Most American filmgoers know the late French director Francois Truffaut for his endearing performance as the small, intense and kindly French scientist in the 1977 sci-fi classic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
But to true cineastes, Truffaut was one of film's greatest directors. An influential, often feared film critic in his early 20s, he became one of France's most successful "New Wave" directors. Truffaut's films were personal explorations of three of his passions: the cinema, children and the tumultuous relationships between the sexes.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of his first feature, the extraordinary semiautobiographical "The 400 Blows," starring Jean-Pierre Leaud as the troubled youth Antoine Doinel. This October also marks the 15th anniversary of Truffaut's untimely death from a brain tumor at age 52.
Fox Lorber Cinema is paying tribute to Truffaut this week by releasing the restored versions of "The 400 Blows"; "The Last Metro"; his final film, "Confidentially Yours"; "Love on the Run," the fifth and final installment in his Antoine Doinel series; "Shoot the Piano Player"; and "Two English Girls." All are available on video and DVD ($30 each).
Then in August, Fox Lorber is scheduled to bring out "Jules and Jim"; "The Woman Next Door"; "The Soft Skin"; the two shorts "Antoine and Colette" and "Les Mistons"; and two of the most popular Doinel entries, "Bed and Board" and "Stolen Kisses." Both of these Doinel films have been out of circulation in America for nearly two decades.
The company is also sponsoring the touring film festival "Francois Truffaut: A Celebration," which arrives in Los Angeles on May 14 for a two-week engagement at the Nuart in West L.A.
Annette Insdorf, director of undergraduate film studies at Columbia University and author of the critical study "Francois Truffaut," believes all of his films have a timeless quality.
"In showing the films to my students this semester, I am reminded again how Truffaut's own movies fulfill something he once wrote about the cinema in the '50s when he was a critic," she says.
"He said, for him, a great film had to have an idea of the world and an idea of the cinema. And Truffaut's movies do work on at least two levels."
