Godard & Truffaut.

Richard Brody's piece for the New Yorker this week, "Auteur Wars," about the ways Godard and Truffaut's friendship helped shaped the French New Wave, is not online. But if you click his name, you'll see that a whole lot else is. You can listen to him talk about, well, mostly Godard, and much of it won't be news to you. But there is a story at the end there that does sound very JLG. And there's an accompanying slide show of photographs by Raymond Cauchetier. Brody's book, Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, will be out on May 13, the day before Cannes opens, whether or not that means anything.

In the introduction to his new book, François Truffaut: Interviews, Ronald Bergan tackles the most immediate defining difference between the two filmmakers: "[I]n stark contrast to the oeuvre of his erstwhile New Wave comrade, Jean Luc Godard, Truffaut's films are not overtly political in any way. 'For right or wrong, I believe there is no art without paradox: now in the political film, there is no paradox, because already in the script, it is decided who is good and who is bad'.... Truffaut's rejection of current topics or fashions is not a conservative one, but the need to retain a freedom and purity of expression uncluttered by the zeitgeist. For him, the eternal theme of Love 'is more important than social questions. It is the way to lead people to truth. There is more truth in sentimental relations than in social relations. There is more truth in the bedroom than in the office or the board room.'" Whether or not you agree, the power, say, of The 400 Blows and the vivaciousness of Jules and Jim are undeniable. "In Truffaut's case, where his life was an open book, it is inevitable that there is an autobiographical thread running through the series of interviews," writes Ronald Bergan. "We learn about his childhood, his fears, his loves and hates. But, most of all, his tastes and outspoken views on cinema."

Posted by dwhudson at April 2, 2008 1:54 PM