Jean-Pierre Leaud retro @ French Institute, NYC

he is now 78

which is older than louis managed tbf

Death of Louis is a visually rich + memorable movie but I do prefer The Taking of Power by Louis XIV by Rossellini, which has more of a crappy TV movie aesthetic at times, but beautifully portrays the insane levels of escalating grandeur.

I saw Leaud in Rocha's The Lion Has Seven Heads (1970) recently, which is set in an African country fighting for independence.

There was a lot of theatrical shouting.

silently enraged at the anachronism, the dying king gazes out of bed as mozart's mass in c minor (k.427) plays, 68 long years before it was written

(he is very quiet in this after the very early scenes, the tantrums are all done)

Mozart has that effect iirc

There was a lot of theatrical shouting.

There was a lot of shouting (from Leaud) in the Skolimowski film. And laughing. And hopeless attempts at sneezing.

I liked Louis XVI when I saw it years ago but I wonder now what Jarman or Greenaway woulda done with it.

"There was a lot of shouting (from Leaud)"

Guy loved to act up!

I also watched a Léaud film (for the nth time) this week.

It's true that he was - at least in younger days - very given to yelling and stomping, in film after film. Not a great technique. Whether he improved and diversified his acting in later decades I don't know.

He's still fresh and suggesting an interiority in The 400 Blows.

Yes but we've got another 50-odd years of his acting to taking into consideration.

I mean, I had trouble reconciling the ending of that film with the young man he becomes in the later Doinel films.

Yes. It's 60 odd years of course.

to me it was always obvious he would become the sun king and then die of gangrene at versailles

Tom D: do you agree that his acting tends to be marred by yelling and stomping?

FWIW I am always underwhelmed by LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) [never mind the daft translation of its title], though I think I agree that Léaud is different in it from later.

[In fact I am often underwhelmed by Truffaut in general but this coexists with a desire to like him. Just last night I watched ARGENT DE POCHE (1976) and actually quite liked it, thought it quite an admirable experiment in working with a large group of children. Then I looked up a couple of critical views and both said it was dire.]

I think Truffaut becomes more enjoyable once you stop thinking of him as a nouvelle vague innovator and start thinking of his films as well made conventional dramas.

BTW ARGENT DE POCHE contains a vignette about one Madeleine (I think) Doinel who bore a child (one Oscar) to a GI around VE-Day or similar. The evident implication would be that this is the mother of Antoine Doinel though I'm not sure that this is literally meant to be or can be, the case; probably just a deliberate verbal echo (like one in JLG's MASCULIN FÉMININ).

"There was a lot of shouting (from Leaud)"

Guy loved to act up!

FWIW I am always underwhelmed by LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) [never mind the daft translation of its title], though I think I agree that Léaud is different in it from later.

I'm more taken with it every time I play it for my students, a rare thing, despite my unease with Truffaut generally. My favorite is The Story of Adèle H, and I'm not sure where it ranks in his canon these days.

Tom D: do you agree that his acting tends to be marred by yelling and stomping?

General mugging.

To some extent it's not entirely his fault, he's often playing characters who are supposed to be endearing but are actually annoying.

Dying of gangrene in Versailles would make me annoying.

for a fun diversion track down godard's little 300-word review of les 400 coups in cahiers: they hadn't fallen out yet so it is quite positive

(i believe this was the only truffaut film that godard had any time for)

(i def quoted some of it in my if…. book but i don't have that to hand; it's also collected in the jim hillier book, which i also don't have to hand; maybe it's out there on the internet somewhere -- it definitely shd be, if only as an example of extremely nay cryptically compact critical style) (guess why i liked it)

iirc Leaud gives more 'sober' performances in La Maman et la Putain, Godard's The Joy of Learning, maybe (only seen bits of it) in Out 1.

XPOST!

Annoying, I also have books in boxes, including my BFI monographs. Richard Brody appears to excerpt the review in his bio? eg after 400 Blows had been accepted to 'represent' France at the Cannes Film Festival:

Godard wrote an ecstatically triumphant note in Arts: "What is important is that, for the first time, a young film has been officially designated by the public authorities to show the true face of French cinema to the entire world." He praised his fellow critics for having " waged ... the combat for the film auteur":

"We have won in creating acceptance of the principle that a film by Hitchcock, for example, is as important as a book by Aragon. The auteurs of films, thanks to us, definitely entered into the history of art."

But Godard warned: "If we have won the battle, the war is not yet over."

Colin McCabe doesn't mention the 400 Blows review in his second Godard bk, but does include this rather dreamy photograph of Truffaut and Godard at 'the Festival du Biarritz' in 1949!

https://encerradosafuera.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/051910wave718.jpg

Léaud has some of that same princely charisma, reflected back. Eustache exploits - and then buries - that aura in The Mother and the Whore, a funeral dirge for the new wave. I don't remember Léaud stomping and shouting that much in TMATW, but it's been a while. His character is definitely an annoying poseur - and Léaud plays it well - but also attractive, funny and not without empathy or genuine human feelings.

And yes, thanks xyzzz, he's actually really funny in Out1 and it's quite a performance to sustain through twelve hours. Again, Rivette definitely makes use of and critiques Léaud's persona in Out1 - there's a buried criticism of Truffaut there, I think!

Ah, sorry, I see from yr post, mark s, that the Godard review was in Cahiers. so not the thing Brody quotes. A few pages later on he does note that Godard was the only Cahiers critic to give four stars to Hiroshima Mon Amour, 400 Blows and Rio Bravo in their regular new film poll.

The Hillier is of course on Archive.org

The Godard review ends: "To sum up, what shall I say? This: Les 400 Coups will be a film signed Frankness. Rapidity. Art. Novelty. Cinematograph. Originality. Impertinence. Seriousness. Tragedy. Renovation. Ubu-Roi. Fantasy. Ferocity. Affection. Universality. Tenderness."

I wonder if Paul Morley knows this review.

yup that's the one!

Cinematograph!

Translation by Tom Milne

Quality Morley reference.

I love Leaud in Julien Duvivier's "Boulevard" which appeared right after "400 Blows". His Pigalle-street-kid act is allowed full rein and it's an endearing performance.

iirc Leaud gives more 'sober' performances in La Maman et la Putain, Godard's The Joy of Learning, maybe (only seen bits of it) in Out 1.

Léaud is mute through a large segment of Out 1, which may be a relief to some viewers (though he gesticulates a lot). He is heartbreaking (without necessarily avoiding callowness) in Two English Girls, Truffaut's masterpiece.

(i believe this was the only truffaut film that godard had any time for)

When Truffaut was ill with a brain tumour, Godard's comment was "that's what happens when you read so many bad books".