I watched Jules et Jim this past weekend and can now say that there's at least one film of the French New Wave that I really, really hate.

What other Truffaut have you seen, Cor?

It was interesting for me to see A Band Apart because Godard goes after the love triangle in a much more interesting way.

I still haven't seen Shoot the Piano Player. Need to rectify that.

My favorite Truffaut is probably Small Change.

I veer back and forth on J&J. I want to smack many of the characters upside the head, and sometimes the contempt I have for them overwhelms me, but then the moments like the race on the bridge, or the camera panning around her face, or the phone call, just blow me away.

Although it's lesser Truffaut, my favorite has to be Day for Night.

I still haven't seen Shoot the Piano Player. Need to rectify that.

I really liked it, but I only saw it once years ago. I still haven't seen J&J.

My favorite Truffaut is probably Small Change.

First film of his I ever saw! I was about the age of the older kids in it, so I really, REALLY liked it. Also one I've only seen once.

Haven't seen enough Truffaut, actually (I think F.451 is the only other one I've seen, and it's hardly representative).

mini-meara:

Right. I think the first line of the book explicitly states something like, "So-and-so came to see me the day after I killed the quiet American." And since the stupid book is under copyright, I canna google it! Grrr.

"After dinner I sat and waited for Pyle in my room over the rue Catinat; he had said, 'I'll be with you at latest by ten,' and when midnight struck I couldn't stay quiet any longer and went down into the street."

I watched Jules et Jim this past weekend and can now say that there's at least one film of the French New Wave that I really, really hate.

Truffaut is a favorite of mine but Jules et Jim is by far my least favorite. I'm sometimes tempted to assign it but I know my students would find it incredibly boring.

I still haven't seen Shoot the Piano Player. Need to rectify that.

Thinks shocks me Hec. You who so love noir. I know there's no Antoine Doinel but still, Charles Aznavour!

I watched Jules et Jim this past weekend and can now say that there's at least one film of the French New Wave that I really, really hate.

You know, I don't hate it, but I've never gotten how this was supposed to be a great film. I wondered if it was just the era and the idea of depicting a love triangle like that.

Now that we're talking about Truffaut, someone on another forum pointed me to this article about spying on your friend's Netflix queues, including this bit:

Dense classics would march solemnly towards the top, only to be demoted (as soon as watching them became a real possibility) and replaced by season three of Felicity, until finally all the most challenging films of the 20th century were pooled at the bottom of the list like dark sediment beneath a froth of romantic comedies. It's the Netflix version of the divided soul: The end of your list is the person you want to be—Eraserhead, the eight-hour BBC Bleak House, the complete Werner Herzog—while the top is the person you actually are: Wedding Crashers, Scary Movie 4, The Bridges of Madison County.

Speaking of Netflix, I think my last rental return got lost in the mail. Should I call them, or rely on e-mail to report it, and are they going to charge me for the cost of the disc?

Thinks shocks me Hec. You who so love noir. I know there's no Antoine Doinel but still, Charles Aznavour!

I know! I don't know what my resistance has been. I saw a lot more Truffaut early on, but I've been much more intrigued by Godard in recent years. I think the only reason I saw Breathless so early on was because I'd seen pictures of Jean Seberg.

French Movies I Want To See

Shoot the Piano Player
Lola
Bay of Angels
Le Beau Serge (more Chabrol altogether)
Le Doulos
Some Chantal Akerman (any suggestions?)
Some Clouzot (suggestions?)

What other Truffaut have you seen, Cor?

Just The 400 Blows, which was so great that I can't believe Truffaut was younger and more inexperienced a filmmaker when he made it.

It was interesting for me to see A Band Apart because Godard goes after the love triangle in a much more interesting way.

Definitely. In fact, I have yet to see a Godard film that didn't have some intrinsic worth. And yes, there were some great redeeming scenes in Jules et Jim, the run on the overpass especially, but the story was so shitty that I just hated the film. I mean, Truffaut basically seems to agree with Jules about Catherine (his mother/lover/daughter, all that bullshit), and Jules is explicitly a misogynist. Catherine's basically a sociopath exploiting loosening societal mores to justify her immediate pleasures, and the movie seems to suggest that she is perfect womanhood. Blah. After she commits suicide and murders his best friend, Jules is still caught up in his "they should have mingled their ashes" bullshit. I wonder what their daughter thought, or Jim's fiance, about Catherine's wonderfulness. But we'll never know because they weren't important enough to be at the funeral. Double blah.