Truffaut Letters - I

Truffaut

With Truffaut's films, you can often get an impression that like a lot of other great producers of art, he was being prolific not because he found it difficult to suppress a pressing urge to say something relevant, but because he needed to create successful alibis for what he really had to say. Like bodies of work that reek of continuous introspection, and thus, admission; there are others that are full of denial. 400 Blows might be his personal history recalled, but you are never told what Doinel will do after running for a mile to the beach. The final freeze frame is Truffaut's personal electrical fence - that is the point to which you get a free ride, but beyond that lie grounds of enigma, made impenetrable by work that tells you a lot about how films are made, but befuddles you about who makes them.

Truffaut wrote a lot of letters and catalogued them really well. A lot of aspiring screenwriters wrote to him for advise. And he wrote back to them. Two of his replies. The first two in a series of letters written by Truffaut over the years, hopefully.

I.

                                                                                                                 

Paris, 14 December 1960

Dear Monsieur

I have read Les Cloches de Bale (by Louis Aragon), and the story that you have adopted from one of the episodes of the novel might well constitute a film, and even a very good film, but only on condition:

1. that Monsieur Aragon agrees;

2. that a producer acquires the rights of a novel;

3. that the said producer offers the film to me;

4. that I agree to make it;

5. that I choose you to write the adaptation.

As you see, it makes better sense for me to return your manuscript and advise you now to try writing an original screenplay,

With thanks, dear Monsieur, I remain,                                                

Cordially Yours

François Truffaut

                                                               

II.

                                                                                                                          
Paris, 22 June 1960

Dear Monsieur,

You do me too great an honour in asking my advise; I have never written a shooting script and I never know where I'm going to place the camera 1 hour before I begin shooting, which is to say, before seeing the actors move through the set. I am therefore bowled over by the work you have put in and open-mouthed with admiration.

I have never been able to understand flashbacks; that's why I can't make head or tail of my new film (Shoot the Piano Player, blogger's note : one of the most awkward flashbacks in cinema; but then, a flashback is borne out of a moment of awkwardness), in the middle of which there's a long sequence set in the past. Consequently, I understood nothing of your 'subject', which I read all the way through a few months ago, and , skimming, a few minutes ago.

Films resemble the people who make them, which is why you need have no worries about yours; I don't like reading screenplays, especially when they are full of mysterious abbreviations; invite me to come and see the finished film and then I'll have no hesitation in telling you what I think of it,

                                                                                                                                     cordially yours,