Muskaan Vatvani

13 May 2021

History of Film (1960-present)

Prof. Dahlia Schweitzer

The Film of Tomorrow: François Truffaut’s Impact on Cinema As We Know It

As a result of the political, social, and economic unrest in France, the late 1950s saw the

birth of arguably the most significant and influential movements in cinematic history: the French

New Wave. Young filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol launched the

movement through their rejection of traditional filmmaking methods. However, it is François

Truffaut who is considered to be the most significant pioneers of the movement. Truffaut’s

attacks on established filmmaking techniques and encouragement of the prioritization of the

‘auteur’ paved the way for New Wave and altered the course of cinema throughout the world,

making it what it is today. In this essay, I will be discussing two of Truffaut’s most successful

films, Le Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and Tirez sur le pianiste/Shoot the Piano

Player (1960), that facilitated the movement and epitomizes the kind of novel and

groundbreaking films that followed.

To understand Truffaut’s impact on the French New Wave and cinema as a whole, one

must first consider the state of French cinema in that era and the role that Truffaut played in

pioneering the movement. Though France was a dark place during the second world war, cinema

thrived. During the Nazi occupation, many films were produced and the French public flocked to

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the comfortable movie theatres to avoid the harsh reality of the war and their daily lives.

However, due to significant regulations and censorship, films were mostly in the fantasy genre

and did not discuss the war or any other crises going on at the time (Royer, 2006). Due to this,

after the French liberation in the 1940s, there was a distinct desire for personal expression, the

truth of representation, and artistic thought in artists and filmmakers alike. In the years that

followed the liberation, cinema flourished, becoming more popular than ever, and journals (such

as L’Ecrean Francais) became a platform for writers to critique films and develop theories. In

1948, one such writer, Alexandre Astruc, wrote a landmark article titled “Birth of a New

Avant-Garde: The Camera as Pen” in which he called for filmmakers to create films more

personal and self-aware, so that their art could become “a means of writing just as flexible and

subtle as written language”, labeling this approach as “Camera-Stylo” (Monaco, 2006, p. 14).

This article became a manifesto for the New Wave but it wasn’t until 10 years later, when a new

generation of young critics joined the Cahiers du Cinema, that the theory was put into practice.

One of these critics, and the first to produce a New Wave film, was François Truffaut. In 1953,

Truffaut wrote an essay for the journal titled “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema” in

which he attacked the filmmakers of the previous generation, deeming the Tradition of Quality as

old fashioned (terming it ‘le cinéma du papa’) and denouncing their dependence on literary

works, conventional filmmaking techniques, and separation from contemporary reality, among

other accustomed aspects of cinema at the time (Glenn, 2014). He argued that the current style of

cinema was not visual enough and relied too much on the screenwriter rather than the director

(the ‘auteur’). His theory insisted on a more personal relationship between the filmmaker and the

viewer and emphasized that films must no longer act as alienated products consumed by mass

audiences, but rather an experience that the audience must engage in (Toprak, 2016). He states,

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"the film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and

autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary." (Truffaut, 1953).

Truffaut’s critiques on cinema as it was and how he felt it should be is directly reflected

in his films, especially in his first and most successful film, The 400 Blows (1959). A

semi-autobiographical film about Truffaut’s own childhood, The 400 Blows is a touching

coming-of-age telling of the young and rebellious Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) who

shuffles between the oppressive regimes of home and school while struggling to find his own

identity. Unlike films from previous decades, this film’s story is deeply personal and true-to-life,

an element that went on to be characteristic in the New Wave films that followed. Through the

film’s story, Truffaut brings up many unconventional and abstract topics such as identity,

abortion, and poverty, that otherwise would be considered taboo. In going against the Tradition

of Quality, New Wave films established an aesthetic style of their own, emphasizing a “change of

relationship with reality” (Greene, 2007, p. 9) as they wanted to, in Truffaut’s words, “capture

more of the truth, the truth of the streets, the truth of performance and the actor” because “one

reaches a profound truth by a superficial one and sophisticated cinema had lost even superficial

truth.” (Truffaut, 1959). Through The 400 Blows, Truffaut “speaks of ordinary experiences and

situations, fragile individuals, daily recognizable language and emotions where the director

displays a non-superior relationship to his characters” (Conomos, 2007). In this way, he not only

captures the realities of his childhood but also ours; “in speaking of himself, he seems to be

speaking of us” (Jacques Rivette as cited in Insdorf, 1994). There are many moments in the film

that capture such daily realities, such as the scene where Antoine pretends to be asleep when his

mother comes home late and then overhears her argument with her husband in the next room, a

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universal experience of a child growing up in an unstable home and a reality that audiences

would not ordinarily see on the big screen in other films at the time. Another example is the

scene where Antoine, a ‘latch-key kid’, arrives at an empty home after school, starts his

homework, explores his mother’s vanity, and sets the table. This scene does little to advance the

plot other than revealing what kind of home life he has. Similarly, the overhead shot of the

schoolchildren slowly breaking away in small groups as they follow their oblivious gym teacher

down the Paris streets until there are only two students left has no overall bearing on the plot, but

instead “functions thematically as a visual riff on the subject of childhood rebellion against adult

regimentation” (Fabe, 2004, p. 129).

The same can be said of Truffaut’s second feature, Shoot the Piano Player (1960), which

also exemplifies his abandonment of Hollywood’s conventional narrative modes and

encouragement of more psychologically realistic characters. An homage to the classic American

gangster film, this part tragedy, part comedy film follows the adventures of Charlie Kohler

(Charles Aznavour), a resident piano player in a small cafe in Paris, as he gets wrapped up in his

family’s criminal ways while simultaneously maneuvering through a whirlwind romance. The

film is based on David Goodis’ novel Down There, and though Truffaut maintains the dark

atmosphere of the book, he does not hesitate to shuffle between multiple genre conventions,

constantly undermining our expectations with abrupt changes of pace and tone. For instance, in

the opening sequence, we see Chico (Albert Remy) running for his life through the streets at

night through fast-paced shots in near darkness or the harsh glare of the street lights. However,

the mood abruptly shifts as Chico falls and a passer-by helps him to his feet, prompting a long

continuous tracking shot that follows them as they walk along the street discussing deep,

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philosophical topics such as the benefits of love and marriage. Additionally, nothing said in the

conversation adds to the plot of the story, illustrating Truffaut’s emphasis on not only a realistic

character but also just shows the character as they are rather than someone with an overarching

goal. The film also doesn’t hesitate to show us the dark realities of life, including struggles with

identity, death and suicide, and the dark underbelly of city life. Though it took a while before

Shoot the Piano Player got the recognition that it deserves, it now stands as a modern classic that

has helped shaped cinema into what it is today, especially through the techniques established by

Truffaut.

Along with establishing a new perspective on creating and criticizing films, Truffaut also

developed many filmmaking techniques that went on to become characteristic of the New Wave

film. In rejecting traditional filmmaking techniques such as continuity, the young filmmakers,

including and especially Truffaut, began to employ new and unconventional techniques that

emphasized discontinuity and self-reflexivity. They did this by implementing jump cuts, freeze

frames, and long takes, among other techniques, which de-emphasized spatial and temporal

continuity. One great example of the freeze-frame is at the end of The 400 Blows when Antoine

runs away from the detention center and to a beach, where the camera freezes and zooms in on

his face as he looks directly into the camera. This shocked audiences at the time as it was very

unusual to implement the technique in a film, especially at the end. Directors of traditional

Hollywood films attempt to “conceal the traces of the cinematic apparatus so as not to interfere

with the spectator’s immersion in the fiction.” Truffaut opposes this by exposing the artifice of

the film medium, causing it to be self-reflexive as it disorients the audience (Fabe, 2004, p. 131).

A successful example of a jump cut can be seen in Shoot the Piano Player when Charlie goes to

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his audition, walking up to the door and hesitating on ringing the doorbell. Truffaut implements a

jump cut that makes it seem as though Charlie has reached for the doorbell twice before pulling

away. The utilization of this technique not only disorients the audience but also emphasizes the

importance of that action as this is the scene that alters the course of Charlie’s life. In an attempt

to depict their characters in a realistic light, Truffaut also uses long tracking shots multiple times.

For example, the last scene in The 400 Blows shows Antoine running to the beach. Instead of

using montage to depict this journey, Truffaut chose to take one long tracking shot following his

run. He does this to emphasize Antoine’s struggle both in literally trying to get away from the

detention center and metaphorically in trying to find himself in a world where he is constantly

belittled and misunderstood. Similarly, in the aforementioned scene in Shoot the Piano Player

where Charlie is walking to his audition, Truffaut uses a long tracking shot that follows him up

the stairs and down a long hallway to the door. This is done to build suspense, leading up to the

moment where his life is altered forever. Furthermore, the development of the French New Wave

came at a time of great technological advancements, which allowed the pioneering filmmakers to

reject the traditional method of filming in a studio. New handheld cameras and portable sound

recording devices allowed for them to film on-location, using direct light and sound that further

emphasized realism. Truffaut was one of the first to do this, as seen in The 400 Blows where

many scenes are shot on the streets of Paris with available light. All of these techniques went on

to become characteristic of the New Wave film and are still utilized in films to this day.

In helping establish the French New Wave, Truffaut has shaped cinema into what it is

today, inspiring generations of filmmakers and inadvertently aiding in the establishment of

multiple other cinematic movements throughout the world. New Wave films provoked strong

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reactions in state-run cinema schools around Eastern Europe where the films were quickly

imitated by young directors (Marie, 2003). In Poland, poet Jerzy Skolimowski went on to direct

many films that resembled that of the New Wave. In Czechoslovakia, a new generation of

filmmakers created films full of youth and spontaneity fresh out of the state-school FAMU,

where they had watched Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Godard’s Breathless over and over

(Marie, 2003). This occurred in many parts of the world; Brazil’s ‘cinema novo’, for example,

was one of many cinematic movements that launched in response to the New Wave. All of these

movements have become historical landmarks of cinema, marking radical breaks in filmmaking

and criticism during a time of great unrest. To this day, many filmmakers, including Martin

Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Quentin Tarantino, cite Truffaut as a source of inspiration

for their production styles. In fact, he himself suggested that Warren Beatty read the script of

Bonnie and Clyde, which went on to become one of the first American New Wave films (the

‘New Hollywood’ era of the 1970s), marking a shift in American cinema (Coates, 2010).

In conclusion, through his pioneering of new, avant-garde techniques and opposition

against conventional filmmaking methods, and well as his development of the auteur theory and

the emphasis on the marriage between art and reality, François Truffaut is greatly responsible in

shaping cinema into what it is today. The 400 Blows and Shoot the Piano Player act as two

markers of a turning point in cinematic history, led by young filmmakers who went on to inspire

generations of filmmakers and altered the reception and criticism of films entirely.

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 References

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Retrieved May 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44018650

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Cinema. https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2000/francois-truffaut/blows/

Coates, K. (2010, May 28). French New Wave: The Influencing of the Influencers. The Film

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luencers/

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https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/marie6.pdf

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Monaco, J. (2006). Yeni Dalga. PM Publishing.

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329322234_Truffaut_and_new_wave