Burn the Books

Abstract

By 1965, François Truffaut, a thirty-five-year old Parisian-born film critic, reviewer, and director, had emerged — after a seesaw, six-year apprenticeship — as perhaps the most famous name in contemporary French cinema. Now this proponent of the New Wave and enfant terrible of established motion picture theory was enthralling audiences everywhere with four photodramas that still brought large crowds to their feet with heartfelt applause. The 400 Blows (1959), a lyrical roman-à-clef about a troubled youth’s alienation, took the Cannes Grand Prix that year, while Shoot the Piano Player (1960) paid homage to the American gangster genre, those films noirs, that French moviegoers always enjoyed. Jules and Jim (1961), became a playful ménage-à-trois romp, a bittersweet satire that frolicked with early-twentieth-century sexual mores, while The Soft Skin (1964) poked around with modern-day adultery using Balzac’s human comedies as the backdrop.