François Truffaut's Birthday
On February 6, 1932, an illegitimate son was born to the secretary of the newspaper L'Illustration, Jeanine de Montferrand, in Paris. Since Jeanine came from a family of strict Catholics, in which illegitimate children, to put it mildly, are not welcome, she did her best to hide her pregnancy, and gave her son, whom she named François, to the nurse immediately after birth. 21 months after the birth of her son, Jeanine married Roland Truffaut, who worked as an artist in an architectural bureau, and confessed to him that she had a son. Roland Truffaut adopted François and gave him his last name.
Roland Truffaut did not express any desire to see his stepson in his house. François, who seemed to have become a legitimate son, was taken in by his grandmother, Genevieve de Montferrand, who raised him until her death. Unfortunately, she did not live very long and died when François was 10 years old. Jeanine and Roland Truffaut had to take François to their place. True, it is impossible to say that Francois found a real home, since he even had to sleep on a sofa in the hallway. François Truffaut later reflected on his childhood memories in his first full-length feature film, “Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows)”.
Although not very long, Genevieve de Montferrand raised her grandson, but she managed to instill in him a love of books and art. Moreover, such a strong love that when the 8-year-old Francois watched the first film in his life, he literally "fell ill" with cinema. More time than in the school class, François spent in the cinema, where he managed to enter without a ticket, or for books. The consequences of this attitude to schoolwork were periodic expulsions from school, and at the age of 14 he left school at all, having received only a certificate of primary education. For several years he worked as a courier, storekeeper, handyman, giving two-thirds of the money he earned to his mother and stepfather for the right to sleep on a sofa in the hallway. At the same time, he read a lot and collected materials about the directors Jean Renoir, Abel Gance, Jean Cocteau, Jean Vigo, Rene Clair, the Allegre brothers, Henri-Georges Clouzot and others. In total, about three hundred folders were collected, made up of cut out newspaper articles and photographs stolen from movie theaters.
In 1948, 16-year-old François Truffaut, using the 12,000 francs accumulated during his work, opened the Le Cercle Cinémane film club, which showed rented films. However, the lack of entrepreneurial experience and legal knowledge led very quickly to the formation of numerous debts and, as a result, to the bench. Due to the minor age, the prison sentence was changed to forced agricultural work. While in a labor camp, François Truffaut was diagnosed with syphilis. Truffaut was hospitalized for treatment, however, he attempted to escape. After this attempt, Truffaut spent 4 days in solitary confinement, and then recognized as needing the help of a psychotherapist.
On the recommendation of a psychotherapist, François Truffaut was placed in a specialized boarding school. As a psychotherapeutic tool, it was recommended to appoint something like a guardian-mentor who would have similar interests to Truffaut. André Bazin, a well-known cinema enthusiast, was identified as such. André Bazin, having examined Truffaut on the subject of knowledge of cinema, was amazed by this knowledge and offered François the position of his secretary. The position of secretary of France's leading film expert gave Truffaut the opportunity to meet all the filmmakers in the country. Thanks to his knowledge and original judgments about the cinema, François Truffaut very quickly became extremely popular in French film circles. On his 18th birthday, congratulations were sent to him by almost all film critics in the country. And then, entangled in numerous relationships with women, he attempted suicide by cutting his veins, but was saved in time.
In 1950, 18-year-old François Truffaut was drafted into the army. During the exercises, due to the explosion, he was deaf in one ear and injured several ribs. While on treatment, he tried to desert. Moreover, he did this not so much because of the desire to gain freedom from military duties, but because of the desire to be known as a rebel. For attempting to desert, he was placed in a military prison, where he spent 12 days in solitary confinement. For his release from prison, Truffaut feigned insanity, inflicted several wounds on himself with a razor. The consequence was his placement in the neuropsychiatric department of a military hospital.
In the meantime, in 1951, André Bazin created the Cahiers du cinema magazine, which quickly became France's most authoritative film publication. To a large extent, this popularity was brought to the magazine by reviews written by François Truffaut while he was working as Bazin's secretary. Realizing the importance of Truffaut for his magazine, and indeed for the entire cinema of France, André Bazin used all the connections he had to release him. In February 1952, François Truffaut was released. At large, Truffaut continued to collaborate with André and his magazine, as well as with other publications. In parallel with the activities of film critic François Truffaut, he began to try his hand at film directing. True, in this area he did not have any special opportunities, so he was forced to limit himself to the creation of short films.
In October 1957, an event occurred in the life of François Truffaut that seriously influenced his fate: he married Madeleine Morgenstern, the daughter of the owner of the film distribution company Cocinor. This relationship allowed him to become what he dreamed of becoming - a film director. The first full-length feature film was the previously mentioned film " Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows)", which was released in theaters on May 4, 1959.
During his short life, and he died at the age of 52 from brain cancer, François Truffaut directed 21 full-length feature films on his own. In two more film almanacs, he staged separate film segments. 4 films from the total number of films shot by François Truffaut entered the Golden Thousand, including "La nuit américaine (Day for Night)", "Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows)", "Jules et Jim", "La peau douce (The Soft Skin)". Thanks to this indicator, he is included in the list of the 100 greatest directors of world cinema.
François Truffaut's filmmaking activity was marked by 36 film awards, including such prestigious awards as the British BAFTA Award, the Cannes International Film Festival and Mar del Plata Film Festival awards, the French Cesar Award, three Danish Bodil Awards, as well as the honorary David di Donatello Award from Italian film academy.
In commemoration of the birthday of the great Master, I would like to remind the fans of his work the frames from his best films included in the Golden Thousand.
