Working Style of Francois Truffaut - Essay Example

Francois Truffaut will normally write about lives of individuals and importantly about their works in different perspectives, according to their exposure and influences. Francois Truffaut wrote the essay A Certain Tendancy of the French Cinema influenced by the film scripts as well as films of certain French creators, critically discussing about their works in the essay and coming up with new perspectives. In the essay, Truffaut discusses how literary based films of the “Tradition of Quality” need to be rejected in favour of “cinema des auteurs” Thus, this paper explaining the terms “Tradition of Quality” and “auteur’s cinema” will discuss why Truffaut considered them to be incompatible. “Tradition of Quality” “Tradition of Quality” is the inclination of certain French scriptwriters and directors to mainly depend on literary adaptations to come up with their celluloid works. Although, the term was coined by Jean-Pierre Barrot in LÉcran français to refer to the inclination of directors like Claude Autant-Lara, Jean Delannoy and Yves Allégret for literary adaptations, and the work of scriptwriters such as Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, it was Truffaut who denounced it and opposed it in his journalistic works. (González 2003). Truffaut points out what constitutes “Tradition of Quality” and why films based on it are only regarded as France’s mainstream cinema. That is, with majority of the prominent French filmmakers and scriptwriters opting for literary adaptations for their films, as part of the “Tradition of Quality”, and importantly winning accolades including international appreciation for those works, it naturally came to be regarded as the mainstream French cinema. However Truffaut is totally against this stereotyping of “Tradition of Quality” as the French cinema and also criticises the creators for forcefully stereotyping it both in the domestic as well as in the international arena. “…they force, by their ambitiousness, the admiration of the foreign press, defend the French flag twice a year at Cannes and at Venice where, since 1946, they regularly carry off medals, golden lions and grands prix” (Truffaut 1954, p. 9). The other key component which constitutes “Tradition of Quality” and which is also a ‘loose end’ of this concept is the instances of “equivalence betrayals” during literary adaptations. As part of “Tradition of Quality” scriptwriters in association with directors will change certain scenes featured in the novels and come up with equivalent scenes in the film’s script, to make it ‘filmable’. “In adaptation there exists filmable scenes and unfilmable scenes, and that instead of omitting the latter (as was done not long ago) it is necessary to invent equivalent scenes, that is to say, scenes as the novel’s author would have written them for the cinema.” (Truffaut 1954, p. 11). However, according to Truffaut, this process of creating equivalent scenes by scriptwriters is just hypocrisy and not a valid process at all, because he opines that novels will not contain any unfilmable scenes, and all the scenes will be filmable as it is. Many filmmakers like Robert Bresson had filmed many novels and all its scenes without any twisting, thereby remaining faithful to the novel. “And he drew up many instances of "equivalencies-betrayals" between the novel and Claude Autant-Laras film adaptation from Aurenche and Bosts screenplay.” (Baecque and Toubiana 2000, p. 73). According to Truffaut, “Tradition of Quality” is somewhat laboured “psychological realism”, which was reflected in the works of the directors Claude Autant-Lara, Jean Delannoy, René Clément and Yves Allégret, and scenarists Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost. That is, films made under the influence of “Tradition of Quality” incorporated certain common characteristics which exhibited neither realism nor psychology. Truffaut criticized this trend as a disparate collection of sins: for its academicism, for its contemptuous superiority toward its characters, for its facile anti-bourgeois views, including a taste for blasphemy and a hatred of family, for its underestimation of cinema as a medium, and more. (Walsh 1999). Thus, “Tradition of Quality” is the term given to the literary adaptation processes undertaken by many French scriptwriters and filmmakers following certain questionable practices. “Auteur’s cinema” “Auteur’s cinema” is the term given to the cinematic creations of the French directors fully incorporating their personal influences, style, interpretations and in total their personality as form of “personal cinema”. This form of filmmaking arose as a reaction against the criticised “Tradition of Quality” cinema in France, acting as an informal manifesto for the New Wave in French cinema. Films made based on this theory or concept will clearly exhibit the filmmaker’s personality and his/her characteristics, as those are only incorporated to make the film. “…personality of an author’s work could be discerned throughout his films, i.e. auteur theory. The auteur leaves imprints within his film, what film phenomenologists call the “traces of meaning”—the style and basic motifs that lie consistent in the auteurs overall body of work.” (donamajicshow.tumblr.com). As part of “auteur’s cinema”, the director’s ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ touch or contribution should be optimal in every aspect or nuances of filmmaking. That is, apart from directing the film, the director should start off by optimally engaging himself/herself in the process of scriptwriting as well as writing dialogues for scenes. The directors should be able to come up with one line stories and importantly develop them into full fledged screenplay. Truffaut lists some of the French directors who did all these aspects of filmmaking, thereby constituting them as Auteur. “I mean Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Becker, Abel Gance, Max Ophuls, Jacques Tati, Roger Leenhardt; these are, nevertheless, French cinéastes and it happens – curious coincidence – that they are auteurs who often write their dialogue and some of them themselves invent the stories they direct” (Truffaut 1954, p. 16). According to Truffaut, “auteur’s cinema” will put the onus on the directors who with their profound knowledge should come with scenes which should exhibit his/her distinct style, manifesting through mise en scène. The directors has to exhibit this positive trait in their filmmaking even if the final product is not up to the expected quality. To emphasize the effective traits of Auteur, Truffaut focuses on the opposite version of Auteur, the “metteur-en-scene” - a director who is deemed to lack the personal vision which is normally attributed to an Auteur. “For Truffaut, the metteur-en-scene was a film-maker whose conception of cinema only extends as far as illustrating a screenplay and being faithful to the written word” (Nelmes 2003, p. 426). On the positive side, Auteur is the King or Captain of filmmaking incorporating personal influences in every facet of filmmaking and coming up with a great product. ““Tradition of Quality”” and “auteur’s cinema” will be incompatible From the analysis of these two terms and perspectives, it is clear that both are entirely different aspects of filmmaking and that is the reason why Truffaut opined that they will incompatible. That is, in the case of “Tradition of Quality”, the role of scriptwriter is minimal because his/her only task is adapt some literary works, minimally changing few scenes. Likewise, the role of director is just directing the written and adapted script without incorporating personal influences and also without exhibiting their personal style. On the other hand in the case of “auteur’s cinema”, the director has to play an optimal role in every aspect of filmmaking from writing stories, screenplay, dialogues and importantly directing it as well. This way, the director will be able to integrate his/her influences, personalities as well as the style both subtly as well as overtly. Thus, films made under the auspices of the “auteur’s cinema” a will be a more of personal reflection and realism filled than the films made following “Tradition of Quality”. According to Truffaut, the resultant “auteur’s cinema” or the artistic creation could be as fluent, expressive and rich as written language, unlike adaptation of classic literary works. (Nelmes 2003, p. 426). So, according to Truffaut, because of this basic difference in the process of filmmaking between “auteur’s cinema” and “Tradition of Quality”, they cannot be compatible, with the films based on “auteur’s Cinema” exhibiting higher quality. “Tradition of Quality” was the polished and formulaic literary adaptations of Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost that had sacrificed the depths of more genuine auteurs such as Jean Renoir or Robert Bresson. Basically, the tradition of quality had stripped the personality of the auteur from the text and replaced it with banal scenery. (Baecque and Toubiana 2000, p. 75). Finding this incompatibility and favouring “auteur’s Cinema”, Francois Truffaut transformed from a film critic into a well known filmmaker, becoming an auteur himself, starting with a critically acclaimed film, 400 Blows and thereby leading new movement in French filmmaking. References Baecque, A and Toubiana, S 2000, Truffaut: A Biography, University of California Press, London. donamajicshow.tumblr.com, Francois Truffaut — Filmmaker of the Week, viewed on November 26, 2009 http://d onamajicshow.tumblr.com/post/242246367/francois-truffaut-filmmaker-of-the-week González AJC 2003, François Truffaut, Senses of Cinema, trans. T Vasquez, viewed on November 26, 2009 http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/truffaut.html Nelmes, J 2003, An introduction to film studies, Routledge, London Walsh, D 1999, The films of François Truffaut, World Socialist Web Site, viewed on November 26, 2009 http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/oct1999/truf-o25.shtml Read More