François Truffaut

Discussion and info on people in film, ranging from directors to actors to cinematographers to writers.
Message
Author
razumovsky
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:52 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#26 Post by razumovsky » Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:31 pm

Last night I saw La Chambre Verte, screening as part of the BFI's Truffaut retrospective. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that it is the single weirdest film to have come out of the New Wave, at least that I've seen - it's sheer oddness places it somewhere beyond simple assessments of whether it's good or bad. It struck me as a bizarre self-portrait of the critic as part necrophile (all those portraits of deceased Truffaut heroes in the shrine) and part cult-leader, and I can't believe that Truffaut didn't intend the Davenne/Rassigny relationship, the fulcrum of the plot, as a confession of his sense of betrayal by JLG (who, by implication, he wishes were dead). At least he must have been aware that it would be interpreted as such. Like the film itself, Truffaut's performance is somewhere beyond good or bad - he doesn't act, as such, but he's an indelible presence. It almost seems superfluous to say that it looks marvellous, and there is an utterly charming performance from Jean Daste. And then there's the fact that the chronology of the story approximates that of Jules et Jim, of which it sometimes seems to be a bizarre critique. I could go on - fascinating movie, do see it if you can (showing again at the BFI Southbank on March 15). The pity of it is that there doesn't seem to be a decent DVD release of this anywhere - what a crying shame.

atcolomb
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Round Lake, Illinois USA

Re: Francois Truffaut

#27 Post by atcolomb » Mon Mar 07, 2011 12:15 am

razumovsky wrote:Last night I saw La Chambre Verte, screening as part of the BFI's Truffaut retrospective. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that it is the single weirdest film to have come out of the New Wave, at least that I've seen - it's sheer oddness places it somewhere beyond simple assessments of whether it's good or bad. It struck me as a bizarre self-portrait of the critic as part necrophile (all those portraits of deceased Truffaut heroes in the shrine) and part cult-leader, and I can't believe that Truffaut didn't intend the Davenne/Rassigny relationship, the fulcrum of the plot, as a confession of his sense of betrayal by JLG (who, by implication, he wishes were dead). At least he must have been aware that it would be interpreted as such. Like the film itself, Truffaut's performance is somewhere beyond good or bad - he doesn't act, as such, but he's an indelible presence. It almost seems superfluous to say that it looks marvellous, and there is an utterly charming performance from Jean Daste. And then there's the fact that the chronology of the story approximates that of Jules et Jim, of which it sometimes seems to be a bizarre critique. I could go on - fascinating movie, do see it if you can (showing again at the BFI Southbank on March 15). The pity of it is that there doesn't seem to be a decent DVD release of this anywhere - what a crying shame.
MGM did release a dvd-r last year in a region 1 titled "Vanishing Fiancee" and the print they used was ok...alot better then the VHS tape i had for many years, you can still buy it at Amazon.com. I hope Criterion can release some more of Truffaut's films like Two English Girls or The Soft Skin or his last "Confidentially Yours".

kekid
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:55 pm

Francois Truffaut on DVD and Blu Ray

#28 Post by kekid » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:55 pm

At this time Jean-Luc Godard is comprehensively represented on DVDs and Blu Rays. Many of his works are available in multiple good editions. Many are available on Blu Rays. Even his lesser works are given considerable attention by the industry.
Given this situation, I am baffled by the relative neglect of Francois Truffaut's works on DVD and Blu Ray. Only a few are available on Blu Ray. Those available on DVD are often poor editions. Great Truffauts deserve to be released on Blu Rays in re-mastered or restored editions. I do not understand why the 3 companies I generally look up to (Criterion, Masters of Cinema and bfi) have not taken up the cause of Truffaut.
Even though I am not a great fan of Godard, I do not grudge the opportunity his admirers have of exploring his work. I am simply surprised by the inequity between these often-compared directors. I do not think the reason for the inequity is financial. Though Godard enjoys devotion of a small group of admirers, Truffaut appeals to a larger audience, and well-produced DVDs and Blu Rays of his films are likely to sell at least as well as Godard's.
On this forum there are many admirers of Godard. Truffaut does not have a comparable number of advocates, and some are outright detractors of his work. Hence I would like to raise a minority voice for his work to receive more attention. From my perspective Jules and Jim, Two English Girls, and Story of Alele H on Blu Rays would be a good start.

User avatar
feihong
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:20 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#29 Post by feihong » Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:54 pm

Are there that many detractors here? Hard for me to imagine. I agree that Jules and Jim and Two English Girls should be on blu-ray, and I'd raise you Mississippi Mermaid and Shoot the Piano Player.

However, I love Godard movies, and I think we were very lucky to get the Godards that we did on blu-ray. I think it coincided with the popular emergence of the medium that there were several theatrical re-releases of Godard films, and new HD transfers made of the films, and so they were in line for blu-ray when it was still more financially solvent than it is now to release art films. That outpouring of Godard has slowed immensely, though. We're missing, for instance, major Godards such as Alphaville, Masculin Feminin and Weekend on blu-ray. Personally, I probably wouldn't have started collecting blu-rays if Pierre le Fou and Contempt hadn't come out in the format. It was those and the Johnnie To and Wong Kar-Wai movies that put me over the edge and into blu-ray land.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#30 Post by knives » Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:56 pm

One of the missing Godard's you mentioned is coming soon thanks to Crit.

User avatar
matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#31 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Apr 07, 2012 1:15 am

It is kind of surprising that Criterion seems to be sitting on some of what seem like the major, widely recognized arthouse classics blu-wise- Jules and Jim seems like a total no-brainer. I wonder if it's just a question of HD-transfers being unavailable.

atcolomb
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Round Lake, Illinois USA

Re: Francois Truffaut

#32 Post by atcolomb » Sat Apr 07, 2012 1:02 pm

Day For Night, Two English Girls, The Soft Skin, and Confidently Yours are the ones i would like to see on Blu-ray. Criterion did release many of Tuffaut's films on laserdisc so lets hope they can do their magic and release new masters of more of his films.

User avatar
feihong
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:20 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#33 Post by feihong » Sat Apr 07, 2012 5:51 pm

A lot of people seem to be re-appraising Jules et Jim as a lesser film these days--especially UK critics. I don't get that at all. I wonder if it has something to do with the way in which the 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player are about people who repress their deep feelings, and Jules et Jim is almost the opposite?

Knives, are you talking about Weekend? I wish Rialto would hurry up and re-release Alphaville, dammit! And Jules et Jim.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#34 Post by knives » Sat Apr 07, 2012 6:15 pm

Rialto can do what it wants, but it is entirely on Lionsgates' shoulders for a home video release of Alphaville.

Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Re: Francois Truffaut

#35 Post by Calvin » Sat Apr 07, 2012 6:51 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:It is kind of surprising that Criterion seems to be sitting on some of what seem like the major, widely recognized arthouse classics blu-wise- Jules and Jim seems like a total no-brainer. I wonder if it's just a question of HD-transfers being unavailable.
There's a Spanish Blu-Ray out for Jules and Jim and it's due to come out in France in July. I have no idea about the picture quality but there must be an HD transfer available.

nolanoe
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:25 am

Re: Francois Truffaut

#36 Post by nolanoe » Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:39 pm

Nobody seems to be particularly interested in the fact that Artificial Eye is releasing large portions of the maestro's oeuvre on BD? Really? OK, more for me...

What strikes me though is that Adele H, which I saw on Arte (cough cough) years ago in a great HD release, isn't among the lot. :|

User avatar
GaryC
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm
Location: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

Re: Francois Truffaut

#37 Post by GaryC » Sat Sep 20, 2014 2:13 pm

Well, I'm reviewing them for The Digital Fix, though five of the eight checkdiscs so far have been DVDs rather than Blu-rays.
nolanoe wrote:What strikes me though is that Adele H, which I saw on Arte (cough cough) years ago in a great HD release, isn't among the lot. :|
That's one of five titles in the United Artists catalogue, the others being The Wild Child, Mississippi Mermaid, Pocket Money and The Man Who Loved Women.

MGM DVD put out very basic editions ten years ago in the UK: only the trailer as an extra, non-anamorphic transfers for the 1.66:1 films (i.e. all except Mississippi Mermaid, which is anamorphic 2.35:1.)

User avatar
neilist
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2011 5:09 am
Location: Cambridge, UK

Re: Francois Truffaut

#38 Post by neilist » Sat Sep 20, 2014 2:57 pm

nolanoe wrote:Nobody seems to be particularly interested in the fact that Artificial Eye is releasing large portions of the maestro's oeuvre on BD? Really? OK, more for me...
There's been plenty of discussion happening on these in the last months, it's just all been happening over in the Artificial Eye thread, rather than here.

nolanoe
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:25 am

Re: Francois Truffaut

#39 Post by nolanoe » Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:57 am

Good to see people do care. :)

Ah, shame. It's been years that I saw this version now, and still no release date.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#40 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 30, 2015 9:47 pm

Thanks to a recent slew of Blu-ray releases, I've been able to give Truffaut a more complete consideration with these nine films:

Fahrenheit 451 (1966) I'd never heard anything kind said about this one but I loved it and I suspect a lot of the negative appeals come from fans of the book who didn't much care for Truffaut's stylish excuse to show hundreds of paperback covers intercut with two different Julie Christie hairstyles (probably not the official synopsis, though it should be). I think Bradbury's a talented short story author and I remember liking the novel well-enough when it was assigned in middle school, but let's be honest, the source text is pretty silly and the only appropriate adaptation is one that mostly treats the source with witty bemusement, which Truffaut does.

La Mariée était en noir (1968) One good idea stretched over the length of a movie and beaten to literal death repeatedly. The titular avenging bride seeks out those responsible for the accidental death of her husband on their wedding day and one by one she kills them all. The end. Okay, clarity of vision is one thing, but all this film offers is increasingly diminished returns on the same concept, and instead of building giddy anticipation, incredibly each murder gets more and more drawn out and less interesting (so much so that by the end the last two don't even occur on-screen, though the long drawn out lead up sure does). I've often heard this compared to Hitchcock. No. Stop that.

La sirène du Mississipi (1969) Effective noir adaptation, with some lovely scenery in the early tropical passages and a nicely twisty narrative. This is the last Truffaut film I've seen that still bears clear markers of its auteur, and the sense of play and fun is present and welcome. However, like so many pulp novels and film noirs, it kind of falls apart near the end, especially since Truffaut denies us the Hollywood fatalistic ending.

Les Deux anglaises et le continent (1971) According to the extras on the AE disc, Truffaut was surprised at the negative response this one received from critics and audiences at the time. It seems pretty obvious to me that no one wanted to see Truffaut deliver a stuffy, stilted, and unnaturally "polite" adaptation of the other novel from the author of Jules et Jim, and all the nudity and appeals to free love in this period piece don't change the fundamentally musty nature of its existence.

Une belle fille comme moi (1972) Broad, broad, broaaaad comedy from Truffaut about the many colorful men led astray by Bernadette Lafont. If you like me have always found Lafont a charming screen-presence, this premise seems logically sound at the outset. However, this film is a fucking nightmare, one of those unfathomably horrible movies where within five minutes you realize the whole film is going to be pitched to an earbleeding comic tone and won't waver. I surely enjoyed Lafont before this movie, and I hope to enjoy her in other works again, but Truffaut, possibly still smitten and thus blinded from their past relationship, either did not tell Lafont "no" or did not know to do so, and so we get an actress untethered and aiming for the rafters (on another planet) (in another solar system) in what may very well be the worst performance I've ever seen. Not that Lafont shoulders all the blame here, as she's surrounded by nothing that is funny or intelligent or of interest. My mouth was literally open in abject horror multiple times during this mess at just how stridently unfunny and laborious this film's set-ups and deliveries were. Looking back on what I've written, I see I keep harping on how unfunny this film is. That's because it is. I still have a few Truffauts left before I've seen 'em all, but I can't imagine he ever made a worse film unless he ever just rereleased this movie and made it longer.

L'Histoire d'Adèle H. (1975) Starting with this film (Or, after La Nuit américaine, if you prefer), which I nevertheless find the strongest of his post-60s work, Truffaut's stylistic concerns and voice are indistinguishable and negligible and like any of the Hollywood studio day-laborers (Henry Hathaway et al) he would have ignored when writing criticism decades earlier, Truffaut becomes solely dependent on the material at hand. But this fact-based melodrama is quite successful, telling perhaps the only effectively-conveyed romance I've seen in a Truffaut film. It is, of course, one-sided and a human disaster, which I think also tells us a little about Truffaut's emotional maturity! Isabelle Adjani gives a nice Oscar-nommed perf as the titular waif who pines after an unworthy lover to such an unhealthy degree that it literally drives her insane.

Le Dernier métro (1980) Truffaut handsomely conveys the story of theatrical performers attempting to keep their careers going in Nazi-occupied France and manages to tell this tale without any dramatic stakes of any kind. There is no threat, no suspense, no questions of outcome. This is not necessarily a problem had Truffaut given us a reason to care otherwise, like maybe bringing some of the insight into the stage world Bergman always gives us. No such luck. Not a bad film, but a pedestrian and disposable one.

La Femme d'à côté (1981) Speaking of disposable… Watching these Truffauts back to back, I've realized that Truffaut is pretty good at giving us set-ups, but he almost always falters when it comes time to deliver a satisfactory justification for all that came before. All of these films should have someone humming "Is That All There Is?" under the end credits. Take this movie. Have you seen it? You may have and forgotten because it's so familiar and unnecessary. Married ex-lovers Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant take turns being smitten and being over each other, over and over, until the predictably "bleak" ending which is so overwrought and cheap that it makes a freshman comp creative writing class look insightful.

Vivement dimanche! (1983) And finally we have Truffaut's last noir homage and his last film. It's okay, I guess. That's about all I can muster up at all this wheel-spinning over nothing.

I've already touched on some of the trends I could notice when viewing these in close quarters, but I really found myself annoyed with Truffaut's handling of romantic relationships, which are often the wrong kind of juvenile. Look at any comparable Delmer Daves film and you see how an expert at capturing the feeling of young love and its relevant trappings is able to translate that to film. Truffaut seems to view such trappings through the lens of someone who's never had a functional adult romantic relationship and thus even the youthful feelings of unrequited love have a tinge of inauthenticity to them, as they lack a comparable metric to be judged against by their presenter. And beyond that annoyance, many of the romantic relationships in Truffaut's films end up looking like the Country Girl, bursting out of nowhere and without any previously witnessed chemistry. No wonder Adele H is so effectively portrayed, it only requires the simplest outsider perspective to function (and does so marvelously)!

I still have L'Enfant sauvage, La Chambre verte, and L'Amour en fuite to see before I can close the lid on the complete works of Truffaut, but while I quite liked a few of these, even that hardly makes for the grand overall reappreciation of the auteur I'd hoped to experience here.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#41 Post by knives » Thu Jul 30, 2015 10:29 pm

The Wild Child is pretty good, but suffers from some of the problems you cite here particularly his clumsy handling of the wrap up to narratives. It's an enjoyable enough movie, but no better (or worse) than The Last Metro or Confidentially Yours. Though I liked A Beautiful Girl like Me a fair bit more than you as a sort of Doran William Cannon type of film and disliked Fahrenheit 451 a bit more.

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Francois Truffaut

#42 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Aug 01, 2015 5:47 pm

domino harvey wrote:Fahrenheit 451 (1966) I'd never heard anything kind said about this one but I loved it and I suspect a lot of the negative appeals come from fans of the book who didn't much care for Truffaut's stylish excuse to show hundreds of paperback covers intercut with two different Julie Christie hairstyles (probably not the official synopsis, though it should be). I think Bradbury's a talented short story author and I remember liking the novel well-enough when it was assigned in middle school, but let's be honest, the source text is pretty silly and the only appropriate adaptation is one that mostly treats the source with witty bemusement, which Truffaut does.
I have been thinking of Fahrenheit 451 a lot recently, mostly down to the amusing scene of one of Julie Christie's characters interacting with her television show, which seems brilliantly anticipatory of "you're part of the show!" audience interactivity that we see today in everything from voting on reality gameshows to videogames. Of course the big problem comes when the flow of an exciting drama is brought to a screeching halt for the audience member to participate!

And it seems to understand that whilst creating an 'interactive' experience, the audience are not really going to have any major effect on the big decisions of the narrative (because the structure will get destroyed if there is too much freedom outside of a framework. Everything still has to be 'authored') but instead only get trusted to choose the tiny elements such as who sits where at a dinner table! So the big dramas and life changing moments in artistic works (say a work of literature firing the imagination) get slightly sacrificed for a more mundane sense of limited interactivity. I suppose this even ties in with the final scene of literally embodying a piece of art: you have to submit (or subsume) yourself to art entirely, rather than partially retaining a sense of your own individuality, for the full experience or impact of it.
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sun Aug 02, 2015 6:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#43 Post by domino harvey » Sat Aug 01, 2015 8:34 pm

It reminded me of those 7"s that would get sent to radio stations, where the local DJs would record their questions and then play the same canned "answers" provided by the label to each market

User avatar
colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Francois Truffaut

#44 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Aug 02, 2015 6:51 am

The Lucy Liu robot episode of Futurama dealt with this limited interactivity issue amusingly too.

"You are one sexy man PHILLIP J. FRY and it is wonderful that you REMEMBERED TWO THINGS"
"Oh, Fry, I love you more than the moon, the stars, the... POETIC IMAGE #36 NOT FOUND."
"I'll always remember you Fry. MEMORY DELETED."

nolanoe
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:25 am

Re: Francois Truffaut

#45 Post by nolanoe » Sun Aug 02, 2015 12:37 pm

I GREATLY enjoy Fahrenheit, and I am a fan of the book, too. I think both have their own fair values. Granted, everybody from Tom Cruise to Mel Gibson (and Hanksy) were slated for a "re-do", and it never got off the ground. I remember Frank Darabont saying things as "Now that books are dying, you can't make a movie about that", or something equally dumb.

User avatar
dustybooks
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:52 am
Location: Wilmington, NC

Re: Francois Truffaut

#46 Post by dustybooks » Sun Aug 02, 2015 5:23 pm

So excited to see so much affection for Fahrenheit 451; to me it's one of Truffaut's best films, and improves significantly on the novel. One of Bernard Herrmann's best scores as well. I often hear the criticism that the film feels too cold and detached, the characters stilted and inarticulate, but that seemed to me the entire point!

User avatar
Dylan
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:28 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#47 Post by Dylan » Sun Aug 02, 2015 6:36 pm

I too love Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451, even if the dual casting of Julie Christie doesn't work - Christie is perfect as Montag's wife, but it's too much (and even a bit ridiculous) for her to also be the teenage girl Clarisse (a role originally intended for Jean Seberg - who would've been perfect). But everything else is so wonderful that it doesn't really matter. I'm surprised it took a few posts for somebody to mention Bernard Herrmann's score, which for me is the single greatest thing about the film and one of the truly greatest movie scores ever written (the finale being one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard). It is a "cold" story, but Herrmann wrote a Romantic score to underscore Montag's longing for the written word, and in doing so the coldness is infused with genuine emotion. The scenes with Montag staying up late and secretly reading forbidden books are scored with an almost tragic Romantic longing not unlike Herrmann's music for Vertigo.


User avatar
hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Francois Truffaut

#49 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:28 pm

Surprised to see Two English Girls on Criterion's Hulu channel - regardless, it's not available on physical media here, but I just got Artificial Eye's BD release (which goes by the UK title, Anne and Muriel) and it looks excellent. What a wonderful film, I had seen it ages ago - I think on a VHS tape - and could barely remember it. When I first got into Truffaut in high school, I stuck mostly with the popular, sunnier films, partly because they were heavily championed by local critics like Siskel and Ebert, but I'm now preferring these darker works. They have been great discoveries and make a far deeper impression once you get to know life a little. I can't imagine really understanding this particular film as a young adolescent.

User avatar
Trees
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2015 4:04 pm

Re: Francois Truffaut

#50 Post by Trees » Sat Feb 06, 2016 5:32 am

Truffaut on Pather Panchali:
When Satyajit Ray’s film Pather Panchali premiered at Cannes in 1955, no less a figure than François Truffaut stomped out, saying he didn’t want to watch a bunch of peasants eating with their hands.

http://www.vogue.com/13259456/the-apu-t ... ollection/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This incident was widely reported and never debunked as far as I know. Apparently Truffaut later said he was wrong and essentially took back the statement. But this shows very poor judgment on Truffaut's part, in my opinion. Of course, art is subjective, but his statement is just nonsense. Funny, because for me, Pather Panchali is superior to anything I have ever seen from Traffaut, including The 400 Blows.
I don't want to open up a huge can of worms here and totally derail this thread, but there is one thing I am wondering about. What are the opinions of people here on this forum about this question: Generally speaking, do accomplished film critics make good film directors?

Post Reply