Hitchcock/Truffaut: Auteur Interviews Auteur

Few directors ever became a popular celebrity like Alfred Hitchcock. His imprimatur and famous profile were used to brand books, magazines, and even a television show. Yet, as bizarre as it seems to us today (with Vertigo recently eclipsing Citizen Kane on the Sight & Sound critics poll), in the early 1960s, Hitchcock was not widely hailed as an artist. The exception was in France, particularly among Cahiers du Cinema’s grubby circle of critics and filmmakers. That most definitely included François Truffaut. He convinced the Master of Suspense to sit for an epic eight day interview that would eventually be edited into of the most treasured film books of all time. Kent Jones uses the fiftieth anniversary of its publication as a springboard to celebrate the films it analyzes in Hitchcock/Truffaut (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

In 1962, Hitchcock only had a handful of films ahead of him, but that would include iconic films like The Birds and Marnie, as well as Frenzy, the late career masterwork the public really missed the boat on in 1972. By this time, Hitchcock had completed signature films like Vertigo that would largely out of public circulation for decades. In the pre-video era, reading Hitchcock/Truffaut became the only way to get a shot-by-shot sense of the master’s work.

In case we doubt that fact, Jones enlists a relatively small but eminent cast of filmmakers to explain how much the book has meant to them. Not surprisingly, many are alumni of the New York Film Festival, including Martin Scorsese, who often appears in filmmaking documentaries and David Fincher, who is considerably less ubiquitous. There are no slouches in H/T, but it seems a strange how little screen time Kiyoshi Kurosawa gets, considering he is probably the closest to Hitchcock stylistically.

Frankly, Jones’ wandering focus makes it tricky to nail down his precise intentions. Although he incorporates considerable excerpts from the surviving audio tapes, he is not solely concerned with the book and interview. There is some background context provided for both titular filmmakers, but he clearly privileges Hitchcock well above Truffaut. In fact, Jones does not even explore Truffaut’s Hitchcockian films, like Mississippi Mermaid and The Bride Wore Black. Rather, it often seems like Jones is content to follow the points raised by his cast of filmmakers and the commentary of Hitchcock himself, in an almost freely associative manner. While that makes it hard to elevator-pitch H/T, its Hitchcock-centrism still makes for fascinating viewing. Let’s be honest, most of us could happily listen to the old master discuss the catering on Topaz.

Jones simply can’t go wrong with Hitchcock. Even if we can’t precisely spell out the film’s thesis, it further buttresses our general cineaste convictions that Hitch was one of the craftiest, wittiest auteurs to ever look at the world through the lens of a camera. Abundantly watchable, Hitchcock/Truffaut is highly recommended for Hitchcock fans (and somewhat so for Truffaut and Nouvelle Vague admirers as well) when it opens this Wednesday (12/2) in New York, at Film Forum.

Truffaut and Godard: Two in the Wave

There have been Czech, Romanian, and Japanese “New Waves,” in which small groups of young avant-garde filmmakers shook the countries’ cinema out of its complacency. Of course, the tsunami of all New Waves was the French Nouvelle Vague, essentially launched by François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. The turbulent relationship between the two former friends turned bitter antagonists and their significance within the Nouvelle Vague movement are analyzed in Emmanuel Laurent’s documentary Two in the Wave (trailer here), opening this Wednesday at New York’s Film Forum.

If there is one touchstone image in Wave, it is a haunting scene from Truffaut’s Blows, featuring the teenaged protagonist Antoine Doinel running across an empty beach. Though controversial, its screening at Cannes was an unalloyed triumph, ironically made possible by de Gaulle’s minister of culture, novelist André Malraux who chose it as France’s sole representative film. Soon thereafter, Truffaut lent his rising prestige to Godard’s feature debut, penning the initial story treatment for Breathless. The resulting film would be radically different, reflecting Godard’s highly unorthodox methods.

Laurent’s film could have easily been called Three in the Wave, with actor Jean-Pierre Léaud being the third of the Nouvelle Vague trio. Forever considered Truffaut’s alter-ego for his work in 400 Blows and in subsequent Doinel films, Léaud also appeared in several of Godard’s increasingly didactic films, like the explicitly Marxist Made in U.S.A.

More than just battling for Léaud’s on-screen soul, the two filmmakers would sever their friendship over a fundamental disagreement over nature of art. As writer-narrator Antoine De Baecque clearly explains, Godard, the Maoist from a well-to-do family, insisted art must serve as overt agitprop to have any social value. Conversely, it was Truffuat, a man from mean circumstance who had seen prison from the inside on more than one occasion, who insisted art should be true to itself and not adulterated for ideological purposes.

Wave is generously illustrated with clips from relevant Truffaut and Godard films, as well as those of some of their contemporaries, like Agnés Varda. Laurent also culled an impressive collection of archival photos and press clippings that he presents in a rather idiosyncratic style. Instead of showing them directly on-screen, he films actress-model Isild Le Besco pensively leafing through them. From a strict documentary standpoint, her selection does not make much objective sense, but she is certainly attractive, so who’s to object?

Sharply edited by Marie-France Cuénot, Wave captures the feeling of the Nouvelle Vague, without slavishly aping the jump cuts and other hallmarks of the movement’s stylistic breakthroughs. Laurent and De Baecque uncover quite a bit of telling video footage that provides fresh insights into both auteurs. However, it probably would not be the most effective introduction to either filmmaker for those unfamiliar with their work. After all, it gives away the endings to Truffaut’s Jules and Jim and Godard’s Breathless, which will also soon open at Film Forum in a newly restored print to mark its fiftieth anniversary. For dedicated Francophile cineastes though, Wave is full of fascinating details, nicely evoking the two very different directors and their groundbreaking films. It opens at Film Forum this Wednesday (5/19).

Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid

Though Truffaut’s reputation was established with intensely personal films that largely defined the French New Wave, in the late 1960’s he directed two stylish thrillers explicitly inspired by the visual techniques and strategies of Alfred Hitchcock. Like Hitchcock’s Rear Window, both were also based on the fiction of Cornell Woolrich (sometimes writing under the pen-name William Irish). Though, not initially well received by critics, they have held up well in retrospect, particularly Mississippi Mermaid (trailer here), which begins a special week long revival this Friday at BAM.

Mississippi has nothing to do with the American South. The film takes its name from the ocean liner which is to deliver Louis Mahè’s fiancé, Julie Roussel. Mahè and Roussel have never met, having conducted their courtship through the pages of the personal ads. When the ship docks in remote Reunion Island, the woman claiming to be Roussel looks nothing like the photo she sent to him. However, since she is played by Catherine Deneuve, Mahè lets it go. He admits to a deception as well. Instead of being the foreman of the local cigarette factory, he is actually the owner. Like a good sport, she accepts life as the new mistress of his sprawling tobacco estate.

Of course, little discrepancies keeping popping up, leading the audience to question just who did Mahè marry. However, the cigarette king of Reunion Island prefers to live in denial, until his phony paradise comes crashing down. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Deneuve seem perfectly cast as the driven Mahè and the calculating Roussel. Yet, their chemistry feels a bit off. In this love-hate relationship, the hate is perfectly believable, but the love not so much. However, they are complimented by a distinctive supporting cast, including co-producer Marcel Berbert (a frequent Truffaut collaborator), as Mahè’s cautiously suspicious business partner Jardine.

Truffaut and cinematographer Denys Clerval make excellent use of the exotic island locale. Though lush and green, there is also something disorienting and ominous about the jungle and tobacco fields surrounding the seemingly happy newlyweds. Truffaut takes visible delight in his noir tropes, dramatically pin-pointing the audience’s field of vision on something dangerous, like a pistol, or some nefarious bit of business. Composer Antoine Duhamel also heightens the Hitcockian vibe with his Bernard Hermann inspired score.

As the author of an acclaimed book-length interview with Hitchcock, Truffaut was an acknowledged expert on the master of suspense. His understanding and appreciation of the legendary thor of an acclaimed book-length interview with Hitchcock, Truffaut was an filmmaker comes through in each frame of Mississippi. It is a highly entertaining film, even if its lead characters make an unpleasant couple. Its BAM repertory engagement starts on July 10th.

Film Forum: Shoot the Piano Player

Of François Truffaut’s twenty-one full length features, four (Shoot the Piano Player, Mississippi Mermaid, Bride Wore Black and Confidentially Yours) easily fit within the crime film genre, with a fifth (Soft Skin) qualifying as a stretch, making up a significant portion of his filmography. Add to that his science fiction work as the director of Fahrenheit 451 and his acting role in Close Encounters, and you have Francois Truffaut, the master of genre cinema. In that context, his sophomore film Shoot the Piano Player is a perfect choice to conclude the Film Forum’s French (New) Crime Wave retrospective, with a week long run of a new 35mm print starting tomorrow.

Charles Aznavour might have been similar in stature to a Cagney or Bogart, but the French singer-songwriter looks nothing like a hard-boiled protagonist in Piano Player. Instead of wise-cracking his way through the action, Aznavour’s Edouard Saroyan (a.k.a. Charlie Kohler) is an introvert made even more withdrawn by the guilt and trauma buried in his past. Haunted by personal tragedy, Saroyan has essentially dropped out of life, both personally and professionally. Adopting the Kohler alias, he now grinds out sentimental drinking music as the house pianist for a working class gin mill. However, when his brother Chico, a semi-professional thief, comes looking for his help, it threatens to upset Saroyan’s morose equilibrium.

The resulting plot involving Chico’s doubled-crossed accomplices, though colorful, is not really the point. It is how Saroyan reacts or does not react, to their criminal machinations, as well as the possible reawakening of his life through the romantic interest of a pretty co-worker that really matters. For Piano Player to work, we must believe that despite often seeming callous or emotionally stunted, there is indeed a soul buried somewhere deep within Saroyan, which Aznavour conveys convincingly.

How Saroyan relates to music seems to suggest something about his personality. To console himself after a failure of nerve, Saroyan invokes jazz pianists he admires in an interior monologue heard through Aznavour’s voice-over. He lists spectacular improvisers like Art Tatum and Errol Garner, as well as the bluesy Junior Mance, whose name is famously mangled in the subtitles (its currently “Juno” something). While Saroyan might admire the improvisational freedom of jazz, he excelled in classical recitals, where the opportunity for self-expression is greatly circumscribed by the notes on the score and the composer’s intent. He now performs hackneyed ditties, in which attempts at personal expression are unnecessary, even unwelcome. Yet there is something about his playing that still commands attention.

Piano Player has all the conventions of both the Nouvelle Vague and the noir crime film, which might explain its widely mixed critical reception when first released. While at times willfully eccentric, bordering on the outrageous, it is a tragedy at heart. One can debate Paino Player's position in the Truffaut canon all day, but it remains an essential film of the French New Wave. Seeing it on the big screen is highly recommended. Its New York repertory run starts tomorrow.