Amazon.com essential video

The classic science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury was a curious choice for one of the leading directors of the French New Wave, François Truffaut. But from the opening credits onward (spoken, not written on screen), Truffaut takes Bradbury's fascinating premise and makes it his own. The futuristic society depicted in Fahrenheit 451 is a culture without books. Firemen still race around in red trucks and wear helmets, but their job is to start fires: they ferret out forbidden stashes of books, douse them with gasoline, and make public bonfires. Oskar Werner, the star of Truffaut's Jules and Jim, plays a fireman named Montag, whose exposure to David Copperfield wakens an instinct toward reading and individual thought. (That's why books are banned--they give people too many ideas.) In an intriguing casting flourish, Julie Christie plays two roles: Montag's bored, drugged-up wife and the woman who helps kindle the spark of rebellion. The great Bernard Herrmann wrote the hard-driving music; Nicolas Roeg provided the cinematography. Fahrenheit 451 received a cool critical reception and has never quite been accepted by Truffaut fans or sci-fi buffs. Its deliberately listless manner has always been a problem, although that is part of its point; the lack of reading has made people dry and empty. If the movie is a bit stiff (Truffaut did not speak English well and never tried another project in English), it nevertheless is full of intriguing touches, and the ending is lyrical and haunting. --Robert Horton ... Read more

Reviews (86)

Great film about a bleak future
This review is for those (like me) who haven't read the book. There, now we can talk about just the movie. Oskar Werner stars as Montag, an unhappy man living in a monotonous futuristic society. Books are illegal, Big Brother-style screens are on every wall, emotions are out, and people take drugs to endure their bleak lives. Montag is a fireman whose job it is to find hidden books, burn them, and arrest the owners. One day he becomes curious about these books and sneaks a copy of David Copperfield home. His spaced-out wife (Julie Christie) turns him in to the authorities and he must run for his life. He runs to a free-thinker (also played by Christie) who is a book-lover.

Oskar Werner is wonderful as the sensitive, confused fireman who longs to really connect with people, ideas, and feelings. Christie shines in two very different roles: the glamorous but bored housewife and the brave ex-teacher who dares to read books. The music contributes to the intense and dangerous mood of this film. Its view of the future is frightening and sad, where paranoia the norm; but the ending is quite hopeful and touching. I recommend this movie to those who have not read the book; you are free to enjoy it without comparing it to the novel. The script, actors, and direction are all excellent.

blahh science fiction - but good drama and social comment
First of all - I did not read the book. - So I cant make that comparison. But I have seen the movie a number of times.
If you are interested in drama and symbolism - this film is replete - but if your interest is science fiction - you will be sorely disappointed. This is a very good film - very subtle - considering its content. Give it some patience and time - there is much more depth then its initial viewing might suggest. I was initially disappointed - for the acting by the main character seems bland, the sets seem trite and there is lack of grandeur and dynamic range for a science fiction film - but the film really shines in its understated drama and symbolism especially when dealing with choice, freedom, relationships, censorship and the forbidden fruit of knowledge. The music by Bernard Hermann is excellent - For the price and with a number of very good extras -the DVD is a steal. I personally I don't particularly like Truffaut,s work for its lack of in your face emotional drama- but I appreciate him more from seeing this film numerous times. The DVD is from a very good print. -The DVD is in mono but sounds good - no hiss.

Skill and High Art.
This is Fahrenheit the way it was meant to be. Truffaut is a master film maker. I also recommend "Two English Girls" and "Jules and Jim" as well. It's impossible not to think of the Heinrich Heine quote, "Where one burns books; one will soon burn people" while watching it. The inversion of a fire fighters who, rather than put out fires, start them was a very innovative idea on Bradbury's part. The main character is quite compelling and easily evokes our sympathy. This work is prescient and timeless. In today's talk show era, do books still not remain dangerous and subversive?

Beware the Four-eyed Snake of 451!
In Ray Bradbury's renowned novel FAHRENHEIT 451,the ubiquitous TV set is ONE-EYED SNAKE. This was our nation's foremost story teller's metaphor for SATAN himself. Poisonous pap of televison programing--as moronic narcotic--was Bradbury's ingeniously ironic reversal of Biblical Forbidden Fruit TEMPTATION. Books (Written Word,THE LOGOS) became singluar source of SIN. A near future, Government-issue-drug stupored, anti-child, PC society run by fascist oligarchs and policed by FIREMEN (licensed to burn books and Readers to death)was Bradbury's arch parody of the Culture of Death's Garden of Eden.

Francois Truffaut gamely tries to capture the suicidal listlessness...Unholy Spirit...of The 451 NATION. The anti-grace of Death is cinematically characterized by repeated sequences of autoeroticism(masturbation)by myriads of vacant-eyed,zombie-like citizens. That these lack erotic power(or even quality of the mildly perverse)conveys the pathetic depths to which a once-dynamic people has deprived itself of its own humanity.

Even "depravity" requires too much energy of this narcisscist culture embracing rank stupidity in the name of equality. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH proclaimed Orwell in 984.CYRIL CCUSACK...who essays role of THOUGHT POLICEman in the Richard Burton-featured adaptation of 1984...is BEATTY, consummate GRAND INQUISITOR and high priest. Oscar Werner is superb as MONTAG his would-be acolyte successor. Thematic climax of the film consists of ritual burning of a hidden, forbidden LIBRARY;and martyrdom death of a woman who refuses to "live" life of non-being "distracted"...as T.S. Eliot observed...from distraction by DISTRACTION.

Julie Christie plays dual and pivotal roles. She is CLARISSE,the young heroine...in the novel, a 17 year old wunderkind...who initiates/converts Montag into the world of books and THE BOOK PEOPLE. [The Book People are remnant who flee 451 Society to memorize books. These persecuted enemies of the State become LIVING books, whose "leaves will one day be "for the healing of the nations." Julie Christie also plays LINDA. [In the novel she's named Mildred, Bradbury's allegorical personification of damned/damp "dust". She is Mordred anti-woman/Judas]. Linda betrays Montag(reports him to Beatty). He READS aloud an excerpt from a 19th century romantic novel and offends her child-hating friends. [One is ironically named Clara. Another...particularly repugnant...is named Mrs. Bowles: 30'ish;thrice-married/twelve abortions-so-far, narcisscist whose most recent husband blew his brains out.] Most damningly Montag's public READING of forbidden literature jeopardizes Linda's standing in THE(Virtual)TELEVISION FAMILY.[ Wall Screen 3D-TV conclaves comprising idiotic glamour show participation; and membership in "reality"-interactive serial-SOAP OPERAS ]

Unlike the novel--climaxing with nuclear annihilation of the 451 Nation--Truffaut's 451 ends with thematic ambiguity paralleling its principal filming technique. Sometimes photography is in the "wash-out" grey colors which frequently characterize Euopean movies. Sometimes it blazes with colors of killing flames; or nihilistically numbs with GESTAPO jet black uniforms of Firemen sealed with the scourge/flash of the Phoenix-rising-from- pyre flames in triumph. 1966 Critics apparently failed to appreciate(grasp?) Truffaut's cinematic metaphors(an APPLE is strategically eaten by Book People or initiates. The Forbidden Fruit is manifestly bidden to humanity's new Adam & Eves)...

It's said Ray Bradbury--over the past decade--previously submitted three scripts for a 451 update(and was tempted by offering Sean Connery as Beatty). But Hollywood Homies mangled 451 of intellectual impact with TERMINATOR-action ambience consigning subtlety or chance of religious/mythical metaphor to the flames. Another try is promised in 2005. NOW that Michael Moore has offended Mr. Bradbury by plagiarizing not only his greatest work's title but bastardizing its essence(which IS about Freedom:The Logos/Word(s)that sets one Free)in a puerile comprise of dreck and propaganda, one of America's few genuine literary geniuses has "cried havoc". Bradbury threatens to set loose the dogs of legal war on the Four-Eyed Snake.What the result will be, quien sabe? It's possible not only renewed study of a literary masterwork will ensue; but revived interest in a cult film...more or less consigned to cinematic dustbin...will acknowledge the reel FAHRENHEIT 451 as minor,but worthy achievement in its own right. Whatever Moore and his media lackies end-up calling "'Fahrenheit'9/11",irony of his effort at pirating a literary gem of political-religious mythology might well turn firey wrath on PC's pitiful Captain Beatty clone.(451 Stars!)

A dark future perhaps not so far
To have a book is verboten (forbidden). And those people who still read them, will be punished.
Thsi statement is the central nervous of that film. The sequence of a woman reading a comics without words is a cruel methapor of a world that reminds us to the book's burn in the Reichstag in the thirties.
Julie Christie, an extraordinary actress and a true icon of the sixties, steals the show. Oskar Werner as Montag is OK.
A film who'll disturb and will let you thinking.
A must for you to watch it.
The paper burns at 451 Farenheit degrees. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Truffault can be a lot of fun
Francois Truffault, who has always terrified me as a true "art" director, comes across in this film with warmth and humor; not only that, one get to learn a little about Paris under the Nazis and how people "coped." Catherine Deneuve, wife of the director and lead lady, is gorgeous as she balances the needs of her cranky Jewish husband in hiding (Heinz Bennent; he's continuing to direct by listening in to rehearsals through the pipes) and those of her handsome leading man (Gerard Depardieu), whose only way of coming on seems to be to grasp a pretty woman by the hand, gaze into it and murmur, "I seem to see two women here." For a movie about a sad and terrible time, there is a lot of strength, here, and I found Truffault, for some bizarre reason, easy to understand.

Grace and Elegance
If films were planes, Francois Truffaut's "The Last Metro" would be a glider, cutting gently through the winds of occupied Paris, and moving gracefully through the lives of a theatrical troup attempting to mount a production during wartime. As Marion Steiner, Catherine Deneuve brings elegance and beauty to the subtle intrigue and fluctuating emotions of day-to-day life under Nazi occupation in 1942. Like Truffaut's film, her performance is one of nuance and subtlety, and garnered her the award for best actress in France.

Marion Steiner leads two lives, separated only by a stairway. Below the theatre, in the cellar, she shares a love with her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennet), a Jewish theatrical director who must live in hiding, coming to life only when Marion's footsteps bring her into his claustrophobic world.

Their love is real, but is slowly threatened by the distance and contrast of the living going on up above and the stagnation and frustration below. The internal strain becomes greater when Marion falls under the spell of her leading man, Gerard Depardieu, Truffaut's camera capturing the fleeting glances and icy demeanor that is our window into Marion's heart. Depardieu's passion for French resistance, however, may prove greater than his passion for the theatre, and Marion must also contend with a pro-Nazi theatre critic who could sink the production before it begins.

Only after Truffaut has used his camera to show us this elegantly detailed world of the French theatre during wartime does his screenplay suprise us, and remind us in an uplifting way that life itself is but a play, and we are all part of the cast.

This is definitely a masterpiece, but if you have not ventured into foreign films yet, I would not suggest this be your maiden voyage. One must ride the 747 first to appreciate the grace of Truffaut's glider, turning ever so quietly, without a sound, into the winds of the human heart.

Warning: subtitles cannot be turned off
Zone 1 Francophones beware: the english subtitles are on
the video layer and cannot be turned off. I suppose this
might save the production cost of redoing subtitles for
DVD, but it would be nice if this fact were mentioned in
the technical info. Completely unacceptable, hence the
automatic one-star rating.

A true classic
One of Truffaut's and Deneuve's best pictures. It has warmth, history, a sense of the absurd, excellent pacing, and a bit of suspense. It's also has more a linear storyline then many French films. All of the performances are excellent.
Two Warnings:
1. Avoid dubbed versions (Deneuve's sense of humor is in her voice, not on her face, resulting in a mirthless character when dubbed).
2. The new Fox version changed the sub-titles and wrecked some of the best lines.

Late Truffaut that gets better with every viewing.
Truffaut follows in the tradition of Jean-Pierre Melville by adapting a popular genre as a serious allegory for the darkest period in French history: the Nazi Occupation. Just as Melville used the gangster film to examine notions of legality, legitimacy, authority and criminality in a period when the Resistance were outlaws and the police were rounding up Jews for the death camps, so Truffaut takes the beloved putting-on-a-show warhorse, and uses it as a metaphor for the conditions of life in Occupied France: the need to act, adapt and continually discard roles. When Depardieu's character leaves to fight for the Resistance, he puns about exchanging his make-up (maquillage) for the maquis. What Truffaut is most interested in, as in all his films, is the effect this need for constant dissembling has on individual identity and relationships.

This wonderful romantic comedy plays like a mature update of 'Casablanca', richly stylised, bravely open-ended, with Truffaut's moving camera wrenching spirit from claustrophobic confines. ... Read more

Reviews (55)

Classic film about childhood
Anyone interested in Francois Truffaut or the French New Wave could scarcely do better than to start here. Unlike some other classic films, one doesn't need to be a film buff to enjoy this. One only has to like good films.

Jean-Pierre Leaud is terrific as Antoine Doinel, a lonely Parisian boy who lives with his neglectful mother and flaky step-father. At school, Doinel has become a target of wrath for his sadistic English teacher. Doinel begins to hang out more and more with his deliquent friend. Together, they skip school, go to the amusement park, and watch films (the young Truffaut was an avid movie watcher).

Truffaut's Paris is certainly not a friendly place for children. Parents are neglectful and teachers are more interested in bringing students into line than in teaching. Indeed Doinel's English teacher seems to believe in harsh punishments over the most minor offense. The more the world tries to bring Doinel into line, the more he is compelled to rebel. Finally, Doinel steals a typewriter to be pawned to pay for his escape from home. Having a change of conscience, he tries to returns it, but is caught and sent to a home for juvenile delinquents.

Truffaut directs this semi-autobiographaphical film with great feeling, showing us the humor, triumph, and most of all sadness of his tragic childhood. The widescreen black & white photography of Paris is beautiful so be sure to see this letterboxed.

A rather delightful drama for young and old alike
I just saw Francois Truffaut's 400 Blows again, and this indeed is the epitomy of the New Wave by making a story which can be seen like a French neo-realist reaction, and being as such it gets its chance to shine in the hands of the debut Truffaut. It's a lovely, wonderful cinema experience.

In a partially autobiographical tale, Truffaut's protagonist is Antoine Doinel, a pre-teen-ish youth who can be identified with by most who are at or older than his age viewing his tale- he hates school, goes to the movies as escape, and has parents who tend to be over-bearing and un-attentive. After a string of events occur (one of which getting thrown out of his school) he tries to live on his own, which proves un-successful in a caught theft, which gets him into an "observatory for delinquent youth", or juvenile prison.

One of the truly fascinating qualities of the film is that it all goes along in a totally naturastic manner, or at least natural for the characters presented, and there aren't any over-stylings to go along with the drama. The stylings that are apparent give the film a perfect balance: the spellbinding scene on the carnival-twister, the un-broken shot of the boy running down the road, and shots that add emotional weight merely by the time allowed on the object. And this is all worthy of a younger audience as well; even those who don't watch foreign movies could consider this their must-view as an introduction to the genre.

400 Blows
I've spent decades avoiding THE 400 BLOWS, afraid it was either dark and brooding, or a documentation of child abuse (physical and/or emotional), or an angry and vindictive assault on the authors' of Francois Truffaut's traumatic childhood.
I shouldn't have worried. THE 400 BLOWS is a gentle and compassionate movie. It isn't overwhelmed by its anger, although a few characters, particularly the coming-of-age hero's mother and his school teacher, aren't terribly sympathetic. Being new to THE 400 BLOWS, I found the commentary by Premiere magazine film critic Glen Kenny especially helpful in understanding French New Wave cinema in general and Truffaut in particular. By the way, according to Kenny "400 blows" refers to a French colloquialism similar to the American "paint the town red." It means to give oneself over to every type of excess, and raise a little heck in the process.

The quintessential film of the New Wave
Since the first images you stan by literally caught by the huge poetry who emerges. The sad opening theme with a cloudy Paris as frame gives us a striking clue about the film explores.
With the amazing exception of Forbidden games (Rene Clement) never before a movie had drown in the child's universe like these two films.
Truffaut is far from making a statement. His camera simply spies the emotive familiar nucleus of this nice guy and the terrible troubles generated by his own parents.
We laugh, and cry with the disventures and irreverent madness made outschool. The portrait of Balzac burning is a high point in the picture. It's a long journey in the world of this child that well might be you and me if...
The plot is very organilcal, and the final sequence is brethtaking.
Hopeless and a sense of desperation seems surrounding us when you watch by the last time to our youn boy.
Forget about all the films that followed to this one in the New Wave, like Breathless, les cousins, or Jules and Jim of Truffaut also.
This is the gem of the New Wave cinema.
In memory of the great Andre Bazin, the creator of the Cahiers du cinema.
A must for everyone.

Not a very good movie.
I don't mind slow movies, but this movie is slow + boring and 100% predictable. In my opinion, it's terrible. ... Read more

Description

A major French New Wave classic, this film affirmed, for all time, the visionary genius of Francois Truffaut and introduced one of the most celebrated menage a trois in the history of the cinema.Jeanne Moreau is the amoral, mysterious Catherine, an elusive beauty who desires two devoted friends, Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre), and must have them both.But for Catherine, no commitment is ever final.Her restless, reckless spirit keeps her from experiencing true love, and leads, ultimately, to tragedy for all three.Jules and Jim is a gentle, lyrical hymn to the fragility of life, love, and friendship. ... Read more

Reviews (32)

ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES OF THE SIXTIES
Five or six years before the " Peace and Love " movement that erupted in the United States and shocked a prude nation, French director François Truffaut, in his third movie, JULES & JIM, dared to film a love story between one woman and two men. And there was no guilt in sight ! Jeanne Moreau's love for Oskar Werner and Henri Serre was as innocent as the beautiful song she sang in the movie.

Fançois Truffaut must absolutely be rediscovered one of these days because all the fuss made about his New Wave companion, Jean-Luc Godard, has hidden the fact that his filmography is one of the more personal and interesting of the second part of the XXth century.

For once, Winstar has put a lot of goodies in this DVD. A commentary, a dozen trailers of other Truffaut's movies, filmographies and a tribute to Jeanne Moreau (in fact, a few scenes put one after the other while Jeanne is singing the well-known song of JULES & JIM).

Images and sound are average (there is alas ! only one Criterion...) but imperfections disappear behind the fulgurant modernity of this 1961 movie.

A DVD for your library.

Truffaut's best?
This film, The Man Who Loved Women, and Stolen Kisses rank as my three favorite Truffaut movies, and I have seen them all except for Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me. Poor audio and poor image quality may make any other film a waste to purchase on DVD, but not this one. Breathtakingly filmed, acted, and directed, this is one of the best films in movie history. Simply THE best French New Wave film. One aspect of Truffaut's movie direction that is truly his own, is the way the camera will stay on a scene long after the main actors are out of the shot. Most often the camera stays on some other minor characters who have nothing to do with the movie. Little things such as these late cuts are what sets Truffaut above the rest (high above Godard in my opinion). Without Jeanne Moreau, the film would be good but not great. The two male leads are exceptional as well. Films like this one are perfect reasons why all movies should be seen in their widescreen aspect. The scene with Bassiak, Moreau, Werner, and Serre, all on screen at the same time in the cottage is magnificent. It doesn't get much better than this in movie making.

THIS PURE TRIANGULAR LOVE
"She is the greatest sweetheart in French cinema. While gangsters and gangs kill each other, she dances in a tutu in a circus, is tortured by a sadist and makes her way through bursts of submachine-gun fire, with thoughts only of love. With trembling lips, wild hair, she ignores what others call 'morals' and lives by and for love. Messieurs, producers and directors, give her a real part and we will have a great film."

Francois Truffaut wrote this of Jeanne Moreau in 1957. Shortly afterwards, when fascination turned to friendship, the burgeoning director's greatest ambition would be to make a film with the woman who had become the most important person in his life.

In JULES ET JIM, Jeanne Moreau's is a performance of touching beauty and lucidity that is unparalleled in cinema. She is Catherine, the woman in love with life, who in turn falls in love with both Jules and Jim (superb performances from Oskar Werner and Henri Serre), amateur scholars, dandies, and the closest of friends. Over the following years, through joy, disillusionment, a world-war and parenthood, the three share a relationship that defines love itself; as Catherine alternates her pledge of devotion from Jules to Jim, and even to other men, our heroes explore a friendship that has been touched by a soul who is "not a woman" but rather "...an apparition".

But Catherine is not "fatale"- rather the very essence of woman, whose divine right it is to live as she pleases, when she pleases, where any potentially ruinous consequences are the unfortunate fruits of an unmitigated love of love itself. Truffaut's art is one that invokes the Goddess, embodied here by an enigma of extraordinary grace and power. His camera laughs with her, cries with her, and encapsulates with amazing dexterity the flow of movement - the whirlwind of life. The theme of JULES ET JIM- a triangular love affair that questions monogamy - is unhindered by any sensuality or sexual intimations. Instead it is a love that is pure, chaste and eternally resonant. The remarkable tact of Truffaut's direction, the refutation of showiness, conveys a cinema of charm and elegance, as the film's mood undulates in accordance with the whims of our great love Jeanne Moreau - from untold joy to the heavy burden that is the awful truth.

JULES ET JIM is a film of harmony and genius, a hymn to life that asks the audience not to judge, but rather to experience and to love. We can relate to the film Truffaut's own words, when, speaking of Nicholas Ray's JOHNNY GUITAR and Howard Hawks' BIG SKY he said: "Anyone who rejects either should never go to the movies again, never see any more films. Such people will never recognize inspiration, poetic intuition, or a framed picture, a shot, an idea, a good film, or even cinema itself."

Overrated
I got Jules et Jim because I saw 400 Blows, thought it was the best movie, and wanted to see more Truffaut. Unfortunately, Jules and Jim did not have nearly the same greatness of 400 Blows.
Jules and Jim is a love triangle, about two best friends who fall in love with the same woman (Jeanne Moreau) and have a 20-odd year menage a trois. Of course, none of the principles age at all, there is a child whos introduced and then pretty much ignored, and one wonders how three people pay rent when all they seem to do for years and years is sit around in a huge chalet sipping beer, smoking cigarettes and having sex. This is the movies, I can understand these things.
However, what "killed" this movie for me was that underneath the cool cinematography and clever, chic narration, was at heart a very silly love story. Sure, there are famous images, like Therese the kept girl "steam engining" a cigarette. The menage a trois is really just a cheap soap, and thus the "tragedy" seems tacked on and hollow. Jeanne Moreau plays Catherine is a sulky, quite possibly manic-depressive siren, but she's so irresponsible and annoying one can't even sympathize with Jules and Jim for their obsession. Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) are ciphers, and their friendship never quite understandable. In the end, the only way a kind of unconventional love story like this can work is if the characters are either likeable or interesting. Jules, Jim, Catherine, as well as Albert (who seems to criss-cross country lines in pursuit of Catherine -- how did these people get visas?) are neither. The movie's early scenes have a narrator with droll commentary, but this is largely lost in the later, more melodramatic parts of the movie. Catherine finally becomes so unbearable that I literally couldnt stand to see her onscreen anymore.
Basically I think this is a movie that makes the Top Ten lists because "everyone" thinks they should like it. I wonder why. The whole thing reeks of artificiality -- there's screaming and crying aplenty, but the total effect is numbing. For instance, why does Catherine nearly have a nervous breakdown when she can't conceive with Jim? She already has a daughter with Jules. I would gather that in 1961 the film was avant-garde, with a frank storyline of adultery without any moralizing. But I admit that in this case a little moralizing might have done some good: the characters are all so self-absorbed and selfish that glorification of this movie as a great romantic drama seems not only inappropriate but obscene.

A meditation on freedom
It doesn't suprise me that at least a 1/4 of the reviews here are from people who cannot understand why this movie is so beloved. Most people these days watch movies as spectacle. This film will give back whatever you invest in it. If you invest nothing, you get nothing.

As I've gotten older, this movie has become more and more emotional for me. The characters briefly live out a kind of reckless and carefree nirvana. They then spend the rest of the film trying to recreate the feeling. But as time goes on, entanglements creep in. Children are born. Wedding vows are taken. Friendships are tested. Which of us over 30 cannot relate to this?

The last line of the film, a seemingly tacked on detail about a request made to a civil servant, sums all that has come before with pure poetry. A final plea for freedom is made, but..."it was not to be permitted". ... Read more

Description

It is Paris, 1942, under the German Occupation, and a successful Jewish theatrical director (Heinz Bennent) is forced to go underground, leaving the running of the theater to his wife (Catherine Deneuve).With her husband in hiding, she must contend with a vicious, pro-Nazi theater critic as well as face her deepening feelings for leading man Gerard Depardieu.Digitally remastered under the supervision of cinematographer Nestor Almendros. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Truffault can be a lot of fun
Francois Truffault, who has always terrified me as a true "art" director, comes across in this film with warmth and humor; not only that, one get to learn a little about Paris under the Nazis and how people "coped." Catherine Deneuve, wife of the director and lead lady, is gorgeous as she balances the needs of her cranky Jewish husband in hiding (Heinz Bennent; he's continuing to direct by listening in to rehearsals through the pipes) and those of her handsome leading man (Gerard Depardieu), whose only way of coming on seems to be to grasp a pretty woman by the hand, gaze into it and murmur, "I seem to see two women here." For a movie about a sad and terrible time, there is a lot of strength, here, and I found Truffault, for some bizarre reason, easy to understand.

Grace and Elegance
If films were planes, Francois Truffaut's "The Last Metro" would be a glider, cutting gently through the winds of occupied Paris, and moving gracefully through the lives of a theatrical troup attempting to mount a production during wartime. As Marion Steiner, Catherine Deneuve brings elegance and beauty to the subtle intrigue and fluctuating emotions of day-to-day life under Nazi occupation in 1942. Like Truffaut's film, her performance is one of nuance and subtlety, and garnered her the award for best actress in France.

Marion Steiner leads two lives, separated only by a stairway. Below the theatre, in the cellar, she shares a love with her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennet), a Jewish theatrical director who must live in hiding, coming to life only when Marion's footsteps bring her into his claustrophobic world.

Their love is real, but is slowly threatened by the distance and contrast of the living going on up above and the stagnation and frustration below. The internal strain becomes greater when Marion falls under the spell of her leading man, Gerard Depardieu, Truffaut's camera capturing the fleeting glances and icy demeanor that is our window into Marion's heart. Depardieu's passion for French resistance, however, may prove greater than his passion for the theatre, and Marion must also contend with a pro-Nazi theatre critic who could sink the production before it begins.

Only after Truffaut has used his camera to show us this elegantly detailed world of the French theatre during wartime does his screenplay suprise us, and remind us in an uplifting way that life itself is but a play, and we are all part of the cast.

This is definitely a masterpiece, but if you have not ventured into foreign films yet, I would not suggest this be your maiden voyage. One must ride the 747 first to appreciate the grace of Truffaut's glider, turning ever so quietly, without a sound, into the winds of the human heart.

Warning: subtitles cannot be turned off
Zone 1 Francophones beware: the english subtitles are on
the video layer and cannot be turned off. I suppose this
might save the production cost of redoing subtitles for
DVD, but it would be nice if this fact were mentioned in
the technical info. Completely unacceptable, hence the
automatic one-star rating.

A true classic
One of Truffaut's and Deneuve's best pictures. It has warmth, history, a sense of the absurd, excellent pacing, and a bit of suspense. It's also has more a linear storyline then many French films. All of the performances are excellent.
Two Warnings:
1. Avoid dubbed versions (Deneuve's sense of humor is in her voice, not on her face, resulting in a mirthless character when dubbed).
2. The new Fox version changed the sub-titles and wrecked some of the best lines.

Late Truffaut that gets better with every viewing.
Truffaut follows in the tradition of Jean-Pierre Melville by adapting a popular genre as a serious allegory for the darkest period in French history: the Nazi Occupation. Just as Melville used the gangster film to examine notions of legality, legitimacy, authority and criminality in a period when the Resistance were outlaws and the police were rounding up Jews for the death camps, so Truffaut takes the beloved putting-on-a-show warhorse, and uses it as a metaphor for the conditions of life in Occupied France: the need to act, adapt and continually discard roles. When Depardieu's character leaves to fight for the Resistance, he puns about exchanging his make-up (maquillage) for the maquis. What Truffaut is most interested in, as in all his films, is the effect this need for constant dissembling has on individual identity and relationships.

This wonderful romantic comedy plays like a mature update of 'Casablanca', richly stylised, bravely open-ended, with Truffaut's moving camera wrenching spirit from claustrophobic confines. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Based on two short stories by Henry James, The Green Room has afew Gothic overtones that are quickly supplanted by director François Truffaut's occasional predilection toward personal scrutiny as a filmmaker. Truffaut himself (as he did in The Wild Child) stars in the central role of a 1920s provincial journalist whose virtual solitude as a widower and father of a deaf-mute child exacerbates his unrelieved grief over the death of his wife and the loss of many friends during World War I. His reinvention of a dilapidated chapel into something more than a memorial for the dead--a container, rather, of his own manifest memories of their vital, abbreviated lives--becomes an obsession that takes its physical and spiritual toll. It is also, in Truffaut's often self-reflective way, a metaphor for the act of making movies: haunted places of people, memories, and ideas that exist forever as light and shadow on screen. One of the most curious of Truffaut's films, this 1978 feature doesn't entirely work in part because the demands on Truffaut as an actor exceed his abilities, and in part because it is an opaque mix of his running self-critique and the more accessible emotions of his earlier memory films such as Jules and Jim and Two English Girls. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (2)

It's A Blue World
"The Green Room" tells the story of a lonely man who has lost his wife 11 years ago. She died shortly after they were married, and the man cann't let go of her. One room in his house is sort of like a "shrine" to her. He keeps pictures of her, and talks to her, has candles lit. He feels it would be wrong for him to forget her and move on with his own life. This is a very "dark" movie. It basically is a story of obsessed love. Along the lines of Hitchcock's Vertigo. Given such a story one may think this has hints of Bergman. The dark atmosphere, could lead into a bleak story, perfect for Bergman, but, no, the film was directed by Francois Trufaut. So maybe it's not so odd to think of Hitchcock as well watch this. I think is Truffaut's "darkest" film a complete 180 from his usual "light" films like "Love on the Run", "Stolen Kisses" & "Day For Night".
I enjoyed "The Green Room" quite a bit. I think Truffaut was rather brave to take on such a project and he even stars in the film, and I think does a good job. There's one scene in particular that stands out, and shows that Truffaut was a good actor. He is sitting down starring at picture of his wife. At first we think perhaps he's crazy. He devotes so much time to the dead! Why? But, then something happens. The camera gets a shot of his face. There's such sadness on his face that all of a sudden we feel such empathy for him. We see he's not crazy, but, was truly in love with this woman. Life means nothing now that she's gone.
"The Green Wall" has some twist and turns, and may make it hard for some people to watch this film. Escpecially those who aren't use to seeing this type of film by Truffaut. And I certainly wouldn't suggest this be the movie you start your Truffaut collection with. After you've seen your share of Truffaut's film, then buold your way up to this one. I personally have seen almost all of his films.
I don't want to give away too much of the movie, and think it's better if people are surprised by what they see, and reading about it. The movie though does have nice cinematography by Nestor Almendros, who worked quite often with Truffaut and Eric Rohmer. Plus the acting by Nathalie Baye (Cecilia Mandel) is enjoyable as well. She and Truffaut have good chemistry between them at moments. If you want to see something different, I think this film should work nicely.
Bottom-line: Major departure from Truffaut's usual work, but, it works. Has some wonderful moments, and has a strange but effective message. One of Truffaut's best films.

The Green Room
I say five stars because Francios Truffaut is truly a cinematic master. As for the The Green Room it is his most profound and provocative movie. It gets to the essence of comtemporary feelings concerning, life, death, marriage, religion, committment, traditions, politics, etc etc etc. There is no end on reflections on various human conditions. It is really great art. The scenes are brooding. Dark. Sad. Natalie Baye plays Cecilia the protagist of Julien Davenne, quite sensitively as a solution to Julien's Perplexities of living. She tries to form a relationship just to overcome her own demise. One catches a glimplse that they will become true and life long friends; to be lovers Julien must work himself out but... that's too much to tell. As i said this film is quite interesting and I recommend it highly for people who like to go deep in character analysis. Au revior ... Read more

Amazon.com essential video

François Truffaut's fascinating 1969 film, based on a real-life, 18th-century behavioral scientist's efforts to turn a feral boy into a civilized specimen, is an ingenious and poignant experience. In a piece of resonant casting that immediately turns this story into an echo of the creative process, Truffaut himself plays Dr. Itard, a specialist in the teaching of the deaf. Itard takes in a young lad (Jean-Pierre Cargol) found to have been living like an animal in the woods all his life. In the spirit of social experiment, Itard uses rewards and punishments to retool the boy's very existence into something that will impress the world. Beautifully photographed in black and white and making evocative use of such charmingly antiquated filmmaking methods as the iris shot, The Wild Child has a semidocumentary form that barely veils Truffaut's confessional slant. What does it mean to turn the raw material of life into a monument to one's own experience and bias? The question has all sorts of intriguing reverberations when one considers that Truffaut's own wild childhood was rescued by love of the cinema and that a degree of verisimilitude factors into his films starring Jean-Pierre Leaud--the troubled lad who grew up in Truffaut's work from The 400 Blows onward. (The Wild Child is dedicated to Leaud.) --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Deserves to be Discovered
"The Wild Child" was directed by Francois Truffaut and released in 1970. Truffaut has made some extraordinary movies, such as the Antoine Doinel series and "Jules et Jim." Unfortunately, this movie is given relatively little recognition, even though it truly is first-rate. Based on a true story, the movie concerns Victor, l'enfant sauvage - a boy found in the wilds of France. Truffaut cast himself as Dr. Jean Itard an 18th century physician who helps "tame" and educate the boy. Initially branded an "idiot" and uneducable by local townspeople, Victor is helped immensely by Dr. Itard through his humane treatment.

The story is fascinating and quite gripping. In addition, the movie raises interesting questions regarding "civilized" behavior and ethics, as it compares Victor to various people in the town. Although similar stories has been told elsewhere (e.g., Herzog's "Every Man for Himself"), Truffaut manages to put his own interesting spin on the tale. Further, his direction is masterful, and he won Best Director from the National Board of Review. The film was made in black and white, which adds great realism to the story - it looks terrific (It won Best Cinematography from the National Society of Film Critics). The only debit is the lack of DVD extras.

Boy gone wild!
No-frills, pared-to-the-bone film by Francois Truffaut concerning the true story of a "savage" pubescent who was captured in a forest in France, living like a beast. The story takes place at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, but, rather curiously, Truffaut makes no political commentary about post-Terror France. All in all, this is a rather excellent idea, one to be emulated by other period-piece makers who clog their movies with "historical figures", famous events, or other data that don't have much to do with whatever story they're telling. Here, Truffaut sticks strictly to the point. (A miracle, considering this director's track-record!) Scarcely deviating from the source-material -- a journal by the doctor who took responsibility for the child, domesticated him, and attempted to train him up into a proper little Frenchman -- the director lets the story itself do all the work. The documentary-feel to the the movie brings many interesting themes, one by one, to the surface. Not the least of which is the relativism of "happiness". Bored of the endless lessons ("match this shape with this object", etc.), the boy runs off only to discover the forest has been spoiled for him forever by the doting doctor and his maid, by the delicious food, by the comfortable sleeping quarters, by the glasses of water and milk, and so on. He returns home willingly, but his face, upon hearing the doctor say, "Tomorrow, we resume our lessons," says it all. (This movie makes a thematic companion-piece to Nicolas Roeg's pessimistic *Walkabout*.) Also of note is that Truffaut reverts to black & white in this film (it was made in 1970), perhaps because he was concerned that the soft, lovely colors of the French countryside would encourage sentimentality. Indeed: the rather grim B&W photography, the clinical approach to the material, the serious implications underlying the story, and even his own wooden performance as the doctor, all combine to shoo away happy-ending seekers.

Truffau's Tarzan Movie
Before getting this DVD I'd only seen this film once before on TV sometime in the late 1970's. It was refreshing to see it once again particularly the prestine black and white form in which it is presented here.

The plot concerns the effort of a doctor, played by Truffaut himself, to educate a feral child that has been found in a forrest in a remote part of France. The story is told mainly through voice-over from a journal that we occasionally see Truffau writing and is supposedly based on true events that took place in the ninteenth centuary.

It is a beautifully observed film with understated and realistic performances from everyone involved in particular Jean-Pierre Cargol in the title roll as the boy who has lived in the forrest and become detached from society.

The strange thing about this film is it looks a lot older than it's 1969 production date and it is also strange that after two colour films Truffau went back to monochrome for this movie.

Truffau's doctor seems to be torn between emotional involvment with the child he eventually calls "Victor" and regarding his charge as a sociological experiment and that dilemma is at the heart of the film and is never really resolved even though his treatment of victor sometimes seems to owe more to Dr. Benjamin Spok than to ninteenth centuary child care techniques. Also when Victor is first examined by the doctor he comes to the conclusion that someone has at sometime tried to cut his throat but the doctor never tries to find out the identity of the attempted murderer or indeed the true identity of Victor himself. These aren't realy criticisms of the film so much as observations on how the film is presented although one thing that I would have welcomed would have been to have the voice- over in English as it is in the English versions of some of his other films; I find that having to read subtitles for both the dialoge and the voice-over is sometimes a bit waring and detracts from the excellent photography in this film.

In conclusion I feel this wonderful film is a neglected classic and I'm suprised that Hollywood hasn't remade it as it is such a great story.

Underrated Truffaut
There may be another Francois Truffaut film about a boy coping with traumatic surroundings - 1959's "The 400 Blows" - which is far better known (and arguably his greatest), but an equally personal, affecting work is the film made 10 years later, "The Wild Child". Based on a true case of the late 1700's, it examines a doctor's attempts to educate a 10 year old mute boy found living among the elements in a French forest. Having been abandoned by his parents since infancy, the child must learn to adapt to civilized society and, through his efforts, forms a bond with the caring doctor. The film's fittingly archaic tone is actualized by the grainy black and white photography. Truffaut (in one of his few starring film roles) is natural as the resolute doctor; his earnest curiosity is appealing. Jean-Pierre Cargol, in the titular part, is particularly impressive; In what superficially appears to be a simple role (maladroit, non-human movements, dialogue basically limited to high-pitched grunts), his unmannered presence imbues the film with a near-documentarian authenticity. Another gratifying personal film from a leading director of the French New Wave.

The Wild Child is spellbinding from beginning to end.
Please see this movie. I loved it and so will you ... Read more

Reviews (8)

A Funny and Emotional Ride
Truffaut's "Shoot The Piano Player" is a remarkable thing: a funny and light-on-its-feet movie about despair. The director combines the grittiness of David Goodis' noir novel "Down There" with his own more optimistic humanism and the full stylistic arsenal of the French "New Wave" to create a film that manages to say as much about Art and Life as any really good, satisfying book. Charles Aznavour plays the timid Edouard, aka Charlie, a piano player in a cheap bar who is really a classical concert pianist hiding from a catastrophic, tragic history. A pretty new waitress knows who he is and encourages him to live again. But as in most American gangster movies, you can't run away from your past. Truffaut includes an amazing amount of philosophy about women, Fate, success, failure, marriage; all couched in a runaway style that is familiar to us today, but must have been shocking and exhilirating back in 1960. (The famous cut to the "old woman dropping dead" could have come directly from MAD magazine.) And who hasn't sometimes felt bedeviled by fortune and shyness: we greatly identify with Charlie. The comically incompetent yet sinister villains are also a great touch. This movie feels as fresh as it must have 40 years ago.

Sometimes the book is just better!
Maybe one shouldn't compare the movie and book versions of a story. But sometimes that's inevetibable. And sometimes the movie actually improves on the book, ie. "In a Lonely Place." However, in the case of "Shoot the Piano Player," based on the book "Down There," by David Goodis, I can't say this is so. The look of the movie has that gritty noir feel, but all the time one feels as if they're watching the characters in a goldfish bowl ? from a great remove. You don't really get to know the characters or their motivations. In the book, this is much more clear and makes for a much more involving experience. Also, the addition of the character Fido (the piano player's younger brother) adds little to the story. In novel and movie we don't really get a great feel for why the waitress does what she does, but in the novel we get more of a feel for it and that does make a difference. It also makes a difference that we know more of the piano player's background, that he served with Merrill's Marauders in World War II, that, after losing his first wife, he went on a binge of anger and hate and fighting that finally led him to be the "docile" person he is when we meet him. This is little explained in the movie. Some of it's there, but much of it isn't and without it the character just seems a cypher. Read the book, watch the movie and decide for yourself.

MR CHARLIE
This luminous little movie contains 2 of the greatest scenes ever put on film. Charlie, a piano player in a seedy Paris bar, has locked away his heart so even he can't get to it. A young woman who works at the same bar is determined to crash through the wall he has constructed around himself. Through her, his painful past is discovered and the promise of the present ends in the disolution of hope. Truffaut is constantly surprising us with the unexpected. There are car chases & kidnappings & excapes and even oaths acted out; and all with an air of the inevitable. There's never been another film like it. The scene where the barmaid takes him home & they sleep together consists of 360 degree pans around the room with cuts of the couple settling into each others' arms as they sleep. It is one of the most poignant & beautiful scenes ever filmed. (The pans with goldfish feeding at the top of their aquarium are expecially touching.) And there is a scene of the hero Charlie, going to his piano audition, that is done with such economy of style that the mixture of clashing feelings comes flooding out. 'Don't shoot the piano player; he's doing the best he can.' Not to be missed.

NOSTALGHIA
At first, just two or three thoughts about the quality of the Fox Lorber DVD. Poor is the word. Subtitles one can not remove, six trailers of Truffaut movies, so so filmographies and that's all. If one considers that the DVD treatment of the images is average at the best, awful during the first five minutes of the movie in a nightly Paris, you will have to be a genuine Truffaut fan to buy this DVD. I am, so I bought it.

Why does I like this movie ? Well, I presume I'm touched by the so praised Truffaut touch for a beginning. But, above all, I always feel an intense nostalgy when I'm watching SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER. To hear Charles Aznavour play his sad melodies at the piano and the late Boby Lapointe sing "Framboise" move me a lot. To admire once again this fantastic actor Albert Rémy - the father in the 400 BLOWS -, Michèle Mercier before her ANGELIQUE serie, the screenwriter Daniel Boulanger in the role of a comic gangster or the director Alex Joffé as the passerby philosopher is an always renewed pleasure for me.

A DVD zone give it a chance.

I use the word 'emotional' a lot. It means everything to me
Truffaut said he realised, when filming 'Shoot the Pianist', a gangster film, that he hated gangster films. He shows his contempt most by consistently emphasising human truth over generic convention, but finally allowing generic convention to win brutally through. For Truffaut, genre is incompatible with humanity and its messiness.

Like many of my favourite films (and it is my favourite), 'Shoot' is a reworking of 'Vertigo', the story of a man who lets two women die because of his own emotional cowardice, leaving him in emotional shellshock. Aznavour's performance - and this isn't sufficiently realised - is one of the towering achievements of cinema, a complete, physical embodiment of diffidence, guilt, solitude and emotional paralysis, a man more lethal in his dithering passivity than murderous gangsters are in their violence.

Like all the best art, 'Shoot' is a tragicomedy, moving bewilderingly between the two moods, creating a devastating emotional texture - the hilarious scene where Charlie debates the best way to hold Lena only to tragically realise she's gone, or the frightening abduction scene that sees captor and juvenile captive argue comically over scarves.

As the title suggests, music is this film's soul, the only thing that can transcend genre for Charlie, the only way an emotionally dead man can feel.

Truffaut's restlessly inventive mise-en-scene, switching between studied artifice and breathless open air filming, is full of Hitchcock, Godard, Ophuls, Ray, Renoir - all the best of cinema; but in truth, there is no other film like it. ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Not as good as Jules & Jim, but still worthwhile...
This is the story behind Jules & Jim. It is a fictionalized account of the author who wrote it. So, instead of being one woman for two guys, it is one guy for two girls. Let me say this right off the bat - this is not in the same league as Jules & Jim. The other reviews of this movie which cite it as one of Truffaut's best are overly generous. Even the look of this film cannot compare to J&J, which was shot in timeless, glorious black and white and it still looks just as fresh today. Two English Girls is shot in color, which has faded somewhat and it makes the picture look cheaper.

In his book, The Films in My Life, Truffaut pledges his admiration for Henry Miller. He has a fascination with eroticism and it always troubled him that Miller could be frankly erotic in prose, but on screen it loses something and becomes [more erotic]. This movie is an exercise in testing the boundaries of artistic eroticism. It is a hit and miss affair: sometimes it comes off as a letter to Penthouse Forum and there is a scene which is disturbing to modern sensibilities involving two little girls. However, at its best I do think the film captures some of the awe of physical love that it aspires to.

I hope I don't seem too down on this film. It is still a Truffaut film, which means that it is better than anything you are going to see in theaters now. It's just that he is competing against himself, which is alas, too much competition.

Truffaut's Best Film
Only Truffaut could have made this film. It is very sad, but it has all his charm and tenderness, his very French appreciation of love and happiness, and his literary cast of mind. He said that he liked to make films about "the sentiments". If that was his goal, this was his best film.

A BEAUTIFUL SENSITIVE MOVIE
Arguably the director's best movie,LES DEUX ANGLAISES ET LE CONTINENT is both charming and moving.TRUFFAUT always loved stories about love triangles(his own life was like that).It is not surprizing that he added the scenes that were originally missing when the film was first presented in 1971.He was obviously very fond of that movie.JEAN-PIERRE LÉAUD his alter ego from the DOINEL series was miscast to be sure,but it doesn't diminish the quality of the storytelling.A common TRUFFAUT device here is the use of the voice over that comes off perfectly.Very few films have succeeded in presenting the theme of love in all it's cruelty and physical aspects.MURIEL and ANNE the héroines are reminiscent of the BRONTÉ sisters.A good choice for anyone who wants to understand the psychology of women.

Truffaut's Best
Truffaut made lots of great movies, and lots of mediocre ones. "Two English Girls" stands out, I think, as his best.
Like "Jules and Jim," this film involves a love triangle, only instead of two men and woman, as the title suggests, this triangle is made up of two women (sisters) and a man named Claude (Jean-Pierre Leaud).
Initially, during an extended stay at the girls home in England, Claude falls in love with Muriel (Stacey Tendeter), but after a period of separation, he decides to "play the field." When Muriel's sister Anne (Kika Markham) moves to Paris, Claude begins a relationship with her, only to find that she can play the field too. Eventually, Claude and Muriel come together for one night, and the experience rekindles Claude's love. But it is not to be. I won't spoil the films ending, but will say that it leaves only the most unsentimental viewers without tears in their eyes.
The films sole flaw is a short part in which Muriel confesses to masturbation in a letter. This detracts from what is otherwise a supremely sensitive and touching film.

ANN & MURIEL
One of Truffaut's favorite movies of mine, TWO ENGLISH GIRLS is an adaptation of a novel from Henri-Pierre Roché, the author of "Jules & Jim", a book Truffaut had adapted 10 years before.

Two women, one man and the waltz of the misunderstandings and the hesitations dancing between the walls of a love that doesn't dare to speak. The movie features a romantic love story happening a hundred years too late, so, as always in Truffaut movies, the characters are out of focus, they live a virtual passionate love that could fill hundreds of pages of a novel but are doomed to suffer in the trivial reality of the beginning of the XXth century.

A superb musical score by Georges Delerue and a Jean-Pierre Léaud lunar as usual should tempt you even if the quality of the DVD presented by Fox Lorber is no more than average.

A DVD zone your library. ... Read more

Amazon.com essential video

François Truffaut's lavish and fun 1973 comedy-drama about a film production is a clever hall of mirrors, with Truffaut himself playing a director, and his most important actor in real life, Jean-Pierre Léaud (The 400 Blows), portraying Jacqueline Bisset's immature costar. Day for Night is full of tales undoubtedly told out of school and repeated here in camouflage, and one can't help but be impressed with the stylistic and technical means by which Truffaut captures the adventurousness of a full-budget shoot. The cast is very good all around, with actors in some cases playing fictional thespians and in other cases playing members of the crew. A sequence set to thrilling music by Georges Delerue celebrates the whole art of filmmaking as seen from an editor's perspective--it makes one want to drop everything and shoot a film of one's own. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (22)

The best film about filmmaking...
If you have any interest in filmmaking, just buy this film. Don't even debate the question. Day for Night is the best film about filmmaking there is. We have Truffaut playing a thinly veiled characterization of himself. Of course, Jean-Pierre Leaud is there as well as an immature actor. Plus, Jacqueline Bisset at her most beautiful.

The film captures the French's love of film - from the way that Truffaut collects film books to the way that Leaud spends every possible moment going to the movies. The best line of dialogue is when Truffaut says "When I begin, I try to make the best picture possible. Half-way through, I just try to finish." Anyone who has ever worked on a film set will see that some things are eternal - the way all actors are children, and all the drama that develops. More than anything else, the film captures the sad quality of making and losing a family. A film crew comes together for about a month, spend all their time together, become very close, and leave for the next project. No wonder no one in show business is normal.

I watched the dubbed version of this film. I usually prefer subtitles, but in this instance the dubbing was perfectly acceptable.

"Making a film is like a stagecoach ride into the Wild West"
Day For Night (also called La Nuit Americaine) is a captivating glimpse into the mechanics of the film-making industry. It is a film within a film - the plot concerns the trials and tribulations (both human and technical) involved in the production of the fictional movie "I Want To Present Pamela".

We are inducted into the world of director Francois Truffaut and his motley band of cast and crew as they cope with the seemingly endless difficulties in trying to make a film they can be proud of in a limited amount of time. There are tempestuous actors who storm off the set, canisters of film which go missing, and even the death of an actor during filming to deal with. And yet, through all this, the film itself reigns supreme.

Day For Night is a French film, so unfortunately for English-speaking viewers some of the feeling is possibly lost in translation (either through dubbing or subtitling). However, the essence of the film remains, helped in no small part by some montage sequences set to Georges Delerue's wonderful orchestral score.

The film was made almost thirty years ago, so looking at it from a purely historical perspective, it might seem a little dated. However, to see it merely as a representation of a point in time is to miss entirely the message contained within the movie; this message being that films are timeless. So whilst we might smile nostalgically at the clothes (most of which are unbelievably tight), the aspects of human relationships revealed are as relevant today as they were in 1973.

Buy this now, while you still can.
If you're thinking about it at all, you should buy this DVD as soon as possible, because it looks likely to go out of print. I read a news article this week saying that the estate of Truffaut has sued Warner Bros. to stop making this DVD.

Apparently Warner had the rights to the film for 30 years, which ended May 24, 2003. Warner released this DVD in the US on March 18, 2003, and the Truffaut heirs say this was knowingly done to get in before the deadline. Apparently excess stocks of books and movies are usually allowed to be sold even after rights have been lost. However, the Truffaut estate claims Warner released this DVD so close to the expiration of their rights that they are abusing this. They want a large amount of money and for the DVD to be pulled from stores, because they say Truffaut and his estate never got much if any money from Warner Bros.

However this gets resolved, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this well made DVD, which finally offers the film in the original French, just quietly disappear from the market at some point soon. If you want it, pick it up now, before it's going for $100 at ebay.

If your French is poor, be ready to read a lot!
As the film began, I was annoyed (because I'm not a great fan of Truffault). By the end I was in grateful tears. A truly inspiring film about making art. In it, Truffault rightly predicts the future of filmmaking -- that films would be made on the streets, independent of Hollywood.

Like any Truffault film, one must be in the mood to enjoy intellectual banter and slow development to get to the heart of it. This was very Altman-esque, with lots of activity and talk at once making the subtitles difficult to follow. Yet once I resolved myself to sitting close enough to read constantly, I was completely taken up with the beauty. Truffault brilliantly illustrates the experience of being an artist in a medium that requires so many tedious details to be taken care of. The actors are superb and the characters are developed brilliantly, beginning the film as the caricatures that they present to strangers, and becoming more developed as they get to know one another. The music was also a suprise, as instead of using it as background filler or to create suspense, he brings in distinct themes at certain parts to draw one into greater understanding. Long live the DVD format -- watching the accompanying interviews was a great learning experience.

A Delightful Film by a True Film Master = a True Delight
This DVD of Francois Truffaut's charming 1973 classic "Day for Night" is a wonderful little movie - very bright, funny, warm, cute, inviting, entertaining, informative, and fascinating. In the mold of other great films about making films, such as Fellini's "8 1/2" and Godard's "Contempt", Francois Truffaut let's us visit the set of a French film crew at work - with himself playing the deaf director in charge. Francois Truffaut does as much acting in this film as directing. Indeed, just four years later, he'd star in Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" as the French scientist Lacombe. It's a sheer joy from start to finish and the humanity shines throughout. I loved this film.

The DVD is a nicely mastered picture with some pleasant extras, such as a documentary on the film by film scholar, Annette Insdorf (who always gives a wonderful introduction to any French film masterpiece).

Francois Truffaut makes wonderful movies and this is one of his best! An adorable movie by anyone's standards. ... Read more

Amazon.com essential video

Critic Pauline Kael neatly summed up the timeless appeal of François Truffaut's 1976 film by calling it "that rarity--a poetic comedy that's really funny." In other words, Truffaut's brilliant, upbeat study of resilient children in a French village is both artistically satisfying and joyously entertaining, proving yet again (after his acclaimed debut film The 400 Blows) that few directors remembered and understood the experience of childhood as clearly as Truffaut. The film's episodic structure reveals its young characters gradually, leaving them and returning to them as their individual stories unfold. Most of the sketches are hilarious (as when a little girl uses a megaphone to announce that she's been "abandoned," resulting in generous gifts of food from her surrounding neighbors), but there's also a story about a boy with abusive parents who learns to survive by his own ingenuity. Throughout, this remarkable film gets all the details precisely right, featuring a youthful cast of kids who don't seem to be acting at all. It's as if Truffaut had somehow gained privileged entrance into their world, and they carried on as if the camera simply wasn't there. (Another French film, Ponette, would achieve a similar, more heartbreaking feat two decades later.) --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Reviews (15)

J'AI FAIM!!!
This is a WONDERFUL, striking movie...I watched in French class several years ago and have always looked back on it fondly. So many of the issues are "shocking" to Americans, and serious issues are treated plainly with humor and wit, instead of the dramatic "dressing up" that they usually recieve on "popular" films. I LOVE THIS MOVIE...

Enjoyable!
I finished this movie today in French class. It is a very good comedy. There is no plot to the movie it is basic scenes of these children who go to a school. I would not buy it but if you find it somewhere you can rent it you defianately should rent it.

The Surviving Child¿
Small Change is a film that describes interactions between different children and their social macrocosm and this leads to different results in their social microcosms, since the children are under the complete control of their guardians. The adults' parenting sometimes leaves the children vulnerable and which is presented in a number of troubling scenes. Despite these perilous situations, the children survive and have to learn how to manage by themselves in order to live a happy life. Nevertheless, the parents do offer affection and love for the children, which aids in their struggle through life. In turn, the children also affect adult rule over them through different actions. Truffaut displays great understanding for children through this film by creating a next to perfect dissection of child development and child psychology that psychologists such as Harlow, Vygotsky and Piaget would call "a functioning experiement in action". Overall, there are several pleasurable moments in the film that are well balanced with the serious occasions, which leaves the audience with a brilliant cinematic experience that is full of wonderful life lessons.

Not really a comedy
I've read all the reviews and they all seem to be missing the REAL point of the movie. Sure, it shows some delightfully comedic vignettes about childhood in France (and well, really the nature of childhood), but all of those funny bits like Geoffrey a fait boum and the police chief's daughter with her megaphone "j'ai faim" stand in stark contrast to the outcast Julien Leclerc (please pardon me if that is not precisely his name, but I am relying on my memory on this), who lives in a run down shack on a street where people just did not live and who was regularly abused by the "unseen enemy" of his family members (which yes, you do see in the end).

In this film we see the contrast of the innocence of childhood shattered by the heartbreak of abuse. This was an era where child abuse was just beginning to be dealt with in the media and we see Truffaut giving us intermittent glimpses of a child on his own, finding it hard to stay awake in class because he was forced out of the house for the night, picking up coins that dropped out of people's pockets at a local carnival, and fearing taking his clothes off for the school physical because of the bruises on his body.

I think we do a great disservice to the film and to Truffaut to call it a comedy. There is so much more to it than that.

gregory went boom!!
oh my gosh i love this movie!! i'm watching it in french class right now and it is the funniest thing ever!! when gregory fell out the window i almost died laughing and when slyvie stood on her porch saying j'ai faim over and over again!! that was hilarious!! i want to buy this soo much and everyone should watch it!! it's the best!! ... Read more

Description

Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant star as former lovers who find themselves unintentionally reunited seven years later as neighbors in a small French village who rekindle their ill-fated relationship. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Not one of Truffaut's best
If the movie was not directed by Francois Truffaut, who would say it's a masterpiece? To me, this movie is far less attractive than Jules et Jim and 400 Blows. The movie centres on a love affair between a married husband (Gerard Depardieu) and a married wife (Fanny Ardant) who happened to be lovers in the past. One day, they became neighbours and the sparkle of love was reignited. Truffaut liked to play with relationships in his movies. He posed the question "Who is your true love?" and "How if you react if your heart betrays you?" onto the chracters, and we can see the bewilderment in the first half of the movie. However, the movie starts to collapse when Adrant was put into a mental institution as no signs of her madness was mentioned or even noticed in the movie. And the later tragedy was already predicted when a dog was smelling a bag in a restaurant when the couple met the tennis club owner. The signs of suspense were unnaturally put to hint the audience. The death in the end falls in the cliche of ending a dead knot of love. To compare this movie, I would say Wong Kar-wai's In the mood of Love is on a much higher level on dealing with love affairs.

The making of a diva
Ardant and Depardieu look younger in this film, although age has not hurt Fanny Ardant, has made her even more beautiful (see 8 Femmes). This movie is about 20 years old so this was France at the time of Truffaut. This was the first movie of Fanny Ardant directed by Francois Truffaut. She is beautiful in this movie, in fact Truffaut eventually married her and they had a daughter.

Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant are former lovers who are reunited unintentionally after several years, as neighbors in a small village (think small ' none of Paris - with proverbial French dogs, yes, the canine variety, one is inside a restaurant with diners!) They are married to different people who both seem very nice, one would think the past is behind the two former lovers, but this is a Truffaut movie, it cannot be mundane or even predictable nor be a soap opera. While the movie will not push you on the edge of your seat, Truffaut is a master in exploiting the senses and emotions. The interactions of the former lovers gives you a glimpse of the nature of their past relationship. It was not an ordinary affair. Ardant and Depardieu rekindle their affair and the emotional roller coaster starts. There are deep psychological scars that now create new wounds with the rekindling of the relationship. The movie is sensuous, funny, lighthearted, disturbing then dark and sad. The end is very surprising.

The DVD features trailers from Truffaut's other films including 400 Blows and the Wild Child.

All You Need is
Depardieu and Ardant are paired in this movie, and not for the last time, and produce a grotesque story of obsession between former and now reunited lovers. Ardant's character is married, and her older, boring husband is beginning to suspect that she has feelings for another man.

If you conclude from this movie that the French are so much in love with being in love that they are not outraged even when love kills, I won't argue with you. "The Woman Next Door" is about forbidden love and fatal attraction. It is a movie about two people who are lost in the world without love, but who cannot love in this world.

One of Truffaut's Finest
This is a film which epitomizes not only Francois Truffaut's recurrent themes - obsessive love, an ordinary man's cognizant self-destruction - but also his style of understatement, which, as a personal favorite of mine, is closer to the experience of real life than that of any other filmmaker. When one witnesses a supreme disaster, what does one notice? Not the kind of coverage of events such as many "hot" American directors today think is powerful - dozens of shots that show the same action over and over again in closeup, medium shot, full shot, tracking shot, crane shot, computer FX shot, you-name-it shot; but instead from the point of view of ONE person who is intimately involved - who may miss half of the action, yet agonizingly fills in what he missed with what he imagines. This is the genius of Truffaut, who represents this admirable Gallic trait perhaps as much as any other French artist of the twentieth century. The acting of the principals Ardant and Depardieu is perfection, and the story is one of relentless emotional buildup, leading to a shattering denoument.

Magnifique !
Le film de ma vie. Merci ... Read more

Amazon.com

François Truffaut's cool, creamy-smooth melodrama of a doomedaffair sets the lush romanticism of exciting indiscretion in a world where sudden stabs of ominous music hint at a tragedy in the making. Jean Desailly is a famous literary critic and publisher who becomes entranced with the lithe, strikingly beautiful flight attendant (Françoise Dorleac) who keepscrisscrossing his path while he's away on a speaking engagement. He's middle-aged, successful, and seemingly happily married with a wife and daughter, but he plunges ahead with an affair, careful to avoid friends and familiar places. The Soft Skin is not really a thriller, but Truffaut invests it with Hitchcockian echoes of guilt and fear of discovery, and he meticulously plots scenes with the precision of a heist film. Pulling back the veneer of chic elegance and attractive confidence, Desailly eme