Two English Girls and the Continent belongs to what I privately call "the other Truffaut"; this wouldn't be the place to specify why I consider some of Truffaut's films (The Four Hundred Blows; Stolen Kisses; The Wild Child; Domicile conjugal; The Story of Adele H; The Man Who Loved Women; The Green Room; The Last Metro) as belonging to a pretty distinct class that I have titled: the other Truffaut. Notwithstanding, Truffaut's corpus is remarkable as one of the most astonishingly beautiful works of his century.
Truffaut's cinema is the complement and the result of a very particular and highly differentiated world-view. In a genuine and authentic way, he was aware of his singularity. One of his aimsor rather of his meansof his deliberate meanswas to tell dirty things in an ingenuous, naive and gentlemanly way.
Truffaut used stylized narrative forms to explore the substratum of the couple relations. He did this in even a more deliberate way than the movie authors he promoted in the '50s. Yet his approach is not a spoofing one; his exoticism isn't mockexoticism; it is related to some ancient forms of the French culture, to some metarealist traditions. To a certain Renoir (the one that didn't pretend to be naturalistic or Zolist, but who crafted exquisite _divertissements). It's not that Truffaut's picturesque is a fake one; it is strictly subordinated.
In Truffaut's case, a quite peculiar world-view got the chance of a full, direct expression. What is this quality of Truffaut?What is the gist of Truffaut's art?Some have expressed it in indirect or inappropriate or even hostile way;they felt that particular quality; yet their perception is clumsily or inimically expressedso with Antonioni, who disliked Truffaut's softness and tenderness and feminineness ,if one might say so.Mrs. Deneuve, who was Truffaut's mistress (they had no children together), spoke about Truffaut's feminine side or perception. I do not think this is properly expressed.
What needs to be indicated is his delicacy, subtlety, freshness, fineness, gentleness, mildness, and his frank tactfulness.
His subtle, smooth irony, his civilized ,polished and indiscreet humor, his highly humane quality in exposing and defining in artistic terms the secret substratum of the human relations, of the desire and of the loneliness and alienationwith a sense of the piquant.
As in J&J, whose declared complement it is, this approach helps, enables Truffaut to narrate with due smoothness and finesse a disturbing and twisted story. The same shamelessness, the same suavity.
Truffaut has a very cute topic for his movie:--the feminine masturbation (and a dose of lesbianism), at the little girls (needless to say that such things are still strictly taboo for most of the mainstream cinema );--then the _defloration.
As some other Truffaut films, TEG contains some piquant nudity and sexuality.
A word about the beauty of Truffaut's actors:--a beauty that is generally mild and unobtrusive and discreetyet very physical and subtly sensual and bodily (Jean-Pierre Léaud,Kika Markham,Stacey Tendeter,Marie Mansart).
One more thing to be spoken of:this one is a period movieand consequently there is a fair amount of a certain _colorist instinct, joy and gustothat I will leave the pleasure to my fair reader to discover for him/herself. Truffaut flirted here somehow with a certain trend of aestheticism and stylization that are customary in the period films. (One can perceive the trepidation of the _erotography of the epochthe interest for this kind of literary production.) On the other hand, Truffaut's huge interest in making such period films is the pendant and the complement of his studious love for a certain class of literature. Truffaut was, one knows it, such a good reader . (On the other hand,when he adapted a book, that book was never a mere pretext; on the contraryit was the hallmark. Truffaut adapted only things that he respected. One sees that is not true about, say, Welles or Hitchcockwho go beyond the literary pretext; Truffaut reveres the book, he deepens it, he remains true to it.)
The beauty of the main actors; the finesse; the writer loved by Truffaut; the twisted content; the indiscreet topic of masturbation and bodily life; the hidden substratum; the tactfulnessI hope my fair readers will give this very fine movie the esteem it deserves. Truffaut's stylizations are strictly functional; they are never vain, useless decorations; they wholly belong to the style and are directed towards the movie's meaning and are fully adequate.
Truffaut is as true, as authentic as he is smooth and elegant. Through the stylistics of the social life, he reached the stylistics of the inner life.
I would include Two English Girls and the Continent in a list of Truffaut's best tenor maybe even five!movieswith Jules et Jim (1962), The Soft Skin, Mississippi Mermaid, Vivement Dimanche! (1983) .
Truffaut's cinema is the complement and the result of a very particular and highly differentiated world-view. In a genuine and authentic way, he was aware of his singularity. One of his aimsor rather of his meansof his deliberate meanswas to tell dirty things in an ingenuous, naive and gentlemanly way.
Truffaut used stylized narrative forms to explore the substratum of the couple relations. He did this in even a more deliberate way than the movie authors he promoted in the '50s. Yet his approach is not a spoofing one; his exoticism isn't mockexoticism; it is related to some ancient forms of the French culture, to some metarealist traditions. To a certain Renoir (the one that didn't pretend to be naturalistic or Zolist, but who crafted exquisite _divertissements). It's not that Truffaut's picturesque is a fake one; it is strictly subordinated.
In Truffaut's case, a quite peculiar world-view got the chance of a full, direct expression. What is this quality of Truffaut?What is the gist of Truffaut's art?Some have expressed it in indirect or inappropriate or even hostile way;they felt that particular quality; yet their perception is clumsily or inimically expressedso with Antonioni, who disliked Truffaut's softness and tenderness and feminineness ,if one might say so.Mrs. Deneuve, who was Truffaut's mistress (they had no children together), spoke about Truffaut's feminine side or perception. I do not think this is properly expressed.
What needs to be indicated is his delicacy, subtlety, freshness, fineness, gentleness, mildness, and his frank tactfulness.
His subtle, smooth irony, his civilized ,polished and indiscreet humor, his highly humane quality in exposing and defining in artistic terms the secret substratum of the human relations, of the desire and of the loneliness and alienationwith a sense of the piquant.
As in J&J, whose declared complement it is, this approach helps, enables Truffaut to narrate with due smoothness and finesse a disturbing and twisted story. The same shamelessness, the same suavity.
Truffaut has a very cute topic for his movie:--the feminine masturbation (and a dose of lesbianism), at the little girls (needless to say that such things are still strictly taboo for most of the mainstream cinema );--then the _defloration.
As some other Truffaut films, TEG contains some piquant nudity and sexuality.
A word about the beauty of Truffaut's actors:--a beauty that is generally mild and unobtrusive and discreetyet very physical and subtly sensual and bodily (Jean-Pierre Léaud,Kika Markham,Stacey Tendeter,Marie Mansart).
One more thing to be spoken of:this one is a period movieand consequently there is a fair amount of a certain _colorist instinct, joy and gustothat I will leave the pleasure to my fair reader to discover for him/herself. Truffaut flirted here somehow with a certain trend of aestheticism and stylization that are customary in the period films. (One can perceive the trepidation of the _erotography of the epochthe interest for this kind of literary production.) On the other hand, Truffaut's huge interest in making such period films is the pendant and the complement of his studious love for a certain class of literature. Truffaut was, one knows it, such a good reader . (On the other hand,when he adapted a book, that book was never a mere pretext; on the contraryit was the hallmark. Truffaut adapted only things that he respected. One sees that is not true about, say, Welles or Hitchcockwho go beyond the literary pretext; Truffaut reveres the book, he deepens it, he remains true to it.)
The beauty of the main actors; the finesse; the writer loved by Truffaut; the twisted content; the indiscreet topic of masturbation and bodily life; the hidden substratum; the tactfulnessI hope my fair readers will give this very fine movie the esteem it deserves. Truffaut's stylizations are strictly functional; they are never vain, useless decorations; they wholly belong to the style and are directed towards the movie's meaning and are fully adequate.
Truffaut is as true, as authentic as he is smooth and elegant. Through the stylistics of the social life, he reached the stylistics of the inner life.
I would include Two English Girls and the Continent in a list of Truffaut's best tenor maybe even five!movieswith Jules et Jim (1962), The Soft Skin, Mississippi Mermaid, Vivement Dimanche! (1983) .