<<< January 16 - 21, 2009 >>>

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An Aero Theatre Exclusive!

Few directors exhibit a passion for cinema as intense and infectious as François Truffaut, who once said that any great film must express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. His own work was filled with joy and enthusiasm, even when exploring the darkest corners of the human heart. Truffaut began, like his contemporaries Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer and Rivette, as a critic for the legendary French journal Cahiers du Cinema, where he feasted on film as a young man. Eventually he put his theories into practice, and his debut feature, THE 400 BLOWS, was a sensation upon its release in 1959; along with Godard’s BREATHLESS, it announced a new kind of cinema, the French New Wave. While Godard would become progressively more political and experimental, Truffaut spent his career veering from one kind of movie to another: from the deeply personal autobiography of the Antoine Doinel films to genre exercises like CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS and THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR. He also gave the international cinema one of its greatest masterpieces (JULES AND JIM) and influenced everyone from Spielberg and Scorsese to Paul Mazursky and Blake Edwards. Truffaut himself was profoundly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, whom he vigorously defended in print, eventually publishing a landmark interview book with the master. Although Truffaut’s output is as varied as that of Howard Hawks or Michael Curtiz, his films are all linked by a common thread: the director’s deeply felt humanism. Like his hero Jean Renoir, he believed that every man, no matter how superficially evil, had his reasons. Yet the lessons of Hitchcock are visible throughout Truffaut's oeuvre — critic Cyril Neyrat explains, "Truffaut learned from his master the secret of the uncanny: expanding or contracting time, centering on faces or objects, adding density to his images through a montage of characters looking that infuses everyday reality with a morbid anxiety." (François Truffaut, Cahiers du Cinema/Le Monde: 2008)

Friday, January 16 - 7:30 PM

New 35mm Print!

JULES AND JIM, 1962, Janus Films, 105 min. Dir. François Truffaut. In one of the greatest films of the French New Wave, Truffaut elevates the materials of old-fashioned melodrama into high art: Two friends are forced to fight on different sides during World War I and fall in love with the same woman during peacetime. The film follows the shifting relationships and affections among the three characters over the course of many years, creating a powerful emotional experience that is both intimate and epic. With Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner.

TWO ENGLISH GIRLS (LES DEUX ANGLAISES ET LE CONTINENT), 1971, Janus Films, 108 min. Dir. François Truffaut. In a sort of reverse-gender JULES AND JIM, a young writer (perennial Truffaut surrogate Jean-Pierre Léaud) finds himself in a long-term affair with two sisters. Truffaut returns to his earlier film’s themes with an older, more melancholy eye; youthful enthusiasm has given way to mature resignation, and the sophistication of Truffaut’s ideas is matched by his most visually stunning images (courtesy of legendary cinematographer Nestor Almendros).

Saturday, January 17 - 7:30 PM

New 35mm Print!

THE 400 BLOWS (LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS), Janus Films. Dir. François Truffaut. Jean-Pierre Léaud plays a young boy struggling against the constrictions of bourgeois conformity in this deeply personal masterpiece. Both a coming-of-age classic and the greatest feature debut since Welles’ CITIZEN KANE 18 years earlier, this, along with Godard’s BREATHLESS, is one of the films that announced the arrival of the French New Wave to an international cinema audience. "Antoine and Collette," 1962, Janus Films, 32 min. Dir. François Truffaut. In this second appearance of Truffaut’s alter ego, Antoine Doinel, Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is now a teenager on the verge of his first love affair -- an affair that will begin his lifetime of restless searching for romance. Originally part of the omnibus film LOVE AT TWENTY, this short more than stands on its own and serves as an essential chapter in the Doinel saga.

STOLEN KISSES (BAISERS VOLÉS), 1968, Janus Films, 90 min. Dir. François Truffaut. In the third Antoine Doinel film, Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) returns to Paris after a dishonorable discharge from the army. There, he finds himself trying a series of ridiculous jobs (including private detective) as he falls hopelessly in love. Lyrical and nostalgic, this is one of Truffaut’s most romantic films, which is really saying something. With Delphine Seyrig.

Sunday, January 18 - 7:30 PM

New 35mm Print!

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (TIREZ SUR LE PIANISTE), 1960, Janus Films, 92 min. Director François Truffaut once said that every filmmaker’s first movie is a mad rush of ideas, while every second movie is an exercise in style. This, his own second movie, is both: a stylistic tour de force filled with innovative visual ideas, but also a longing, bittersweet character study of uncommon depth and resonance. Charles Aznavour is a washed-up concert pianist unable to return to his former glory due to connections with gangsters and other nefarious types; Marie Dubois is the woman who loves him. A long confession scene is Truffaut’s tribute to Ingrid Bergman’s 10 minute confession in Hitchcock’s UNDER CAPRICORN. Adapted from the great novel Down There by David Goodis (who also wrote DARK PASSAGE).

THE LAST METRO (LE DERNIER METRO), 1980, Janus Films, 131 min. Dir. François Truffaut. During the German occupation of Paris, a theater company struggles to produce a new play while its director is forced to hide in the basement, leaving his wife (Catherine Deneuve) to carry on an affair with the new leading man (Gerard Depardieu). This meditation on the ultimate powerlessness of the artist is surprisingly charming given its heavy subject matter, and Deneuve is as elegant and compelling as ever.

Wednesday, January 21 - 7:30 PM

Kevin Thomas’s Favorites:

CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS (VIVEMENT DIMANCHE!), 1983, Janus Films, 110 min. In François Truffaut’s delightfully entertaining tribute to Hitchcock, a businessman (Jean-Louis Trintingnant) is wrongly accused of murder, and while he goes on the lam his secretary (Fanny Ardant) tries to find the real killer. Gorgeous black-and-white photography by Nestor Almendros and a witty screenplay (by Truffaut and frequent collaborators Suzanne Schiffman and Jean Aurel, adapting hardboiled American writer Charles Williams’ The Long Saturday Night) make this one of the director’s most enjoyable efforts. Film critic Kevin Thomas will introduce the screening.