truffaut vie!

Perhaps I'm a fatalist by nature. But it seems that whenever an important filmmaker dies - one who functioned either in front of the camera or from behind - film itself seems diminished. Bit by bit, as each one passes. Alfred Hitchcock. Jack Lemmon. Natalie Wood. Hal Ashby. Steve McQueen. Sydney Pollack. Cary Grant. Diana Sands.

There are more, way more, but these are the names who come to mind immediately - the ones whose passing, for personal reasons, hit me the hardest. Their replacements seem insufficient but film goes on.

Then there's François Truffaut (1932-1984), the dashing French filmmaker/critic/actor whose role in the development of the New Wave in the 1950s not only revolutionized French cinema, bringing an exhilarating urgency to it, but influenced filmmaking worldwide, including America's own New Wave of the late 1960s-early '70s.

Truffaut began his life behind the camera in 1959 with the autobiographical "Les Quatre Cent Coups" ("The 400 Blows"), a remarkable, achingly powerful debut starring his frequent collaborator, Jean-Pierre Léaud, as his on-screen alter ego. And in 1978, towards the end of his career (and life), he directed the equally autobiographical, "La Chambre Vert" ("The Green Room"), starring ... himself.

He brought himself into the films that he made in-between as well, only less subjectively - as an astute, objective observer of life in general.

He appealed to non-francophiles by filming Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie, in English, and charmed American audiences with his performance as scientist Claude Lacombe in Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of a Third Kind."

There was a vague feeling of desolation when Truffaut passed at age 52 from a brain tumor. Too soon - not only for Truffaut, whose mission was to make an even 30 films and then retire, but also for movie enthusiasts who had convinced themselves that he'd make many more. He never made it to 30. Truffaut directed 21 titles, seven of which are currently being screened, under the title "Truffaut X Seven" ("Truffaut fois sept" in French), at New York's Metrograph rep house, @ No. 7 Ludlow Street (212-660-0312), through August 24th.

The titles selected by the Metrograph programmers are not what an avid Truffaut aficionado would expect. The debut film is missing, as is the seminal "Jules et Jim"("Jules and Jim") and "Le Dernier métro" ("The Last Metro"), arguably Truffaut's masterwork. But there are four consecutively-made titles from his middle period, and included are his two playful takes on Hitchcock, "La Sirène du Mississipi" ("Mississippi Mermaid") and "La Mariée était en noir" ("The Bride Wore Black"), with Catherine Deneuve and Jeanne Moreau, respectively, as irresistibly disreputable femme fatales, as well as two affecting titles about children, "L"Enfant sauvage"("The Wild Child") and "L'Argent de poche" ("Small Change").

Here are all 21 feature films (shorts not included) directed by François Truffaut, with the seven Metrograph titles highlighted:

"Les Quatre Cent Coups" ("The 400 Blows," 1959)

"Tirez sur le pianiste" ("Shoot the Piano Player," 1960)

 "Jules et Jim" ("Jules and Jim," 1962)

 "La Peau douce" ("The Soft Skin," 1964)

 "Fahrenheit 451" (1966)

 "La Mariée était en noir" ("The Bride Wore Black," 1968)

 "Baisers volés" ("Stolen Kisses," 1968)

"La sirène du Mississipi" ("Mississippi Mermaid," 1969)

"L'Enfant sauvage" ("The Wild Child," 1970)

"Domicile conjugal" ("Bed and Board," 1970)

"Les Deux anglaises et le continent" ("Two English Girls," 1971)

"Une belle fille comme moi" ("Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me," 1972)

"La Nuit américaine" ("Day for Night," 1973)

"L'Histoire d'Adèle H." ("The Story of Adèle H.," 1975)

"L'Argent de poche" ("Small Change," 1976)

"L'Homme qui aimait les femmes" ("The Man Who Loved Women," 1977)

"La Chambre Vert" ("The Green Room," 1978)

L'Amour en fuite" ("Love on the Run," 1979)

"Le Dernier métro" ("The Last Metro," 1980)

La Femme d'à côté" ("The Woman Next Door," 1981)

"Vivement dimanche!" ("Confidentially Yours," 1983)

Of course, no Truffaut retrospective would be complete without all his films being screened. But this is a good, left-of-center tribute. Personally, I would have certainly included "Tirez sur le pianiste" ("Shoot the Piano Player"), with Charles Aznavor as a seemingly small-time pianist juggling relatives, thugs, a woman, a past and some secrets; "La Peau douce" ("The Soft Skin"), about a wrenching love affair (for the married man, at least) starring Françoise Dorléac (Catherine Deneuve's late sister) as the other woman, and "Une belle fille comme moi" ("Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me"),  an incredibly watchable romp starring an exuberant, colorful Bernadette Lafont. Quel dommage!

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~images~

(from top)

~Truffaut lives!
~Photographie: Pierre Zucca 1968 ©

~François Truffaut et Jean-Pierre Léaud
~Photography: Richard Avedon 1971©

~Truffaut and Bernadette Lafont on the set of "Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me"
~Photography: Les Films du Carrosse and Columbia Pictures 1972© 

~French poster art for "Jules et Jim"

~Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo in a scene from "La sirène du Mississipi"
~photography: Les Artistes Associés  1969©

~French poster art for "Tirez sur le pianiste"