Sunday 31 August 2008

Final thoughts on Truffaut

Well I hoped you enjoyed my month long tribute to Francois Truffaut. I must say I learned a lot about the man this month by finally looking into his writing, and looking critically at his films. In fact I would say I have become even a bigger fan of his work after this month, he was so passionate about filmmaking and had a new and unique philosophy that helped mature the artform forward, I hope you look forward to more of my Director's spotlight series in the months to come, stay tuned for September's announcement tomorrow.


1 comment:

Oneliner said...

Truffaut’s love for movies oozes off the screen and it seems impossible not be a fan of his work if you love movies. Of his films my favorites are: 400 BLOWS, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, DAY FOR NIGHT (all of which I own on DVD), and SMALL CHANGE. I also remember thinking that his FAHRENHEIT 451 was quite good (which goes along with your comment that his movies are not simply “delightful” baubles). I like all of his Antoine Doinel films, but 400 BLOWS was the only one that really grabbed me [the only one I haven’t seen is LOVE ON THE RUN]. I need to see JULES ET JIM again—it has been many years. Have you read the book? I liked the video piece that you posted from YouTube. Too bad the author didn’t get to see the movie. It’s interesting that Truffaut calls his film a “vulgarization” of the book (this is translated in the piece as “condensation”). But it's a "modesty" comment on Truffaut's part, I think. Another thing I always found interesting about Truffaut is that he said the perfect number of films that a director should make in his/her lifetime is 30. I always thought that that was, indeed, the perfect number—but it seems everyone does either 15 or 50. I wonder if Truffaut would have stuck to his guns and retired if he’d lived long enough to hit the 30-mark. Lastly, I think Truffaut’s prophecy which you blogged on did come true with the independent film movement—initially realized just a couple years after his comment in the form of John Cassavetes’ films.