François Truffaut and His Influences

This is an excerpt from a longer video essay by Kent Jones, available on our special edition Blu-ray and DVD editions of Truffaut's THE SOFT SKIN.

[@thevoid99]

truffaut is one of my favorite filmmakers ever as i not only enjoy his work but also the fact that this is a man that loved cinema.

[@thevoid99]

***** true but other than quentin tarantino, i don't know any filmmaker who is so devoted to writing and making films about cinema better than truffaut did in his time. i finally saw all of his films last year and there will never be another man like him.

[@SuperAdamh1]

***** I wonder if one would say that Werner Herzog loves cinema. Like Bertolini, his output is goes beyond the film medium. There are some artists who are, shall we say, trans-medium. For them the medium is not the message.

[@mmassias]

***** John Ford loved filmmaking, but disliked pictures and watching to them

[@mmassias]

thevoid99 and, of course, one thing that fuelled the Nouvelle Vague and Cahiers du Cinéma was cinephilia. I, for one, think that cinephilia is a rarity in our times. It is pretty hard to see young viewers consuming films so warmly. Maybe TV series are to blame, who knows? However, can't they be a new sort of cinephilia? That intrigues me.

[@thevoid99]

Senhor F times have changed to be a cinephile though there are still a few that devote themselves to cinema such as myself as i did write a 2-part piece on truffaut which you can read here: cinemaaxis.com/2015/01/05/the-auteurs-francois-truffaut-part-1/ and here: cinemaaxis.com/2015/01/06/the-auteurs-francois-truffaut-part-2/

[@StoryeTime]

And Truffaut himself was one of the lucky young kids who got to enjoy Henri Langlois' magnificient screenings. If you haven't yet, you have to watch the documentary "Henri Langlois, phantom of the cinematheque". I'm French and have always been into cinema but this documentary blew me away. Thank you for this excerpt!

[@deaconpeters2994]

I met François Truffaut and he invited me to the wedding of his friends, Jules and Jim. When I got to the wedding, I knew things were kinda off when I saw someone trying to Shoot The Piano Player and even more off when I noticed that The Bride Wore Black. I don't know, but if you ask me, it was a real Day For Night kinda situation. After all the confusion and chaos, I stayed at a Bed And Board because all I had was Small Change on me. I couldn't get any sleep due The Woman Next Door making too much noise and The Wild Child screaming in the other room. In conclusion, Mr. Truffaut told me he was sorry for how everything played out and wished me the best of luck on my journey back home. But it was just my luck... I had just missed The Last Metro... Whether if anyone actually reads this whole thing or not, you are truly an outstanding person! :) I love all of François Truffaut's films and his works!

[@willieluncheonette5843]

Shoot the Piano Player is one of my 13 all time favorite films.

[@dragoniguana]

My favourite director. The Soft Skin was a great addition, and I'm hopeful for Truffaut in the Criterion Collection.

[@michaszeremeta4745]

why criterion didnt put on YT any other material like That?

[@beflygelt]

Djoughls and Djim

[@MartinDelCarpio]

I'm hoping for The Bride Wore Black to be released on Blu-ray.

[@HawkSchlock]

Twilight Time released it earlier this year... www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/28464/THE-BRIDE-WORE-BLACK-1968/

[@garychu1505]

If you mentioned Francois Truffaut & it's no way that you missed to mark his frequent partner Mozart of Cinema Georges Delerue to refine most of his films .....!? Thanks

[@benzgafoor]

❤

[@johnkrieger185]

Truffaut had other influences besides Renoir and Hitchcock.

[@MapleSyrupPoet]

😊🥰

[@manuem8996]

I've never been able to came to a judgment about Hitchcock, despite I've seen big part of his work. I mean, I don't perceive poetic from his movies. Yes they are easily recognizable, and extraordinary well made; but is this enough to define an artist? Maybe it's me, but I can't see in him anything more than a master of technic, as Spileberg or Nolan in our days (Relatively speeking). His he an artist, an artist of entertainment or what also? Would like to know other's thoughts.

[@blakebonecutter]

@paul w That is ludicrous. Imagine claiming that Mozart and Bach are too calculated to be great musicians. The solid grasp of theory and firing on all its cylinders is what makes Hitchcock a titan, and is what Truffaut saw. To compare Hitchcock's mastery of form to Nolan's admiration for technical craft (mostly so in cinematography and less so in editing) fundamentally misses the point by a country mile.

[@luismarioguerrerosanchez4747]

The thing with Hitchcock is that didn't write his own scripts unlike Truaffaut, and the vast mayority of his works were adaptations of plays. But what you're missing is: One, the calculated nature of his fims that you mention, is something that practically didn't exist at the time, I can talk for hours about the McGuffin, the concept of suspense vs mystery, the use of actors and color in his films that created innovative techniques that were adopted by every film director that followed. All this innovations are just as important as Bach's use of tuning in music. Second, he had a huge personality, even though he didn't write his own movies, the themes they have reflect a lot on Hitchcock's obsessions and paranoias and is very interesting how he translated those ideas into movies.

[@bohemianskingdom7528]

@@grahamh.4230 wow ✨

[@maanveersingh25]

@@grahamh.4230 He didn't criticize him. He pointed out something Hitchcock didn't show a lot. Maybe it's the way he likes his films. Poetic slow expressing the melody of nature. If he does then Hitchcock and other technical directors are not his taste. Different people like different kind of oranges.

[@zmani4379]

I think these are good comparisons - and you point to Hitchcock's limitations, which he himself reflected on w Truffaut - I think where Hitchcock was more personal, and made his profound contribution, was in his use of the medium in playing out his own relationship w the audience - this embracing of film's voyeuristic nature - making a big point of who or what is looking at whom, and where we the audience figure into this, implicating us in the act of watching - in this respect, I think Hitchcock goes beyond someone like Spielberg, who embodies Hollywood brilliantly, as Griffith did, but never transcends storytelling to comment on it as Hitchcock does - and Nolan made one profound film IMO, Memento, and then retreated into this technical preoccupation you describe - in any case, for me someone like Renoir is certainly the greatest artist mentioned here, much deeper than Hitchcock or Spielberg