To paraphrase Robert Christgau on Rockpile, the difference between two of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Jean Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut is that Goddard loves movies for everything it implies as culture and Truffaut loves movies for everything it is as film. Of the two, Goddard may have been greater but Truffaut was much more fun and if you want proof of that axiom, go to Film Forum from today Friday March 28 th through Thursday, April 17 th –it is every movie Truffaut ever directed plus Goddard’s “Breathless” and Spielberg’s “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind” –which Truffaut appeared in.
Francois is the Cahier des Cinemas maverick, who headed the entire new wave of French film in the 50s, at the altar of Hitchcock, Ford and Renoir. He died of brain cancer at the ridiculously young age of 52, having provided the world with what amounts to 25 masterpieces. All the Antoine movies (telling the story of the young boy protagonist of “The 400 Blows”) are must sees. “Jules And Jim” is one of the greatest movies of all time, there isn’t a better movie about making movies than “Day For Night”.
Indeed, looking through these movie titles, I’ve seen them all, and it is hard to chose the best but my favorite? “Small Change” , Here is the storyline but believe me it is much more fun than it sounds like: “The adventures keep coming for the members of teacher Jean François Stevenin’s class: a boy tells his first dirty joke; a wilfull girl locked up by her parents broadcasts her hunger via bullhorn; a tot bounces back up after a seven-story drop; and the class outcast turns out to be abused.” It is showing on April 15 th and I may try and make the 745p. Incidentally, the title is more fun in French: “L’Argent de Poche”… pocket change? Pocket money?
But you can chose any movie here completely at random and thoroughly enjoy it. Like Hitchcock, but in many different milieu’s, Truffaut made going to the movies fun and he made it more than that. One of our greatest, like I said.
Get tickets here.
