Breathless

Year of Release:  1960

Director:  Jean-Luc Godard

Screenplay:  Jean-Luc Godard, based on a story by François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol

Starring:  Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Crime drama

Cynical thief Michel (Belmondo) steals a car and kills a motorcycle policeman.  He escapes to Paris and contacts his on-again off-again American girlfriend Patricia (Seberg), a student and aspiring writer who earns a crust by selling the New York Herald-Tribune on the streets.  While trying to stay ahead of the police who are hot on his trail, Michel tries to call in a debt he's owed, in order to get enough money for himself and Patricia to escape to Italy.

This film takes what could be a conventional pulp narrative and turns it into an innovative blend of cinematic style and Sixties cool.  It marked the directorial debut of film critic turned filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, and was one of the defining films of the so-called "French New Wave".  The story was inspired by a real life case that François Truffaut came across in a newspaper.  Truffaut worked on the script with Claude Chabrol, but they both decided it was unworkable, however Godard read it and wanted to make it.   Filmed in a semi-documentary style, Paris shimmers in the crisp monochrome photography, with a roving camera, inventive editing (particularly it's use of the jump cut) and a cool jazz soundtrack.  The film's main character is Michel, a cynical thief, mugger and murderer, who it's hinted seduces and discards numerous women, is an absolutely ghastly person, who would take you for everything you owned given half the chance, however as played by Jean-Paul Belmondo he is really cool, and charismatic, basing his style and persona on Humphrey Bogart, he is the ultimate anti-hero, and although we see him do many bad things, and it is suggested that he has done a lot more besides, we still like him, and by the end we're kind of on his side.  As the equally cynical but ambitious Patricia, Jean Seberg has real charm and presence.  She's engaging and likeable and yet is shown to be possibly just as ruthless as Michel.  Together Seberg and Belmondo are electric.  They have real chemistry.  The dialogue is sharp and witty, although apparently it loses something in the English translation, particularly the ambiguous exchange at the end of the film.  Still fresh and exciting sixty years on, it's nihilistic, anti-authoritarian tone is still bracing to this day.  One of the seminal films in world cinema, it's influence is still felt today.  

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless

        

Day for Night

Year of Release:  1973
Director:  François Truffaut
Screenplay: François Truffaut, Suzanne Schiffman, Jean-Louis Richard
Starring:  Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Dani, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean Champion, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut
Running Time:  116 minutes
Genre:  Comedy, drama

In the balmy South of France, a film crew are working on a trashy, romantic melodrama called Meet Pamela.  As the cast and crew negotiate romantic entanglements, various personal and professional crisis, the dedicated but increasingly harried director (Truffaut) is just determined to get the film finished.

François Truffaut was one of the cinema's great directors, and this is one of his finest, and most purely joyful films, a celebration of film and film-making.  The film features Truffaut's regular alter-ego Jean-Pierre Léaud as the sulky, neurotic leading man who has an affair with brittle, British star Jacqueline Bisset, while Valentina Cortese plays a formidable Italian diva, who has a past relationship with the ageing Lothario Jean-Pierre Aumont cast opposite her, and Truffaut himself plays Meet Pamela's put-upon director.  The celebrated author Graham Greene has a cameo as an insurance agent, credited as "Harry Graham". Everyone seems to be having a great time in their roles, and the film, which opens with a dedication to Lillian and Dorthy Gish, two great stars of the silent screen, is full of references to films and filmmakers.  The story focuses just as much attention on the nuts and bolts of making a film, as it does on the interweaving stories of the actors and crew.  The film-makers have to deal with lack of time and money, journalists, investors, costumes, sets, even a seemingly simple shot of a cat drinking from a saucer of milk takes forever to put on film, and the film's most expensive and elaborate scene is destroyed due to an accident in the development lab.  The film is at times, surprisingly dark and has moments of real emotion, but the mood, predominantly, is one of joyful celebration, and crucially is very funny.

François Truffaut and Jacqueline Bisset in Day for Night

The Soft Skin

Year of Release:  1964
Director:  Francois Truffaut
Screenplay:  Francois Truffaut and Jean-Louis Richard
Starring:  Jean Desailly, Francoise Dorleac, Nelly Benedetti
Running Time:  113 minutes
Genre:  Drama, romance

This French-Portuguese film from legendary French New Wave director Francois Truffaut tells the story of celebrated academic Pierre Lachenay (Desailly) who lives a comfortable life in Paris with his wife Franca (Benedetti) and young daughter Sabine (Sabine Haudepin).  During a trip to Lisbon to give a lecture he becomes infatuated with young airline stewardess Nicole (Dorleac) and they strike up an affair.  Despite their best efforts, Pierre and Nicole drift towards tragedy.

Despite being nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, and the fact that Truffaut was riding high on the international success of The 400 Blows (1959) and Jules and Jim (1962), The Soft Skin was a major box office disappointment.  It's a pity because this is a very good film.  An essentially dark and somber drama, this still sparkles with Truffaut's style, albeit toned down from his previous works.  This is a morality play, a drama about the workings of adultery and it's devastating consequences.  You know it's going to end badly from the start, even with some humorous scenes towards the middle involving a horrible dinner party and Pierre trying to be polite to a host who just won't leave him alone.  The abrupt climax hist something of a false note, but it woirks due to the strength of the performances.  This film pays a lot of attention to the workings of the various deceptions Pierre uses to keep his philandering a secret from his wife and his friends and colleagues.  Jean Desailly turns in a fantastic performance as the weak but calculating husband, he manages to give heart to a very unlikable character, who is hard to warm to because most of what happens to him is his own fault, however Desailly makes him at least vaguely sympathetic, but Nelly Benedetti owns the screen with a searing performance as the wronged wife who gives a brilliant savage tongue-lashing to a man who harasses her on the street.

Francoise Dorleac (who was the sister of Catherine Deneuve) also gives a great, quiet performance as the mistress, giving some depth to a fairly under-written character.  Interesting art imitated life, because Truffaut left his wife for Dorleac.  Dorleac never got the chance to become the major star she could have been, because she tragically died in a car crash in 1967 at the age of 25.

       Jean Desailly and Francoise Dorleac in The Soft Skin

Fahrenheit 451

Year: 1966
Director: Francois Truffaut
Screenplay: Jean-Louis Ricard and Francois Truffaut, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury
Starring: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring
Running Time: 112 minutes
Genre: Science-fiction, satire, drama

Summary: In the near future, reading is highly illegal and all books are banned, on the grounds that they "make people unhappy", and firemen are employed not to fight fires (all homes are fireproofed) but to find and burn illicit stashes of literature. The populace are kept docile by pills and endless bland, interactive television, as well as magazines containing dull pictures and no words. Montag (Werner) is a fireman who lives with his wife Linda (Christie), who wants nothing more than a second wall-mounted TV screen. One day, Montag meets a strange young woman named Clarisse (Christie again) who asks him whether he has actually read any of the books that he burns. Out of curiosity, Montag smuggles a novel home and begins to read, soon finding himself hooked on the joys of literature, and questioning all the ideals and convictions by which he has lived his life.

Opinions: The idea of Francois Truffaut, one of the leading lights of the New Wave movement in French cinema, filiming one of the works of science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury is an intriguing one, and Fahrenheit 451 is arguably Ray Bradbury's best novel and is definitely a modern classic. However this is not one of Truffaut's best films. Bradbury is not an easy author to adapt to another medium, his poetic turn of phrase while reading well on the page tends to sound unconvincing when spoken. Also this was Truffaut's first and only English language movie, and he claimed it was his "saddest and most difficult" film-making experience. This was mainly due to his antagonistic relationship with Austrian leading man Oskar Werner, with whom Truffaut had previously worked with on Jules and Jim (1962). Originally Terence Stamp was cast in the lead, but he dropped out because he thought that Julie Christie's dual roles would overshadow him. Werner wanted to play his part as more conventionally heroic, while Truffaut wanted a more hesitant performance. Truffaut thought that Werner's performance was "robotic" and wanted him to play it as if he was just discovering the books for the first time, sniffing at them and wondering what they were, but Werner commented that since it was a science-fiction film he should play it as a robot. Werner gives a very stiff performance and it's very obvious that he is uncomfortable with the English-language dialogue. By the end of shooting Truffaut and Werner were not speaking to each other, and Werner had his hair cut before shooting his final scenes in order to create a deliberate continuity error. Julie Christie does fairly well with her two roles, having long hair as the sedated Linda Montag and sporting a fetching pixie cut as Clarisse, who provides much of the film's heart. Cyril Cusack also does well as the slimy Fire Chief, Montag's boss.
The future world of the film was shot on location in Britain, which viewed today makes it look a very old-fashioned future. The production is very much a product of it's time, and does look and feel inescapably late sixites. The director of photography, incidentally, was Nicolas Roeg who went on to become a noted director in his own right. However the film has many evocative images and some elements work very well. For example the opening credits are spoken rather than appearing as on-screen text, helping to introduce a world without the written word.
Look out for copies of the novel Fahrenheit 451 as well as Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and an issue of Cahiers du Cinema, the influential magazine which Truffaut used to write for, among the burning books.
The adaptation is fairly faithful, although Truffaut was unhappy with what he felt was the stilted and unnatural English dialogue and preferred the French dubbed version. However most of the film's dialogue problems are more to do with the source material. It's no masterpiece but contaisn enough interesting stuff to make it worth checking out.
The title, incidentally, refers to the temperature at which apparently book paper catches fire and burns, although in reality it is 340 degrees Centigrade (842 degrees Fahrenheit).



Cyril Cusack and Oskar Werner in Fahrenheit 451