His gems are forever

Vikramdeep Johal looks at the work of the French master Truffaut

IT’S over four decades old, yet it is still worthy of being called the "new wave". The early works of French film-makers like Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Louis Malle and Alain Resnais seem fresh even today, retaining their power to provoke, enthral or move viewers worldwide. These directors — mostly former critics — burst onto the scene in the late 1950s with the aim of reinventing cinema. They used the camera the way a creative writer wielded the pen — with considerable freedom and individuality. Hollywood film-makers Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock were their main influences, "City of Lights" Paris their grand canvas.

After a decade of frenetic creativity, the "new wave" petered out as the auteurs adopted divergent paths. Godard’s cinema became more political and polemical, while Truffaut and Malle went the commercial — but still artistic — way. Warts and all, the movement made an indelible impression, influencing directors not only in France but also in Britain, the USA and Czechoslovakia. (Our own Mrinal Sen’s path-breaking Bhuvan Shome used nouvelle vague techniques like wild editing and breezy camerawork).

Among these French masters, it is Truffaut (1932-84) whose films are the most charming and entertaining. The 400 Blows (1959) and Stolen Kisses (1968), screened recently in Chandigarh, are two of his best movies. The former heralded the arrival of the "new wave" when it was shown at Cannes. It was a triumphant return for the "vicious" critic-turned director, who had been banned the previous year from the festival for writing vehemently against the idea of film festivals.

The autobiographical story of an unloved adolescent boy who ends up as a juvenile delinquent tugs at your heartstrings no matter how many times you watch it. The protagonist, Antoine Doinel, was played most unaffectedly by Jean-Pierre Leaud. It was the beginning of an enduring friendship between the director and the actor, who worked together in several films. (Truffaut even dedicated his movie The Wild Child to his alter ego Leaud).

The 400 Blows was in the neo-realist mould, but its poetic vision and avoidance of cliches made it an original creation. It is impossible to forget the last scene in which Antoine, having escaped from a correction centre, reaches a deserted beach. As he approaches the camera diffidently, the frame freezes, signifying the futility of his freedom in an uncaring world.

Antoine Doinel’s story continued in Love at Twenty (1962), a compilation of five vignettes on love among the youth, of which one was directed by Truffaut. Doinel (and Leaud) reappeared in Stolen Kisses, an offbeat comedy about a young man’s misadventures on the personal and professional fronts. Nothing lasts long in his life, be it a job or a passion. The only thing that survives all this transience is his friendship with Christine (Claude Jade), which eventually blossoms into love — whose present is perfect but future looks uncertain.

Truffaut made two more films with the same character (and actor), Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979), which focused on the protagonist’s far-from-perfect married life.

Truffaut’s empathy for his characters shines through his other works as well, such as the brilliant Jules and Jim (1961), a bittersweet love triangle set in the pre-World War I era, and The Wild Child (1970), the inspiring tale of a doctor (played by the director himself) who takes up the challenge of civilising a Mowgli-like wild boy. (The latter’s influence can be seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black).

As a screenwriter, Truffaut produced original scripts and adapted novels with the same enthusiasm. For him, cinema and literature were closely related. He didn’t sacrifice words for the sake of images while bringing to the screen works as diverse as French writer Henri Pierre Roche’s Jules and Jim, Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451 and American crime novelist Cornell Woolrich’s The Bride Wore Black.

His idol was the "master of suspense" Alfred Hitchcock, whose achievements, he felt, had been unfairly under-rated. Keen to establish Hitch as one of the great figures of world cinema, Truffaut met him in his Hollywood office in 1965 and spent over 50 hours interviewing him with the help of an interpreter. The result was a perceptive analysis of the legend’s movies and methods, and it is still regarded as the best book on the subject. Truffaut also paid homage to the master in his suspense thrillers The Bride Wore Black, Mississippi Mermaid and Confidentially Yours, which was his last film.

"Are movies more important than life?" asks a character in Truffaut’s Oscar-winning Day for Night (1973), a glowing tribute to the magic and madness of movie-making. For this humanist, the two were not just equally important — they were indistinguishable.

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