Truffaut: On Childhood

Throughout the fall of 2014, the Museum honors the prolific François Truffaut (1932–1984).

A passionate moviegoer from the age of 8, the legendary French critic and filmmaker cut school as a child to sneak into Parisian cinemas. As a critic for the influential publication Cahiers du Cinema, Truffaut authored hundreds of articles, including a manifest that established the auteur theory that he and his French New Wave colleagues embodied.

September's film series, Truffaut: On Childhood, reflects his interest in showing "children's tremendous ability to stand up to life and survive." His groundbreaking first feature, The 400 Blows (paired with the short Les mistons), presented in a new restoration, features the debut of his semiautobiographical protagonist Antoine Doinel (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud). This series is followed by Remembering François Truffaut, October 5–November 22.

Truffaut acted in several of his own films, including The Wild Child, in which his Dr. Itard oversees the acculturation of a boy who spent the first years of his life cut off from civilization. Concluding his trilogy on childhood is Small Change, comprised of overlapping stories of rambunctious children and adolescents (a cast of 60!) in a provincial boarding school.