The Washington Post (30/Jul/1994) - Movies; 'Truffaut': The 400 Blowhards

Details

• article: Movies; 'Truffaut': The 400 Blowhards
• author(s): Hal Hinson
• newspaper: The Washington Post (30/Jul/1994)
• keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer

Article

Movies; 'Truffaut': The 400 Blowhards

The first thing you notice about "Francois Truffaut: Stolen Portraits," Serge Toubiana and Michel Pascal's documentary portrait of the late film artist, is how bloody "French" it is. Through the course of this rather routine film, a parade of 26 friends, family members and colleagues plop themselves down before the camera and talk about the man behind the work.

And talk and talk and talk.

Each witness seems to have his or her own theory about what made Truffaut tick, and somehow in each case the theory seems to have more to do with the witness than with the subject. Or better yet, with the sheer, self-indulgent pleasure of spinning an intricate, intellectual web.

Truffaut's ex-wife, Madeleine Morgenstern, says with a somewhat labored air of tragedy that he was a man of many secrets. And that she resists the temptation to rummage through his papers for fear of what she might find.

Fellow new wave pioneer Eric Rohmer is amazed by the anal meticulousness of Truffaut's files. Finding an entry about himself, he pulls it down for a closer look, noting, "I certainly don't have a Truffaut folder in my files."

Truffaut's daughter thinks her father's outward tidiness was a mask for inner dishevelment. Another friend attributes his famous womanizing to an unloving mother. Several announce their surprise at how bourgeois he became.

The cast of participants — Gerard Depardieu, Fanny Ardant, Marcel Ophuls, Bertrand Tavernier etc. — is impressive, but one can't help but be shocked at the Truffaut collaborators who aren't present, most notably Jeanne Moreau and Jean-Pierre Leaud. And how could a film about Truffaut be complete without an appearance by Jean-Luc Godard, the new wave Mr. Hyde to his Dr. Jekyll. One is happy for such treasures as a bit of footage in which Truffaut introduces Alfred Hitchcock at an award ceremony, but the final result is that Truffaut gets lost in the shuffle.