François Truffaut

Rating:
Summary: Fine, but not a biography
Review: The title is misleading, since this book is NOT a biography of the French New Wave director, but instead a thorough analysis of his films. It should have been called "The Films of Francois Truffaut." Professor Insdorf makes clear the connections among Truffaut's films. Many of those connections are quite surprising, and will deepen your appreciation of the films. Also, this book is the last word on Truffaut's influences. Professor Insdorf's description of the director's marriage of the Hitchcock sensibility with the lyricism of Jean Renoir is magnificent. This is a fine companion to the director's films, but the biographical data -- about Truffaut's youth and film criticism -- is perfunctory. And there is precious little on Truffaut's interaction with other French and world filmmakers.

Rating:
Summary: Fine, but not a biography
Review: The title is misleading, since this book is NOT a biography of the French New Wave director, but instead a thorough analysis of his films. It should have been called "The Films of Francois Truffaut." Professor Insdorf makes clear the connections among Truffaut's films. Many of those connections are quite surprising, and will deepen your appreciation of the films. Also, this book is the last word on Truffaut's influences. Professor Insdorf's description of the director's marriage of the Hitchcock sensibility with the lyricism of Jean Renoir is magnificent. This is a fine companion to the director's films, but the biographical data -- about Truffaut's youth and film criticism -- is perfunctory. And there is precious little on Truffaut's interaction with other French and world filmmakers.

Rating:
Summary: A Truly Remarkable Book
Review: This is a remarkable book, full of insights into Truffaut's work, a must-read for everyone who loves his films. But it is not a biography, nor is it a book for readers who are not already familiar with his work. For admirers of Francois Truffaut, howver, it is a book they will treasure.

The book provides important information to understanding Truffaut's films. Professor Innsdorf is very careful to make us know just what Truffaut is getting at in each of his films, how they are interconnected, and how they were influenced by other directors, particularly Jean Renoir and Alfred Hitchcock, both of whom Truffaut adored as directors and loved as people. This was a man who loved. I used to think that some Truffaut films were Hitchcockian, some Renoirian, and others pure Truffaut. From Professor Innsdorf I now understand how the approaches of both of these two older directors influenced almost every film by Truffaut. Thanks to Professor Innsdorf's book, watching Truffaut on film now (and I own every Truffaut feature film and the two available short subjects) has become a much richer experience for me.

For readers who are about to encounter Truffaut's films for the first or almost the first time and want a guide, there is probably no better book than Chris Wiegand's short (only 96 pages) but information-packed "French New Wave," which is not about Truffaut alone but provides short synopses and analyses of his most important films along with those of other directors of the French New Wave, of which Truffaut was certainly the heart and soul. And for a biography, nothing can compete with the masterful work by Antoine De Baecque and Serge Toubiana.