François Truffaut: The Legacy of a Legendary French Film Director
Discover the legacy of François Truffaut, the visionary French director who helped shape modern cinema with passion, style, and unforgettable stories.
His parents were poor workers and he was raised practically as an orphan. He soon ended up being raised in a reformatory after committing vandalism. He had a very troubled childhood and decided to leave school early to work in a factory.
Perhaps his life would have been different and we wouldn’t have so many good films if he hadn’t met the critic André Bazin at a film club session when he was 15. It was from then on that he began to take an interest in something. Cinema, something he liked but had never thought of working with. Bazin gave him a chance to leave reform school and go straight to the cinema.
You’re not wrong in thinking that Truffaut’s biography has a lot in common with that of his most famous character, Antoine Doinel from The 400 Blows , his first notable film. But before becoming a director, Truffaut began writing texts for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in which he spoke out against traditional French cinema, which he considered outdated and conventional. It was as a critic that he founded the Nouvelle Vague aesthetic movement to which he affiliated himself as a director.
The magazine also served to revive the careers of some filmmakers who were not well regarded in America, such as Alfred Hitchcock (the interview that Truffaut did with him is famous) and Douglas Sirk , among others. It was also there that he became friends with Jean-Luc Godard , another exponent of the Nouvelle Vague. The two fell out some time later over aesthetic and political issues.
In 1954, Truffaut put theory into practice when he made his first short film. After working as an assistant to Roberto Rossellini , he began making films in the new aesthetic, known as the Nouvelle Vague. Women as a reason for adoration, impossible loves, and the misfortunes of relationships are constant themes in his work.
After suffering from severe headaches for several months, Truffaut was diagnosed with brain cancer. He even thought about writing an autobiography before he passed away, but he was unable to do so. He died on October 21, 1984, leaving behind an immense legacy.
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