Truffaut, François, << troo FOH, frahn SWAH >> (1932-1984), was a leading French motion-picture director. He directed several semiautobiographical films, beginning in 1959 with The 400 Blows. The character Antoine Doinel reflects Truffaut’s delinquent youth. Truffaut continued the story of Doinel’s life in Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1971), and Love on the Run (1978). Truffaut’s Day for Night won the 1973 Academy Award as best foreign language film. Truffaut also acted in a number of his films, as well as in films directed by others.
Truffaut began his career in the 1950’s as a film critic and developed a respect for American suspense and action movies. His Shoot the Piano Player (1960) resembles an American gangster film. The Bride Wore Black (1967) and Mississippi Mermaid (1969) show the influence of the British director Alfred Hitchcock. Truffaut’s other major films include Jules and Jim (1962), The Wild Child (1970), and The Last Metro (1980). In 1977, Truffaut portrayed a French scientist in the science-fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, by the American director Steven Spielberg.
Truffaut was born on Feb. 6, 1932, in Paris. He wrote an autobiography, My Life in Film (1975), and a book-length interview with Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock (1966, rev. ed. 1984). Truffaut died on Oct. 21, 1984.
