinema. In a career lasting just over a quarter of a century, he was screenwriter, director, producer and actor in over twenty-five films.
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Childhood
Francois Truffaut was born in Paris on February 6, 1932. His unmarried mother, Janine de Monferrand, was 19 at the time and from a respectable middle-class background. Truffaut never met his biological father, who, he discovered much later in life, was a Jewish dentist. Eighteen months later, Janine married Roland Truffaut, an architectural draughtsman, who accepted the boy as his son and gave him a surname. Roland’s great passion in life was mountaineering. Janine was more interested in books, the theatre, cinema and romance. Francois was not allowed to disrupt their life and until the age of 10 was brought up mainly by his maternal grandmother. It was only when she died that he went to live with his parents for the first time.
Francois’ new life with his parents did not give him the love and support he craved. They repeatedly left him alone at weekends and even at Christmas. His mother, in particular, found his presence in their cramped apartment distracting, and he was forced to sit quietly reading a book for fear of disturbing her. When he discovered the truth about his father, his relationship with his mother became even more strained. He would often stay with friends and try to be out of the house as much as possible. Truffaut spent much of his time with his closest friend Robert Lacheney, often staying overnight at the Lacheney family apartment.
Movie Mania
It was the cinema that offered him the greatest escape from an unsatisfying home life. His obsession began at eight years old when he saw his first movie, Abel Gance's Paradis perdu. As he got older he truanted frequently, sneaking into theatres because he didn't have enough money for admission. The cinema became both a refuge and an alternative schoolroom. At the age of fourteen, after being excluded from school, he decided to be self taught. Among his academic "goals" were to watch three movies a day and read three books a week.
By the time he became a teenager, Truffaut was already a serious student of cinema, creating folders for his favourite filmmakers in which he filed away articles clipped from newspapers and movie magazines. He impressed his friends with his many feats of knowledge and was looked upon as a “living cinematheque.” His erudition was primarily the result of dedicated movie attendance at cinemas and film clubs. There were over four hundred movie houses in post-war Paris; two hundred of these were around the Truffaut apartment. The post-war years were also the golden age of the film society and Truffaut wasted no time in becoming part of the movement. “I was fanatic about joining,” he said, “I had this compulsion to join and become part of these places where films were programmed, presented and discussed.”
It was at these clubs, such as the Delta, which presented classic cinema of the thirties by directors such as Jean Renoir and Sacha Guitry, that Truffaut learnt to analyse the aesthetics of cinema in depth. The greatest film-school of all was Henri Langlois' Cinematheque Francaise where he was exposed to the widest range of cinema from silent classics to countless foreign films from around the world. It was here that he first fell in love with American cinema and the work of such directors as Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, and Alfred Hitchcock.
After starting his own cinema club, Cercle Cinemane (the Movie Mania Club) in 1948, Truffaut met Andre Bazin who would have a great impact on his professional and personal life. Bazin was a brilliant critic and the head of another cinema society at the time. He became a friend and mentor to Truffaut and would help him out of various financial and criminal situations in the coming years.
Reform School
But Bazin was unable to help Truffaut when he was caught stealing a typewriter from his father’s offices and forging payslips in a desperate effort to keep the Cercle Cinemane going. A furious Roland Truffaut, informed of his son’s debts, forced Francois to sign a confession. He then took him to the police station, where ...
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As Director
French Title |
English Title |
Year |
Type of Film |
Notes |
| Une visite |
|
1955 |
short |
|
| Les Mistons |
The Mischief Makers |
1957 |
short |
|
| Les Quatre cents coups |
The 400 Blows |
1959 |
feature |
Antoine Doinel Cycle |
| Tirez sur le pianiste |
Shoot the Piano Player |
1960 |
feature |
|
| Une histoire d'eau |
A Story of Water |
1961 |
short |
co-director with Jean-Luc Godard |
| Jules et Jim |
Jules and Jim |
1962 |
feature |
|
| Antoine et Colette |
Antoine and Colette |
1962 |
short |
Antoine Doinel Cycle, originally part of anthology film L'amour à 20 ans |
| La Peau douce |
The Soft Skin |
1964 |
feature |
|
| Fahrenheit 451 |
Fahrenheit 451 |
1966 |
feature |
|
| La Mariee etait en noir |
The Bride Wore Black |
1968 |
feature |
|
| Baisers voles |
Stolen Kisses |
1968 |
feature |
Antoine Doinel Cycle |
| La Sirene du Mississippi |
Mississippi Mermaid |
1969 |
feature |
|
| L'Enfant sauvage |
The Wild Child |
1970 |
feature |
|
| Domicile conjugal |
Bed and Board |
1970 |
feature |
Antoine Doinel Cycle |
| Les Deux anglaises et le continent |
Two English Girls |
1971 |
feature |
|
| Une belle fille comme moi |
A Gorgeous Girl Like Me |
1972 |
feature |
|
| La Nuit americaine |
Day for Night |
1973 |
feature |
|
| L'Histoire d'Adele H. |
The Story of Adele H |
1975 |
feature |
|
| L'Argent de poche |
Pocket Money/Small Change |
1976 |
feature |
|
| L'Homme qui aimait les femmes |
The Man Who Loved Women |
1977 |
feature |
|
| La Chambre verte |
The Green Room / The Vanishing Fiancee |
1978 |
feature |
|
| L'Amour en fuite |
Love on the Run |
1979 |
feature |
Antoine Doinel Cycle |
| Le Dernier metro |
The Last Metro |
1980 |
feature |
|
| La Femme d'à côte |
The Woman Next Door |
1981 |
feature |
|
| Vivement dimanche! |
Confidentially Yours/Finally Sunday |
1983 |
feature |
|
Major Acting Credits
French Title |
English Title |
Year |
Director |
Role |
| L'Enfant sauvage |
The Wild Child |
1970 |
himself |
Dr. Jean Itard |
| La Nuit americaine |
Day For Night |
1973 |
himself |
Ferrand |
| Close Encounters of the Third Kind |
Close Encounters of the Third Kind |
1977 |
Steven Spielberg |
Claude Lacombe |
| La Chambre verte |
The Green Room |
1978 |
himself |
Julien Davenne |
FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT POSTER GALLERY |
COMING SOON!. |
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