A Conversation with Francois Truffaut: Master of the Independent Cinema- Dallas Video Fest Review

On Sunday October 19 the Dallas Video Fest showed many films at the Angelika film center in Dallas, including a documentary on the french film director Francois Truffaut. This documentary created by Allan Holzman was essentially a  composition of an interview Truffaut had with a college film class, during the interview you listen to his thought process and views on how to go about a film and discussing elements he incorporated into his films and how that made them so potent, alongside the interview the documentary was accompanied by various clips from all of his films, Truffaut is famous for being a French New Wave filmmaker most notably for his first major film The 400 Blows. Truffaut discusses many things in the interview, some of the things that interested me was how he kept the same actor as the main character for many of his films beginning with The 400 Blows, making it sort of a saga keeping up with the same boy as he grows up throughout the movie. Some of the things i found important about Truffaut is that he mentions being inspired by American directors for his first film primarily Alfred Hitchcock, always telling himself how could he  envision this shot in a way that would be like Hitchcock? and paying close attention to details of how to organize his scenes, really paying close attention to details to where he liked spotting out random background people doing unusual things that wouldn't normally be central to the film.I think an amazing thing about Truffaut is that he was so passionate about his cause and vision for his films that he even brought himself in to act in a few of them, because he says that he preferred to focus on the interaction and energy of the actors while filming, that the live chemistry on set is a big part of bringing a successful feel to the film, and through acting in his own films he says that it was like directing except experiencing it from the other side of the camera, and in a way he had more freedom to make the shot the way he wanted to. One other thing that i found interesting about Truffaut is that he mentions not liking writing scripts beforehand for his films, that way you have more space to let the story develop as it goes along, it allows for elasticity and change and it also is a benefit to many actors because it keeps everyone anticipating they're next part and probably allows for a better more natural and spontaneous performance. And finally another thing that i found interesting about Truffaut is that he liked to start his films with the endings, to make sure your ending is fantastic, and let the rest mold itself and fit. The overall compilation of this documentary  was made where you stayed focused on the subject of it which was Truffaut, i found it very insightful to have the various clips from Truffaut's films embedded into the documentary, which made it all more intriguing to listen to what Truffaut had to say even if it was through a recorded interview from decades ago.