Francois Truffaut at Work

by Carole Le Berre

Francois Truffaut (1932-1984), French motion-picture director and critic, was a leader of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) movement of filmmakers who rejected the slick, impersonal style of studio filmmaking for a more personal approach, in which the director has sole creative authority and is recognized as the author of a film. Truffaut was born in Paris. After a troubled childhood, he left school at the age of 14. Through his passion for film, he met Andre Bazin, founder and co-editor of the influential journal Cahiers du Cinema, for which Truffaut began writing. Throughout his filmmaking career, which began in the late 1950s, Truffaut wrote or co-authored as well as directed all his feature films, which combine comedy, pathos, suspense, and melodrama. His first film was the highly acclaimed "400 Blows" (1959), the story of Antoine Doinel, a misunderstood adolescent.^ This semi-autobiographical protagonist is featured and further developed in "Stolen Kisses" (1968), "Bed and Board" (197