Is The Cinema More Important Than Life?

When I agreed to take part in the Criterion blogathon I had in mind a piece based around Francois Truffaut’s The Soft Skin, the director’s 1964 film which charts the infidelities of a French academic. I’ve always seen Truffaut’s fourth movie to be something of a perfect bedfellow to Jean-Luc Godard’s Une Femme Mariée, which was released in the same year, and conceived of by its director as a response to the issues he had with Truffaut’s portrayal of infidelity. From there spun the idea to write a piece that looked at the differing ways in which the two directors approached the same kind of material, with The Soft Skin being the launchpad for a piece which would take in a wide range of pictures from the pair.

I was some way in to production on the piece when Friday night happened, and the last thing I wanted to be doing was analysing a French film which closes with its troubled protagonist being gunned down in a bar.

Instead I began to look at Costa-Gavras’ The Confession, purely on account of it being the only Criterion disc in my home library that has thus far gone unwatched. While the film itself is a subject for another day one thing that did come to mind was its director’s nationality; Costa-Gavras is a national of Greece, who moved to France in 1951 in the wake of the Greek Civil War. He left his homeland because the political situation no longer allowed for him to function as desired. He looked to France, the most culturally rich country in the world and a beacon for diversity in Europe, for solace, and France welcomed him, just as she has countless others.

Those that sought to bring chaos upon Paris are a temporary ill. The city, and its people, will stand long after they are but a distant memory. Perversely, perhaps, but not intentionally so, when thinking about those seekers of chaos this excerpt from one of the infamous letters that saw a permanent end to Truffaut and Godard’s relationship came to mind.

“Today you are considered to be strong, you not the lover in pain anymore. Like everyone, you prefer yourself, you hold the truth on life, politics, engagement, cinema, love, all is really clear to you and everyone who thinks the contrary is a bastard, even if your opinion in June is different from your opinion in April.”

Normal service will resume shortly.