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"The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary." |
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François Truffaut (6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was an influential French filmmaker. He is hailed as one of the progenitors of the French New Wave, and as one of the greatest directors of all time.
Truffaut is probably most famous for his first autobiographical film, The 400 Blows, which helped bring in the New Wave. He is also notable for directing the adaptation of Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451 - his only English language film. To do so, he turned down the chance to direct the landmark film Bonnie and Clyde, but inadvertently set Warren Beatty on the course of not only starring in it, but produce it and getting Arthur Penn direct it instead. In doing so, he helped spark the New Hollywood era of American film in a roundabout way.
In 1973, he made Day for Night (La Nuit Americaine) a movie about the making of a movie.
He did an extensive series of interviews with friend and idol Alfred Hitchcock that were published as Hitchcock/Truffaut in the West. To this day the book is an interesting insight into the world of movie making and the mindset of one of the 20th Century's greates directors.
A general audience would most likely recognize him as the French scientist from Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Former trope namer for Do Not Do This Cool Thing.