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FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT
Cinema as an Act of Love
An Intertextual Approach
Aner Preminger
©2015
All Rights Reserved
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“The film of tomorrow will be an act of love.”
—François Truffaut
In memory of my mother and father, whose spirits were with me while writing this
book.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Part I: François Truffaut: From Life to Cinema | From Cinema to Life
Chapter 1: The Film of His Life | Biography
Chapter 2: The Films of His Life | Filmography
Chapter 3: Collector of Culture
Part II: Intertextuality | The Theoretical Discourse
Chapter 4: Defining the Intertextual Discourse
Intertextuality
Intertext
Intertextual Categories
The Bloomian Discourse
Chapter 5: Cinematic Intertextuality: Applying the Semiotic-Conceptual Framework
The Status of Intertextuality in Cinema ’Studies Today
An Overview of Intertextual Approaches in Cinema Studies
A Summary of the Intertextual Studies of Truffaut’s Films
Uncharted Fields of Study in Cinematic Intertextuality
Chapter 6: François Truffaut and the French New Wave | The Historical Context
The Importance of Intertextuality in the Study of Truffaut and the French
New Wave
François Truffaut as Reflected through the Prism of Harold Bloom
From Realistic-Classical Narrative to Modernism
Chapter 7: Hypotheses and Goals
Study’s Goals
Methodology
Part III : The Films in His Life
Chapter 8: The Mischief Makers (Les Mistons, 1957)
Chapter 9: The Antoine Doinel Cycle
The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups, 1959)
Antoine and Colette - Love at Twenty (Antoine et Colette - L’Amour à Vingt
Ans, 1962)
Stolen Kisses (Baisers Volés, 1968)
Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal, 1970)
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Love on the Run (L’Amour en Fuite, 1979)
Antoine Doinel and the Human Comedy
Chapter 10: Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le Pianiste, 1960)
Chapter 11: Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim, 1961)
Evolution of the Narrative in Truffaut’s First Three Films: From the ClassicalRealist
to the Modern
Chapter 12: The Pygmalion Trilogy
Chapter 13: The Soft Skin (La Peau Douce, 1964)
The Evolution of the Female Characters in Truffaut’s First Six Films
Chapter 14: Mississippi Mermaid (La Sirène du Mississippi, 1969)
Chapter 15: Day for Night (La Nuit Américaine, 1973)
Chapter 16: Conclusion: Truffaut’s Cinema - From Being Influenced to Being an
Influence
Part IV: Appendices
Chapter 17: quantitive summary tables
Chapter 18: Study Objectives | A Summary
Filmography
Bibliography
Indices
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Prologue
François Truffaut - Cinema as an Act of Love derives from an extensive study of
Truffaut’s films and constitutes an expanded version of the Hebrew book François
Truffaut - The Man Who Loved Films published by Hakibbutz Hameuhad, The Porter
Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, Tel Aviv University, and Sapir College in 2006.
The book is based on my doctoral dissertation, “Cinematic Intertextuality and the
Films of François Truffaut,” written under the supervision of Professor Ziva BenPorat
and Professor Michal Freedman and submitted to Tel Aviv University in
December 2001. Since then, I continue to study Truffaut’s films, and their
intertextuality, both for my own research and as a teacher and dissertation supervisor
of students studying Truffaut’s films.
My acquaintance with Truffaut’s films began more than 40 years ago, as an enchanted
viewer. As a film student and later, as a filmmaker, I found his work instructional and
illuminating. My familiarity with his cinematic oeuvre has evolved over my thirtyyear
career as a teacher of film studies. In twenty years of research, I have viewed
each Truffaut film dozens of times and I find them ceaselessly enjoyable and
fulfilling. Each viewing reveals added nuances and increasingly complex dimensions
in terms of content and the original manner in which he confronts cinematic poetics.
The unique nature of such an innovative and wide-ranging filmmaker as Truffaut is
difficult to encapsulate, and it is impossible to express the “bottom line” on such a
complex long-term research project. I believe that Truffaut’s uniqueness and special,
powerful cinema is expressed, among other things, by the fact that his films address
two levels simultaneously. On the one hand, one finds a mildly experienced simplicity
that allows most viewers, even nonprofessionals, to follow the plot and enjoy
Truffaut’s virtuosity as a dramatic, moving, humorous, and humane storyteller
without feeling that they’ve failed to grasp the filmmaker’s intentions. On another
level, most of his films are complex masterpieces that address profound issues,
complicated interrelationships, tangled passions, and multi-faceted characters.
Truffaut’s power and distinctive portrayals of nuanced complexity are inherent to his
wide-ranging ability to alternate between emotional and stylistic tones effortlessly and
naturally.
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Concurrently, his films, for the most part, were innovative for their time, undermined
cinematic norms, and defined numerous innovations, the sum of which constituted a
significant contribution to the development of cinematic language during the
nineteen-sixties and seventies. Combining these two seemingly contradictory levels
awards Truffaut a place in the small group of innovative humanistic filmmakers that
includes Charlie Chaplin, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, and Vittorio De Sica. It was
these dual features that led me in the choices I made in adapting my doctoral thesis
into this book. On the one hand, I felt the importance of preserving the references to
as many relevant sources as possible, as well as to the intertextual theories prevalent
in semiotic literary criticism, an indispensable element in developing the tools
necessary to illuminate the depth, complexity, and innovation of Truffaut’s films. On
the other hand, in my desire to remain faithful to Truffaut’s style, I refrain from
including cumbersome quotations to provide clear, simple summaries of the relevant
theories. Cinema as an Act of Love divides into four sections. Part I constructs the
historical and cultural context of Truffaut’s oeuvre and includes a short review of his
biography, which plays a central part in his films; a review of his filmography, and
finally, an analysis of the manner in which he internalized his cultural background.
Part II relates to the theoretical grid on which I base my interpretations of Truffaut’s
films; it is research-oriented and contains a wide range of academic information,
explained in as straightforward a manner as possible. Part III, the heart of the book, as
it were, is dedicated to the discussion and interpretation of eleven major films from
Truffaut’s corpus. Part IV includes appendices that summarize the quantitative
aspects of the research and examine its conclusions in light of the study’s original
goals. And lastly, this section includes a detailed filmography, bibliography and
indices.
Cinema as an Act of Love is a book for viewers who are interested in and love
Truffaut’s films, including those viewers less practiced in reading academic or
theoretical texts. Anyone interested in understanding why Truffaut’s films are so
moving and enjoyable, why he influences so many filmmakers, or why he has become
one of the most important filmmakers of the twentieth century will find many of the
answers in Cinema as an Act of Love, as will film school students or scholars and
researchers in the fields of cinema studies, literature, art or cultural studies. For
consistency’s sake, I use gender-specific nouns common for the time in which
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Truffaut’s film were made, and in no way does this stylistic choice claim gender bias.
Readers will find a comprehensive and far-ranging analysis of a unique and
significant cultural icon, a master of cinematic language, and a man of profound and
expansive culture. To paraphrase a sentence from Truffaut’s film, Day for Night, I
hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Finally, I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the following people: I’d like to
thank my devoted doctoral advisors, Professor Michal Freedman, who has
accompanied me for many years in my love for French Cinema in general, and
François Truffaut, in particular. Professor Freedman’s vast knowledge of historical
cinema has been a great aid in enabling the verification and examination of my
theories within the wider context of a multi-dimensional cinematic heritage; Professor
Ziva Ben-Porat, who illuminated the way when I began to decipher the entanglements
of intertextual theory. Her comments during the various stages of my research helped
me refine and clarify the relevance of intertextual discourse to interpreting Truffaut’s
films.
Professor Yesha’ayahu Nir, one of the members of my dissertation committee, whose
feedback provided a detailed and instructive response to my research, proving very
helpful when I expanded my original study to its present format.
I am also grateful to Professor Yehuda Moraly, who read my manuscript in the early
stages of revision, believed in the importance of its publication, and provided
encouragement and valuable comments.
I would like to thank the staff and administration at Sapir College for their help and
support in bringing this project to fruition. I am especially grateful to Professor Ze’ev
Zahor, the former president of the college, who tirelessly expressed his interest and
encouragement during my doctoral research and provided support and aid during the
publication process. To Nachmi Paz, the college’s CEO and to Muhammad Abu
Abed, who provided practical support during the publication of the Hebrew version of
this book. I would like to thank Mindy Ivry, who translated the book from Hebrew to
English, for her careful work, and faithful and accurate translation. Many thanks also
to Netanel Semrik, CEO at Contento, who recognized the importance of the Hebrew
book, introduced its publication in English, and who, with his devoted staff, has
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accompanied its translation and production, uncompromisingly fulfilling all of my
demands to produce a perfect result.
I am grateful to my friend, Yoram Navon, who joined me in watching Truffaut’s films
for many years, listened to my ideas on applying intertextual approaches to the
interpretation of his films, questioned my theories, provided illuminating comments,
and helped with the translation’s early stages.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to my wife, Michal, my partner and witness to my
enthusiasm for Truffaut’s films. Her comments during my original research and its
following publication in Hebrew were the first feedback I received, and her insights
helped me refine my thoughts and perfect my formulations. My sister, Lilach
Lachman, read parts of my early study and her on-target remarks helped me clarify
and refine my arguments. And finally, I’d like to thank my children, Matan, Ayana
and Tamar, for their support, interest and participation in the journey that this study
has been and in which I’ve been involved since they were born.
Aner Preminger
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PART I
FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT
From Life to Cinema
From Cinema to Life
“The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and
autobiographical novel, like a confession or a diary.”
(Truffaut, 1978, (1975), p. 19)
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Part II
Intertextuality
The Theoretical Discourse
“By encouraging me from 1953 on to write, Bazin did me a great favor. Having to
analyze and describe one’s pleasure may not automatically change an amateur into a
professional, but it does lead one back to the concrete and… to that ill-defined area
where the critic works.”
(Truffaut, 1978, (1975), p. 5)
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“You will certainly have noticed that the New York critics mention your name a great
deal in their reviews. I think that in one sense it is quite justified because I do owe you
a lot and in another sense unjustified because the story is in fact rather different from
those which tend to interest you as a film maker.”
Truffaut in a letter to Alfred Hitchcock following the release of The Bride Wore Black
(Truffaut, 1990, p. 324)
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Defining the Intertextual Discourse
“Poets tend to think of themselves as stars because their deepest desire is to be an
influence, rather than to be influenced, but even in the strongest, whose desire is
accomplished, the anxiety of having been formed by influence still persists.” (Bloom,
1975, p.12-13)
This quote concisely formulates Harold Bloom’s theory regarding the psychological
impulses that motivate artists. The lines from Truffaut’s letter to Hitchcock, quoted
above, may serve as an illustration of Bloom’s approach. In order to analyze the
influence artists have on one another in an intertextual context, we must first define
and broaden the theoretical discourse, which makes discussion of this tool possible.
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is a concept that refers to all cases of simultaneous activation of two or
more texts within the framework of a single text. For example, a person asked where
his brother is who replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” will immediately activate an
associative mechanism connected to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. In this case, a
simple and insignificant text activates a deeply significant text that grants the short
reply an entirely new meaning. Here the term “text” follows the semiotic approach
and refers to any closed system of signs (such as an image, for example, and not only
linguistic text), including various types of codes, be they cultural, social or
ideological.
Robert Stam characterizes this simultaneous activation of texts as referring to the
modern approach as well as to the ancient source in which it is rooted:
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The term, ‘intertextuality’ was first introduced as Julia Kristeva’s translation
of Mikhail Bakhtin’s conception of the ‘dialogic,’ that is, the simultaneous
presence, within a literary work, of two or more intersecting texts which
mutually relativize one another. Bakhtin traces the dialogic back to the
Socratic dialogues, with their staging of the contest of two competing
discourses. … The literary word, according to Bakhtin, is aware of the
presence of another literary word alongside it. Every text is what Kristeva
calls a ‘mosaic of citations’ which absorbs and transforms other texts (Stam,
1992, p. 20).
Since Kristeva coined the term “intertextuality” in 1967, various schools of thought
have evolved regarding the comprehension of the term and its application in textual
interpretation. Despite the controversy surrounding the interpretive significance of
intertextuality, the term has permeated and become deeply embedded in academic
research, so much so that the researcher Ziva Ben-Porat determines:
Intertextual relationships are both the result and the generators of multi-system
communications. Thus, one may assert that intertextuality is a necessary
prerequisite in the interpretation of a given text, if not the basis of its
existence, or, simply the very process of attributing meaning to the text (BenPorat,
1985, p. 170).
Ben-Porat has formulated the prevalent theory in modern intertextual research,
whereby one cannot understand a text without relating to the context of a broad
network of texts with which the interpreted text maintains a dialogue. In fact, the
significance of a given text is to be found solely within a network of texts, which
constitute an inseparable part of the original text. One may conclude that there are no
closed texts that exist as whole, contained units, even when the text is circumscribed.
Intertext
An interpreted text, referred to as the main text or target text, is not a closed system. It
activates additional texts which are called secondary texts or source texts. Each one of
these secondary texts is an intertext. An intertextual reading of a work interprets the
main text together with its intertexts—the secondary texts activated by the interpreted
text. In order to identify an intertext, the main text must contain repetitions—in other
words, repetitive usage of existing and familiar elements from the secondary text.
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This reuse may appear in various forms and lead to a variety of intertextual meanings.
Heinrich Plett distinguishes between different kinds of intertextuality, categorized by
intertext type (Plett, 1991, p. 7). He opines that repetition of existing signs is possible,
whether well-known, overused signs such as Christ on the cross, or unique fresh
signs, such as a baby carriage rolling down a steep staircase, an image engraved in the
collective memory from the Odessa Steps scene in Eisenstein’s 1925 film Battleship
Potemkin.
Plett calls cases such as these, in which the repetition is of signs, “material
intertextuality,” whereas a repetition of rules is classified as “structural
intertextuality.” Most film researchers, when addressing intertextuality, discuss some
aspects of structural intertextuality, such as genre and remakes. At times one
encounters repetitions of both signs and the system of rules in which the signs appear.
This is known as material-structural intertextuality, Plett’s third category. The
significance of a film star’s role, an issue studied by film researchers, is a classic
example of material-structural intertextuality. The star’s well-known visage is a
repetition of a familiar sign, while the behavior of the character he is portraying
adheres to repetitive rules. John Wayne’s repeated appearances in Westerns are an
example of this type of intertextuality. Wayne’s physiognomy is the repeated sign,
while his code of behavior adheres to repeated rules. Plett’s first category – material
intertextuality – has received little attention in film studies literature, limited to some
discussion of the general term “homage.” In light of the above, this book focuses on
material intertextuality (Plett’s first category) and material-structural intertextuality
(Plett’s third category).
Intertextual Categories
Choice versus Unavoidable Necessity
Ben-Porat distinguishes between linguistic and rhetorical intertextuality and
postulates that Kristeva’s approach, stating that “every text is to a certain extent a
derived text and every sentence—a quotation” (Kristeva, 1968); (Ben-Porat, 1985, p.
171) distinctly represents linguistic intertextuality. Rhetorical intertextuality, on the
other hand, is a deliberate aesthetic strategy whose distinctive representative is
Michael Riffaterre (Riffaterre, 1978). While linguistic intertextuality is generally
imperceptible because it is imbedded in the structure of the language and is therefore
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not a matter of choice, rhetorical intertextuality in most cases is perceptible, because
of the essential role of the intertext in filling the gaps in the text. When the director
David Griffith first made use of close-ups in film, he changed the cinematic utterance.
The fact that later filmmakers could not avoid the use of close-ups is an example of
linguistic intertextuality, as understanding the significance of the close-ups in the
interpretation of their films was not constituent on the identification of Griffith’s first
use of close-up. However, when the filmmaker Brian De Palma, in his 1987 film, The
Untouchables, portrayed a baby carriage rolling down the stairs in the train station
during a shootout between Mafia gangsters and FBI agents, identifying the scene as
an allusion to the Odessa Steps scene in Battleship Potemkin grants a new
interpretation to De Palma’s scene, and is, therefore, an instance of rhetorical
intertextuality.
Linguistic intertextuality constitutes an integral part of the cinematic utterance and is
therefore unavoidable and inevitable, and automatically interpreted when analyzing
film utterance. Rhetorical intertextuality, on the other hand, is unique, the product of
choice, and the intertexts must be identified in order to interpret the text. Continuing
from Riffaterre’s approach, this study focuses principally on rhetorical intertextuality,
interpretation of which enables us to explain Truffaut’s choices both on the level of
the text and on the level of the poetic whole.
The Bloomian Discourse
Harold Bloom’s theory of the “anxiety of influence” refers to imaginary personal
relationships between strong poets and focuses on the conflict between text and
intertext, which is an expression, according to Bloom, of the oedipal conflict between
a poet and his precursor. This unusual concept is central to this study, as the model
proposed by Bloom is partially appropriate to a description of Truffaut’s relations
with his precursors, as well as to biographical aspects of his cinematic oeuvre. While
Riffaterre’s model limits itself mainly to the rhetoric of the single text, Truffaut
employed intertextuality as a tool through which he developed his cinematic voice in
relation to tradition, necessitating a Bloomian intertextual approach.
The Canon
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One of the key terms in the Bloomian model is the “canon,” a term frequently used in
the study of literature but less common in film studies. As the term is highly
significant both in Bloomian theory and with regard to Truffaut’s works, I believe
some clarification is apt at this point.
Canon—from Lat. and Gr., a carpenter’s rule, hence a standard (as ‘the canons
of criticism,’ a model, an ordinance)…. Also the body of the books in the
Bible which are accepted by the Christian Church generally as genuine and
inspired; the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, excluding the
Apocrypha called also the ‘sacred canon’ and the ‘canonical books’ (Benét,
1950, p. 173).
Based on the above, canonical literature may be regarded as a literary collection
which has undergone a process of acceptance by the establishment, a process that is
linked to the relation between texts considered sacred by a given culture and new texts
imparted with this status by the relevant authority. Thus, one may claim that canonical
cinema is the collection of films considered sacred by a particular culture. The term
“canon” implies a somewhat problematic underlying assumption, whereby cultures, in
this case the literary and cinematic culture, are ruled by a higher authority that
sanctifies works of art, similar to religious authorities.
The American film critic, Andrew Sarris introduced the term “pantheon” as an
alternative to “canon” in his publications on the French New Wave.1
The formation of
a canon was central to Truffaut’s films and to his earlier work as a critic, and since
cinematic allusion served as an essential tool for the consolidation of this canon,
Bloom’s theory makes it possible to position Truffaut in cinematic history and to
examine his position in the canon from a fresh perspective.
“The Anxiety of Influence” and “Misreading”
Bloom’s books, The Anxiety of Influence (1973) and A Map of Misreading (1975),
contain several fundamental assumptions and central themes on which the Bloomian
discourse is based and which will be discussed extensively in the following chapters.
Formulating Bloom’s Thesis
1
Later sections will elaborate on the central role of the cinematic canon according to Truffaut, who
together with his colleagues in the New Wave, rebelled against the old cinematic canon and
consolidated an alternative cinematic canon.
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According to Bloom, the fundamental problem in reading is that it is a belated act,
which takes place in a broad context of writings that are familiar to both the writer
and the reader. Reading is a belated act not only because of the obvious reason that
everything has already been written about and there is nothing new under the sun, but
also because of the ever-expanding chronological gap between the moment something
was written and the moment it is read. All of the products of a culture produced
within that gap alter the nature of the original work of art. The time lapse between
writing and reading, which is, in itself, a variable, changes the reading of what has
been written, as it is, into an impossible act. An act of reading will be seen as strong
only when it is a misreading. Bloom’s assertion, whereby a work of art changes with
time resonates with Luis Borges’ formulation in his story, Pierre Menard, Author of
the Quixote:
To compose the Quixote at the beginning of the seventeenth century was a
reasonable undertaking, necessary and perhaps even unavoidable; at the
beginning of the twentieth, it is almost impossible. It is not in vain that three
hundred years have gone by, filled with exceedingly complex events. Amongst
them, to mention only one, is the Quixote itself (Borges, Labyrinths, James E.
Irby (translator), 1962, p.41-42).
Menard, as one may remember, “rewrites” the Quixote without changing a single
word. In other words, repositioning the story within a different context is the factor
that renews and alters the original.
Bloom postulates that the influence that works of art have on one another signifies
that there are no texts, only interactions between texts. The influence-relation governs
reading to the same degree that it governs writing; therefore, reading is actually
“miswriting,” and writing is “misreading.” As Bloom put it: As literary history
lengthens, all poetry necessarily becomes verse-criticism, just as all criticism,
becomes prose-poetry” (Bloom, 1975, p.3).
Thus, Bloom formulates a discourse that faithfully expresses the simple fact that two
people describing a film that they both saw, will tell two different stories, even though
they are both trying to describe the original film accurately. The reason for this is that
their descriptions contain their misreadings, which reflect their personal
interpretations of the film.
The poet’s greatest difficulty, according to Bloom, is that he was born too late—after
the great artists whom he admires. Being born after one’s precursors is not
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coincidental—it is an innate quality of human development, both physically and
culturally. Just as a child is inevitably born after its father, every poet since Homer
has been born into a previously existing cultural context. This reality, which is
fundamental to the emergence of any given culture, leads to poets’ obsessive
involvement in issues of influence and the origin of their work, exactly as every
human being takes an interest in his origins, as part of defining his identity. Since
poets long to influence others rather than be influenced by others, they are in a state of
constant anxiety regarding their originality, or as Bloom puts it, they suffer from the
anxiety of influence. Poets maintain a constant struggle with the great poets who
preceded them, a struggle that Bloom calls “wrestling with the greatest”: “Poetic
strength comes only from a triumphant wrestling with the greatest of the dead”
(Bloom, 1975, p.9). According to Bloom, this wrestling is necessary for the
perception of artistic value. Wrestling with the greatest of one’s precursors is defined
as a necessary prerequisite to achieving artistic greatness. Thus, we have a criterion
for the definition of a canon and a formulation of the manner in which canons develop
historically. Beginning at the dawn of the civilization that defined the first of the
greatest—the Bible and Greek mythology in Western culture—an inherent
prerequisite for inclusion in the canon was this wrestling with the greatest of the past
and with those who had wrestled with them and so on, leading to contemporary
artists. Thus, Bloom addresses the psychological motives that lead to the formation of
an artistic act and their influence on the final product. In the Bloomian discourse, a
poem is never about subject nor about itself; it is always about another poem:
A poem is a response to a poem, as a poet is a response to a poet, or a person
to his parent. Trying to write a poem takes the poet back to the origins of what
a poem first was for him, and so takes the poet back beyond the pleasure
principle to the decisive initial encounter and response that began him (Bloom,
1975, p.18).
At this point Bloom equates the artistic experience with a primal experience of selfdiscovery.
Since experiences such as these are renewed and associated with various
works of art at certain stages of one’s development, every artist or reader has certain
works of art that he had experienced, including initial reading experiences. Therefore,
during the process of his artistic development, an adult artist is likely to long to
reproduce this process several times in relation to several different works of art.
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Coping with Precursors, Denial Mechanisms
The anxiety of influence constitutes an obstacle in the way of the poet in finding and
individualizing his voice opposite his artistic fathers and frequently poses an actual
threat to his writing ability. In order to overcome this difficulty, Bloom asserts that the
poet must deny the existence of the influence, just as a son denies his oedipal
relationship with his father and is therefore unaware of its existence. Thus, the poet is
unaware of his anxiety or his relations with his poetic father, and in order to ensure
the continuing endurance of his denial, he must develop various denial mechanisms.
The fact that his poetic precursors predate the poet, or that the poet is “late,” so to
speak, leads to his being “not so much a man speaking to men as a man rebelling
against being spoken to by a dead man (the precursor) outrageously more alive than
himself” (Bloom, 1975, p.19).
In contrast to the view that sees the artistic act as a dialogue between an artist and a
living audience, Bloom defines the artistic act as a dialogue with the past. This
definition augments the role of intertextuality and accords it the status of a necessary,
if not an exclusive tool, in the interpretation of a work of art. In order to survive as an
artist, the poet must misconstrue the oeuvre of his poetic father. The act of misreading
constitutes a process of rewriting the father’s work, and plays a central role in the
poet’s construction of a denial mechanism, an indispensable part of the artistic act.
The significance of misreading, according to Bloom, is that the poet is convinced that
he understands his artistic father’s intentions better than the father himself, the selfsame
artistic father who had originally had such an extensive influence on him.
Alternatively, the poet may see himself as the first to dare to go beyond his artistic
precursor’s limitations, following in his footsteps but reaching new heights where his
precursor had not dared, or had not been capable of treading.
The poet is convinced that his misreading is an artistic achievement that the “greatest”
with whom he is wrestling could not have reached. In the Bloomian discourse, this
victory in the struggle with the greatest is the source of the new work’s poetic
strength. Bloom compares the formation of an artist’s identity to the crystallization of
identity in personal development. Identity is formed following a revolt against one’s
parents, the point of origin, and the target of the revolt being the very source from
which the artist sprung.
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Bloom emphasizes the difference between the anxiety of influence and the anxiety of
style, as a differing or even an opposing style is irrelevant to the identity of the father.
On the contrary:
Since poetic influence is necessarily misprision, a taking or doing amiss of
one’s burden, it is to be expected that such a process of malformation and
misinterpretation will, at the very least, produce deviations in style between
strong poets (Bloom, 1975, p.20).
Defining this distinction, Bloom is relating to the apparent paradox appearing when a
poet adopts a style that opposes that of artists he dmires, a paradox wherein lies the
psychological explanation of the dynamics that necessitate the renewal and alteration
of an artistic act. Finally, Bloom states:
I take the resistance shown to the theory by many poets, in particular, to be
likely evidence for its validity, for poets rightly idealize their activity; and all
poets, weak and strong, agree in denying any share in the anxiety of influence
(Bloom, 1975, p.10).
Bloom formulates the simple fact that a son is unable to admit his oedipal relationship
with his father. This assertion relates, prima facie, to the possibility of defending his
theory in light of possible resistance, and defines its immunity to criticism, as any
theoretical attack will serve as evidence of its validity. The role that Bloom accords to
“misreading” and to the denial of influence is relevant to our discussion of Truffaut.
In contrast to the Bloomian conception of denial, Truffaut seems to be highly aware
of his precursors’ influence and even turns the “anxiety of influence” and the act of
“misreading” into a cinematic theme that he recurrently engages in.
The Bloomian Discourse: Summary
Bloom asserts that reading is a late act, which takes place with a broad context of
texts that are familiar to both the writer and the reader. The act of reading is
considered strong because it is actually “misreading.” In other words, there are no
stand-alone texts; there are only interactions between texts. The influence-relations
that govern writing are realized in reading, which proves to be “miswriting.” and in
writing, which proves to be “misreading.” Good poetry, according to Bloom, is
always verse-criticism. And just as influential criticism is recognized as prose-poetry,
poetic strength is recognized in the wrestling with the greatest of our artistic
20
forefathers. In the Bloomian discourse, this struggle is a necessary factor in the
perception of artistic value. From this approach, Bloom derives his criteria for the
definition of the canon and his conception of the tradition as a developing canon.
Poems, in the Bloomian discourse, are neither about subjects nor about themselves,
but necessarily about other poems. The poet does not speak to people; rather, he
rebels against the continuous speaking of the dead poets to him—a speaking that
possesses much more vitality than his own voice. Moreover, in contrast to the view
that sees the artistic act as a dialogue between an artist and a living audience, Bloom
defines the artistic act as a dialogue with the past. This definition augments the role of
intertextuality and accords it the status of a necessary tool, if not an exclusive one.
This struggle with the past causes the poet to misconstrue the oeuvre of his poetic
father. The rewriting of the father plays a central role in the poet’s construction of a
denial mechanism towards the “anxiety of influence.” A “strong” artist will develop
various strategies that will allow him to “deviate” from his precursor’s works and
reach a point that the original artist had intended to reach but had failed. Thus, the
new artist rewrites the previous work, or miswrites it, in Bloom’s terms. This process
leads the new writer to believe that he is the original artist who created the earlier
work of art, more than having been influenced by it. Thus, he appropriates the earlier
work of art. This psychological and rhetorical strategy allows the younger artist to
deny the influence of his precursor while simultaneously, through a process of denial,
retaining the spiritual significance of that influence as well as its creative
implications. Bloom describes a dramatic battle of forces. Bloom postulates that a
work of art cannot have one right interpretation. All interpretations are neither correct
nor wrong—they are either strong or weak misreading. The role that Bloom accords
to misreading and to the denial of influence is relevant to our discussion.
Despite the advantages mentioned of applying Bloom’s theory to the study of
Truffaut, this theory by itself is insufficient, principally because it does not give us
tools to describe a rebellion that goes beyond the crystallization of the artist’s identity,
and also because our goal is to cast light on the revolution that Truffaut effected in the
cinema. Furthermore, in Truffaut’s case, his relations with many of the leading
filmmakers, with whom he was wrestling, were not relationships with dead artists, as
most of them were alive and working at the same time as he became a director, and
indeed several were at the height of their careers. Moreover, as a filmmaker who
started out as a film critic, Truffaut was highly aware of influence-relations, in
21
general, and particularly of the influence that the canonical filmmakers had on his
work. This fact does not negate the possibility that he may have been in denial
regarding certain aspects of the influence relationship, although the dualistic
relationship between a high degree of awareness of influence and its suppressed
aspects implies a complex phenomenon, which requires an investigative tool more
sophisticated than the Bloomian.
22
The Bloomian Discourse – Virtues versus Limitations
One of the significant vulnerabilities in Bloom’s theory is its preoccupation with the
artist’s psychological state, which often lures readers into a discussion centered on the
artist rather than on the work of art. The Bloomian discourse seems to focus on the
why—what were the artist’s motives—rather than on the fundamental interpretive
question of what for—what is the significance from the point of view of the
audience. This theory seems to focus the discussion on the psychological factors that
lead an artist to resonate an earlier text, instead of discussing the interpretive
significance of the resonance of an earlier text in the original text.
Bloom’s theory is highly significant in a discussion of Truffaut’s films, particularly
when adopting his discourse to illustrate four salient aspects:
1. The introduction of the term “misreading” in place of the overused term
“homage,” which has been used so frequently to denote cinematic references
or quotations that it has become virtually meaningless and incorrect. When a
critic chooses to define a film that refers to another film as a work of
“homage,” he is seemingly fulfilling his obligation to diagnosing what he saw,
but actually preventing any discussion of the significance of the reference or
of different types of references. The term “misreading,” on the other hand,
implies the existence of a conflict between reading and misconstruing;
between admiration for an artistic precursor, implied by the term “homage” as
well, and a rebellion against an artistic precursor, as implied by the “mis” in
“misreading.”
2. The significance granted by Bloom’s theory to the process of finding one’s
voice and defining the identity of the artist, in light of the dominant influence
of his artistic father, adds an important perspective to the discussion of the
significance of an artistic revolution, of changes in cinematic language and the
redesigning of innovative stylistic codes.
3. The term “appropriation” in the anxiety of influence theory facilitates
observation of the process of appropriation of earlier works in new works of
art.
4. The process of appropriation grants the appropriated works significant status
in cases in which they are not yet considered canonical, and, at times, the
appropriation increases the significance of the appropriating work of art. In
23
both cases, appropriation is a means of determining the contents of a canon, a
subject frequently addressed by Truffaut.
The application of the Bloomian discourse, taking into account its limitations, and
accommodating it to the study of film, will serve as a fruitful starting point for a
refreshing discussion of Truffaut’s films.
24
“Another interesting thing about the film is that, maybe for the first time, we are given
a filmed critique of films. […] for the first time we are given deliberate citations from
other directors, with the same frames, angles, and positions of the actors.”
François Truffaut, writing in 1956 of Billy Wilder’s 1955 film The Seven Year Itch
(Truffaut, 1978, (1975), p.160).
5
Cinematic Intertextuality:
Applying the Semiotic-Conceptual Framework
In applying the theoretical framework drawn from semiotics (the study of signs,
symbols and signification) and literature to the cinema, it is important to distinguish
between two different concepts: “intertextuality in cinema” and “cinematic
intertextuality.” Distinguishing between these two concepts is of the utmost
importance in comprehending the relation between main texts and intertexts as well as
the interpretive significance of intertextual occurrences of both types.
Intertextuality in cinema – This term refers to observation of all the phenomena that
the theories of intertextuality relate to, where the text being studied is a film rather
than a literary text, but the intertext is not necessarily a film. For example, this may
refer to a cinematic text such as the Odessa Steps scene in Eisenstein’s Battleship
Potemkin, in which a mother carries her dead son in a manner that resonates with the
Pietà, in which Mary carries the crucified Christ away from the cross. The cinematic
text—Battleship Potemkin—makes use of an intertext from the fields of history and
fine arts—the Pietà.
Cinematic intertextuality – This refers to the special case where both the text and the
intertext are films or parts of films. For example, the scene in which the Mafia
accountant is trapped on the stairs in the train station in De Palma’s The Untouchables
is a cinematic text that alludes to an intertext which is also from a film—the Odessa
Steps scene in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. This study focuses on this special
case, although at times there are also references to intertexts from other cultural
domains, such as literature, painting, music, and history.
25
The Status of Intertextuality in Cinema Studies Today’
Most of the studies dealing with intertextuality in cinema relate to linguistic
intertextuality while rhetorical intertextuality is rarely and insufficiently addressed.
Despite the importance of intertextuality, it is infrequently discussed and its
ramifications have not received adequate treatment. Prevailing intertextual research
deals with the language of cinema—with genres, remakes, motifs that navigate from
one cinematic school to another, which means that it deals essentially with the
transition of mechanisms of signification through more than one text, but not with the
purpose and meaning of these mechanisms of signification or their effects on the
viewer. Rhetorical intertextuality, which could explain these phenomena in the
context of the cinematic communications situation, has not yet been thoroughly
addressed in cinematic research. Cinematic quotations and allusions, when these are
identified, are generally catalogued in the broad category of the “homage,” without
any treatment of their covert interpretative and poetic potential.
Truffaut and his New Wave colleagues, as filmmakers and as critics, possessed a
historical awareness of the cinema as a developing language, an awareness that
reinforces the methodological validity of the argument whereby cinematic
intertextuality is an essential component in the optimal actualization of the
interpretive potential of a cinematic text concealed within the works of the New Wave
filmmakers.
A survey of traditional intertextual references in connection with the New Wave
reveals a conspicuous lack of discussion of cinematic intertextuality. This lack is
especially conspicuous in light of the status of reflexivity with New Wave
filmmakers, both in theory and in practice.
An Overview of Intertextual Approaches in Cinema Studies
In his Film Theory, An Introduction (2000), Robert Stam provides a comprehensive
overview of the history and current state of a wide range of cinematic theories. Under
the title From Text to Intertext, Stam summarizes the state of cinematic intertextual
research updated to the end of the twentieth century and describes the turning point
after which intertextual studies began to develop:
In one sense, the decline of the text as an object of study in the 1980s
coincided with the ascendance of the intertext. Rather than focus on specific
26
films or single genres, intertextuality theory saw every text as related to other
texts, and thus to an intertext (Stam, 2000, p. 201).
Stam clarifies that the literature virtually ignored intertextuality in cinema, in general,
until the mid-1980s and particularly cinematic intertextuality.
Keith Reader published an article on intertextuality in cinema in 1990,2
in which he
compared the television adaptation of R.L. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to
Jean Renoir’s cinematic adaptation of the novel (Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier,
1959). The intertextual discussion becomes an inter-medium discussion, in which the
wrestling of the greatest is not between great artists working in a common medium
but between the cinema and its literary father, on the one hand, and its made-for-TV
offspring on the other. Ultimately, Reader’s article is about intertextuality in cinema,
but rather than addressing cinematic intertextuality, it discusses hyper-textuality.3
Denis Turner, as opposed to Reader, concentrates solely on cinematic intertexts. In his
study, The Transformation of Genres in the Films of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc
Godard (1981), he relates to the Hollywood sources of influence that shaped the
cinematic worlds of Godard and Truffaut and mentions the cinematic intertexts that
formed this influence. Thus, for example, Turner quotes Leo Braudy, in referring to
Truffaut’s comments on his film, Shoot the Piano Player:
I chose Shoot the Piano Player because I admired the author, David Goodis;
perhaps you movie-lovers know his novel Nightmare, which became Dark
Passage4
starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (Braudy, 1972, p.
134).
Turner claims that with this comment, Truffaut was rebutting the audience devoted to
René Clair, a well-known French director from the early days of cinema, and actually
defining himself as a member of the small, elite group of cineastes, or cinema addicts,
who were familiar with marginal authors such as David Goodis and others whose
names Truffaut was in the habit of mentioning nonchalantly. According to Turner,
Truffaut was trying to lure his audience “into one of those tedious film-buff
exchanges in which he and Godard had indulged so frequently that they became, in
2
Literature/Cinema/Television: Intertextuality in Jean Renoir’s Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier
(Worton & Still, 1990, p. 176-189)
3
A term coined by Gerard Genette in 1982, which defines the relationship between a text and its
adaptations or translations.
4
Directed by Delmer Daves
27
the form of ‘homage,’ part of the New Wave style” (Turner, 1981, p. 127-128).
Turner further asserts:
This deliberate snubbing of the average French filmmaker and special appeal
to the ‘real film nuts’ was the act of young artists who had not yet found their
own voices. It was as if Truffaut’s first film, which had been the traditional
young man’s venture into subjective narrative, had not quite released him from
his past (ibid., p. 127-128).
This statement of Turner’s, regarding young artists who had not yet found their own
voices, reveals his weak point. Turner totally ignores Bloom’s theory, whereby an
artist’s voice is formed as a result of his “wrestling with the greatest” and coping with
the voices of earlier masters. The fact that Turner ignores the Bloomian discourse is
less disturbing than his ignoring the rebellion and innovation in Truffaut and Godard’s
early films, which constituted an investigation of the classic Hollywood genres.
Turner postulates that they were imitating these genres and adapting them to French
culture:
Excluding Jules and Jim and Stolen Kisses, all of his early films were attempts
to copy a particular Hollywood genre. Piano Player (Shoot the Piano Player
A.P.) was an American gangster flick, The Soft Skin a reworking of the
conventional love melodrama, Fahrenheit 451 a science-fiction epic, The
Bride Wore Black a deliberate imitation of and homage to Alfred Hitchcock,
Mississippi Mermaid a thriller. Except for The Soft Skin, all of these early
films were adapted from American novels. Thus, as James Monaco has
pointed out, Truffaut’s early career can be divided between the
autobiographical cycle of the Doinel films and the Hollywood genre cycle
made up of films that transpose American plots to France (Turner, 1981, p.
128).
Turner completely ignores the possibility that these films were not imitations or pure
acts of homage, but rather what Bloom would have called “misreadings.” He fails to
relate to the fact that Godard and Truffaut were testing the structure of cinematic
narrative and language and defying the legitimacy of classic codes. It would seem that
Turner is formulating a common error regarding Truffaut, an error which the
following chapters will attempt to rectify.
Jean Douchet, in his book, French New Wave, provides a thorough and on-target
formulation of the erroneous conception of the complex relationship of French New
28
Wave films and their predecessors in the cinematic tradition. Douchet examines the
cinematic revolution generated by the creators of the New Wave and the historical
cinematic context in which they acted, and notes that parallel to the enthusiastic
reception awarded the young, innovative artists, their films frequently aroused violent
and hostile reactions. For instance, Douchet cites Charensol’s blunt critique of New
Wave filmmakers, which applies particularly to our discussion: “The leaders of the
movement are looking more and more like plagiarists who haven’t even bothered to
dissimulate their sources (Charensol, 1961)” (Douchet, 1999, p. 232).
Contrary to Turner and other critics similar to Charensol, Alan Hirsh, in a first-of-itskind
article on cinematic intertextuality entitled “Truffaut’s Subversive Siren:
Intertextual Narrative in Mississippi Mermaid” (1979), reveals the multi-dimensional
intertextuality existing in the film discussed. Hirsh notes a long list of films referred
to in the film, particularly those of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jean Renoir, and
asserts that:
Intertextuality, more than any other principle, provides us with the
filmmaker’s prime concern. This concern is to link the old cinema to the new,
to draw upon the resources of both genre expectation and specific
intertextualities5
in order to foreground the presence of the author and his own
ideology of film. Truffaut, in other words, is reworking film history (Hirsh,
1979, p. 81).
In summing up his article, Hirsh explains Truffaut’s use of intertextuality as
alternately adhering to and deviating from a genre’s rules. His characters act within a
genre-specific story but deviate in their behavior from the accepted codes of that
genre. The result reveals Truffaut’s diagnosis of the classic genre and its limitations
or, as Hirsh puts it:
The principle point has been to pull them from the film genres, from the
classical narrative toward a transformation, a point in transition that makes the
film a commentary upon film treatment and upon narrative itself. These
characters cannot cross the border6
until they have passed through the
artificiality of genre plot, that which is readily accepted by the audience
(Hirsh, 1979, p. 88).
5
Hirsh is referring to what we would call rhetorical intertextuality in our discussion.
6
Hirsh is referring to the ambiguity arising from the fact that the characters in the film escape to the
Swiss border, while he is speaking of the borders of the genre.
29
It is apparent that Hirsh’s reading, in direct contrast to those of Turner and Charensol,
defines the productive approach in understanding the relationship between Truffaut’s
films and Hollywood tradition.
Hirsh’s statement sheds light on the breakthrough achieved by Truffaut in regard to
cinematic narrative, as one of the leading filmmakers to define the modern narrative,
which undermines the validity of the classic narrative. This pioneering study, as far as
cinematic intertextuality goes, discusses one film only and focuses on the reflexive
significance of intertextuality. In the following chapters we will examine additional
Truffaut films and the possible implications of intertextual interactions. Moreover,
although Hirsh presents Truffaut’s films from a new perspective, an expansion of his
study is required in order to apply Bloom’s theories to Truffaut, an additional step
which Hirsh failed to take.
Jefferson Kline (1992) published a comprehensive study of intertextuality in cinema
in the context of the New Wave.7
Kline, similarly to Reader, makes use of Bloom’s
theory in order to examine the complex dialectic relationship between the French New
Wave filmmakers and their films and literature. Kline postulates that this is an oedipal
pattern of admiration, the need to free oneself and rebel, and finally, internalize the
literary father, while utilizing the denial mechanisms described by Bloom. Contrary to
Bloom, who examines the formation of the literary canon as a natural consequence of
his theory, Kline refrains from examining the formation of the cinematic canon,
choosing instead to focus on the relationships of New Wave filmmakers with authors
from the literary canon.
In constructing his thesis, Kline provides an informative and comprehensive
description of the intertexts in the interpreted films. Even though it is the first study of
its kind, dealing with cinematic intertexts, its primary drawback is the imbalance
between the number of interpreted intertexts originating in the literary tradition—
intertextuality in cinema—and the lack of interpreted intertexts originating in the
cinematic tradition—cinematic intertextuality. For example, in a discussion of
Truffaut’s film, Jules and Jim, one of the major texts in his study, Kline relates to
Truffaut’s usage of a literary intertext—Goethe’s book, Les Affinités électives (French
in the original),8
and to historical intertexts and those related to fine arts, such as an
image of a Greek statue and the obvious allusion to Venus. However, Kline ignores
7
Screening The Text: Intertextuality in New Wave French Cinema
8
Elective Affinities
30
the cinematic intertexts central to this film, such as Charlie Chaplin’s 1921 film, The
Kid9
or Citizen Kane.10
Although this approach contains an interesting application of
Bloomian theory regarding the intertextuality in New Wave films, it fails to examine
the formation of the cinematic canon, which is a fundamental element in the
worldview of the New Wave filmmakers as well as in that of Bloom. Marsha Kinder
presents a similar approach in her article on Godard’s 1963 film, Le Mépris, “A
Thrice-Told Tale, Godard’s Le Mépris.” The article discusses the intertextual
relationship between the film and its literary source, Alberto Moravia’s, A Ghost at
Noon. Kinder examines the analogies between the characters in the film and their
parallel figures in Moravia’s story and in Homer’s Odyssey, thus granting meaning to
the literary intertext in the film. In contrast, when Kinder mentions the movie posters
from Psycho (1960) and Hatari (1962) used in the film, she fails to give them any sort
of interpretation and only uses them as examples of “Godard paying homage to
Hitchcock and Hawks” (ibid., p. 111). It seems that Kinder too has failed to recognize
the interpretive potential of the cinematic intertexts. Moreover, the film contains
numerous cinematic quotations and allusions, beginning with the Lumière Brothers,11
continuing with Rossellini and Fritz Lang, himself a canonical filmmaker, who plays
the part of a film director in the film – actually appearing as himself and as Godard
simultaneously. Kinder ignores most of the cinematic intertexts and limits her
discussion to the intertextual relationships existing between films, literature and
mythology. Once again, the center of gravity is focused on hyper-textual and
architextual relationships.12
Contrary to Kline and Kinder, the researcher Anne Gillain
relates to the wealth of intertextual references in which Truffaut’s films are replete
and examines his works from a psychoanalytical point of view. She weaves threads
linking Truffaut’s childhood to his verbal texts, and to the classical cinematic
fragments alluded to in his films. Her discussion of some of the intertexts in Jules and
Jim illustrates her approach to the intertextuality in Truffaut’s films: “Those who are
familiar with Truffaut’s films may find the high degree of importance that nature
assumes in Jules and Jim surprising. He himself made the following confession:
9
Catherine's costume.
10
Catherine replies to Jules' marriage proposal with a replica of Kane's dialogue with his lover, Susan
Alexander.
11
The earliest filmmakers in history – parallel perhaps to Homer's Odyssey, not in the complexity of
their oeuvre but in its precedence.
12
Another term coined by Genette, which defines the relationship between a text and an existing
archetype.
31
Nature leaves me entirely unmoved. If someone were to ask me to name the
places that I have loved most during my life, I might say that it is the
countryside in Murnau’s Sunrise, or the town in the same film, but I would not
mention any actual place that I had really visited, because I never visit any.
I’m aware that it is a bit abnormal, but that’s the way it is. I don’t like
landscapes, or things; I like people, I’m interested in ideas and feelings
(Gillain, (1991) 2013, p. 83-84).13
Gillain continues developing her idea:
Notwithstanding this protestation, the film presents an extensive country
landscape full of murmuring streams, the rustling of trees, and the tall grasses
of meadows. This is not the countryside of Murnau, but of Renoir. In the fifth
shot of Jules and Jim, during the stretch of unoccupied time that precedes the
arrival of Catherine, we see the two friends drifting idly in a rowboat that
glides along the river under the leafy shade of overhanging trees. This shot
comes straight out of A Day in the Country. Woman belongs to a nature that
brings back cinematic memories. Already in Les Mistons, Bernadette had
appeared to the boys who were spying on her gliding through the woods on
her bicycle. A long traveling shot14
followed her to the stream in which she
took a swim. Bernadette was the sister of the ingénue in A Day in the Country
who, swinging under the boughs next to the water, entranced the boaters. Just
like the women in Renoir’s films, Catherine in Jules and Jim incorporates and
amalgamates the landscapes she traverses (Gillain, (1991), 2013 p. 84).
According to Gillain’s understanding, the intertexts are fragmentary memories.
Similar to the manner in which another filmmaker may incorporate scenes from his
childhood into his films, Truffaut incorporates fragments from films, fragments which
he had internalized obsessively since his earliest childhood. This approach
emphasizes the extreme importance of these intertexts in shaping Truffaut’s personal
and artistic development, although it does not provide possible interpretations of The
Mischief Makers or Jules and Jim in light of the quotations from and allusions to A
Day in the Country.
13
Gillain is quoting an earlier interview she'd conducted with Truffaut in 1988, and continues from
there to develop her present thesis.
14
A shot in which the camera follows a moving subject, otherwise known as a tracking shot, or a Dolly
shot.
32
Robert Stam examines the relationships between cinematic texts in his book,
Reflexivity in Film and Literature: From Don Quixote to Jean-Luc Godard (1985),
applying Gerard Genette’s literary intertextual categorizations to cinematic
intertextuality. The adaptation of Genette’s categories to the cinema indicates the
numerous possibilities inherent in this approach. Moreover, Stam maintains the
equilibrium between discussion of intertextuality in cinema—primarily relating to
literary sources—and cinematic intertextuality. Although Stam refers to numerous
cinematic allusions, his book ignores two significant issues which we will address in
the present study:
1. Stam fails to relate to the additional interpretive potential existing in the
allusions he mentions. He interprets the allusions as components of a film’s
reflexivity. In other words, he narrows their significance to linguistic
intertextuality, defining them as the filmmaker’s statement regarding the
medium. This is an important and, at times, central significance, but it is not
the only one. He collectively links Truffaut’s numerous self-quotations in Day
for Night to the fact that Truffaut is making a film about films. He postulates
that in the course of the film, Truffaut is conducting a critical self-analysis,
summing up his previous work. However, Stam fails to relate interpretively to
Truffaut’s specific self-quotations. A complete interpretation of a film
necessitates identifying and interpreting the cinematic intertexts and
establishing the ensuing intertextual relationships. In the following sections,
we will present a model of cinematic intertextual interpretation, based on BenPorat’s
definition of literary allusion: “The literary allusion is a device for the
simultaneous activation of two texts” (Ben-Porat, 1976, p. 107). Defining
allusion as a device of this sort implies that fully identifying the cinematic
intertext, its unique significance and the effect created by the interrelationship
of both texts is of the utmost importance.
2. An additional limitation in Stam’s approach is particularly highlighted when
addressing the intertextuality in Truffaut’s films. It would seem that Stam,
following Riffaterre, regards the gaps in the text, when failing to identify an
intertext leads to an interpretive dead-end, as the key to intertextuality. This
approach is unavoidable in an examination of Godard’s films, discussed at
length by Stam. However, most of the quotations and allusions in Truffaut’s
33
films are mimetically15
inseparable from the texts and do not force themselves
upon the viewer in the form of gaps, anomalies or difficulties in
comprehension. Failure to realize the intertext’s semantic potential leaves the
viewer with fewer levels of meaning, and the film loses a measure of
complexity; however, viewers will not encounter any difficulty in following
the film’s plot. In this historical context, Lucy Fischer’s significant
contribution is notable. Her book, Shot/Counter Shot (1989), is based on
cinematic intertextuality. Fischer recognizes intertexts as cinematic and
considers their interpretation a necessity; she relates to the role of intertexts in
establishing the meaning of a text, however, her intertexts all support a
focused feminist interpretation. Fischer addresses the rebellion of women
filmmakers, the films of a minority group, which in her opinion have evolved
against the background of the hegemonic male cinema. The rebellion against
the dominant element in cinema leads Fischer to Bloom, although she herself
rebels against the Bloomian discourse, which is fundamentally male—the
rebellion of a son against his father. Fischer claims that while Bloom discusses
the difficulty in speaking caused by the strong voices of great artists from the
cultural, canonical past, women must cope with the difficulty in speaking in
any voice whatsoever. Women artists lack fathers in the Bloomian sense, and
they have no choice but to seek a plane of reference, a language and a basis for
dialogue—outside of the male discourse. This strategy leads Fischer to regard
intertextuality as a dynamic of “shot” and “counter shot,” similar to the
concept of cinematic montage.16
In other words, she believes that every
intertext in women’s films is the male background, against which, and in spite
of which, a woman’s voice is heard. Instructive as this reductive approach to
the activation of the intertextual discourse in the cinema is, it fails to shed new
light on the discussion of Truffaut’s works.
A rare and particularly interesting example of the employment of the Bloomian model
appears in Inez Hedges’ book, Breaking The Frame (1991). In the chapter on François
15
Mimesis – a term coined by Aristotle to denote the basis of an artistic act, which is the imitation of
reality. In the case described above, when a quotation from another film appears as a logical, realistic
part of a text, in such a way that someone unfamiliar with the quoted source will not be aware of the
existence of anything external that cannot be explained realistically – then the quotation is part of the
text's mimesis.
16
In conventional filmmaking, when filming dialogue, opposite every shot there is a complimentary
counter shot, from an angle that appears as 180°.
34
Truffaut’s film, The Green Room, Hedges postulates that the film is a misreading of
Cocteau’s Orpheus, within the framework of Truffaut’s wrestling with a dominant
precursor (ibid., p. 52-65). Hedges’ approach constitutes the initial step in a journey
which this study will address in a comprehensive manner, in the extended context of
Truffaut’s works and of the artists with whom he maintained a dialogue.
A Summary of the Intertextual Studies of Truffaut’s Films
Of the existing literature on cinematic intertextuality, Hirsh’s approach to Mississippi
Mermaid and that of Hedges to The Green Room are the closest to the approach
suggested in this study. To date, approaches of this sort have not been utilized or
granted sufficient recognition as potential interpretive tools regarding Truffaut’s
films. In their conclusive17
study of Truffaut, François Truffaut (1998), authors Diana
Holmes and Robert Ingram present a general survey of the approaches to his films:
the widely accepted autobiographical approach; methods that categorize his films
according to genre, including a discussion of the difficulties involved in this method
due to Truffaut’s tendency to mix existing genres; thematic approaches; and finally,
categorization by narrative structure (Holmes and Ingram, 1998, p. 10-38).
Holmes and Ingram do not relate to the wealth of intertextual references in Truffaut’s
films or to the possibility of utilizing intertextuality as a key to interpreting and
categorizing his films. The same applies to studies by John Taylor (1964), Peter
Graham (1968), C. G. Crisp (1972), Dominique Fanne (1972), Jean Collet (1977),
Don Allen (1985), Gilles Cahoreau (1989), Carole Le Berre (1993) and Robert
Ingram (2004).
This book presents, for the first time, a new approach to the systematic discussion of
all of Truffaut’s films; this is an approach whereby the cinematic heritage, with which
Truffaut creates a dialogue, constitutes an indispensable and essential component in
any discussion of his works, exactly in the same manner as the autobiographical
approach has been used as a tool toward interpreting his films in the past. This study
charts the role of this heritage in Truffaut’s works.
Uncharted Fields of Study in Cinematic Intertextuality
17
As of its publication date.
35
Cinematic intertextuality in the context of film language usage has, for the most part,
not yet been studied. Robert Stam cites the potential inherent in an approach of this
type as a future possibility with far-reaching consequences, but he avoids developing
the theory in his own research, stating:
Even a cinematic technique can constitute an intertextual allusion: the iris-in18
to an informer in Breathless, or the use of Griffith style masking19
in Jules et
Jim, allude by their calculatedly archaic nature to earlier periods of film
history (Stam, 2000, p. 207).
Stam takes a significant step here, in that he suggests studying a new category of
intertexts. This study expands along those lines and goes so far as to examine the
manner in which intertextuality of this sort is utilized for the purpose of specific
statements, more than as an allusion to earlier periods in film history.
In summing up his survey of intertextuality in the cinema, Stam refers to an additional
issue developed in this study:
Theories of literary intertextuality, then, can yield benefits for film theory and
analysis. Another literary theorist whose work is ripe for extrapolation for film
analysis is Harold Bloom. In The Anxiety of Influence, Bloom argues that
literary art develops out of an interpersonal and generational struggle with
strong oedipal overtones. …One thinks of Brian De Palma’s relation to
Hitchcock, Godard’s relation to Hollywood …Truffaut as the heir of Renoir
(Stam, 2000, p. 211-212).
That being the case, Stam assumes that the possibility of applying Bloom’s theory
exists—although to a limited degree. The following chapters take Stam up on his
challenge and examine, using this theory, Truffaut’s extraordinary relationship with
Renoir’s heritage, a possibility mentioned by Stam, as well as with numerous other
filmmakers not cited by Stam.
The following chapter presents the development of the French New Wave and of
François Truffaut, as one of this cinematic movement’s central filmmakers, in a
historical context. We will also discuss the validity and actual necessity of the
theoretical discourse presented herein in the analysis of Truffaut’s films.
18
A black circle that gradually covers the screen in black, from the edges toward the center.
19
Blacking out the screen gradually from right to left or left to right.
36
“When I was a critic, I thought that a successful film had simultaneously to express an
idea of the world and an idea of cinema; La Règle du Jeu and Citizen Kane
corresponded to this definition perfectly. Today, I demand that a film express either
the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema. I am not at all interested in
anything in between; I am not interested in all those films that do not pulse.”
(Truffaut, 1978, (1975), p.6)
6
François Truffaut and the French New Wave
The Historical Context
The Importance of Intertextuality in the Study of Truffaut and
the French New Wave
The French New Wave
The above quote provides a concise description of Truffaut’s attitude to reflexivity in
cinema, as well as that of his colleagues in the French New Wave, as was evident in
the articles they published in Cahiers du Cinèma as early as 1952. Consciously
reflexive films had already been produced in Hollywood by Buster Keaton and
Charlie Chaplain since 1920, as well as by the German Expressionists in Europe since
1919. However, it was the New Wave critics who first designated reflexivity as a
measure of a film’s value. The Cahiers school developed a systematic criticism of the
historical order and of the consolidation of an agreed cinematic canon. Reflexivity
was perceived as a necessary condition for the inclusion of a film in the cinematic
canon. Thus these critics-turned-directors inserted the history of cinema into their own
films, which re-examine the language of cinema and provoke a heightened discussion
of the cinematic code. Their work is a statement about the old genres, and crystallizes
new conventions for making and reading cinematic texts.
37
The New Wave is the first cinematic movement to systematically, consciously and
consistently express, in films, as well as in critical reviews, the spirit of T. S. Elliot’s
position, as formulated in his essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent:
Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if
you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place,
the historical sense which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who
would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical
sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its
presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own
generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of
Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own
country has a simultaneous existence and compose a simultaneous order. This
historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and
of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.
And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his
place in time, of his contemporaneity (T.S. Eliot, 1950 (1919), p.4).
Eliot’s assertion may well serve as a re-formulation of the French New Wave’s motto,
by simply replacing the word “literature” with “cinema” and “poet” with
“filmmaker.” This calls for an interpretative logic that is based on intertextuality.
Intertextuality, in all its above-mentioned aspects, served this movement not only as a
distinctive tool for making statements on the history of cinema but also in confronting
its future. The intertexts that appear in the films of the New Wave come from the
wide range of cultural domains available to them: literature, philosophy, the visual
arts, music, theater, mythology, history, politics—and especially the cinema. Out of
all these domains, the cinematic intertexts constitute a major tool for honing the
cinematic statement, and this is why I have chosen to focus on them.
As a critic, Truffaut debated with André Bazin, stating “the worst Hawks film is more
interesting than Huston’s best” (Truffaut, 1978, (1975), p.14). This provocative
assertion, especially for those who disagree with Truffaut’s opinions of Hawks and
Huston, summarizes the auteur20
theory held by Truffaut and his colleagues at
Cahiers du Cinéma. This declaration is valid within the inclusive context of their
20
La Politique des Auteurs was the title of a Truffaut essay, in which he asserted that a film has only
one author, who is responsible for it as a whole form of art, and that is the director. This concept was
antithetical to the theories that considered film as a collective product, or product in which the
dominant artist was the producer, the star, or the screenwriter.
38
cinematic school of thought, which considers each film an element of a director’s
work that is inseparable from the broader context of his works. Moreover, it expresses
Truffaut’s aspiration, which succeeded, to a great degree, to redefine the cinematic
canon. In his opinion, a canon of directors constitutes an alternative to a canon of
films. Truffaut unequivocally reformulated his thesis in a conversation with R. M.
Franchi and Marshall Lewis in 1962:
I have just remembered an aspect of the ‘Politique des Auteurs’ which I had
forgotten. It was a critical concept, essentially polemical; for some critics there
are good films and bad films and I had the idea there are not good and bad
films: there are simply good and bad directors. …What is interesting is the
career of a good director in that it reflects his thought from his beginning to
his more mature phase. Each one of the films marks one phase in his thoughts,
and it is of no importance that any particular picture is successful or not, or a
good film or not (Sarris, 1967, p.448-449).
Quite a few French filmmakers, who had been considered quality directors in their
time, disappeared from the cinematic canon after Truffaut and his colleagues declared
an all-out war against them, claiming that their films were superficial, simplistic,
cliché-ridden, forged, and insincere. On the other hand, directors of comedies and
action films, such as Hitchcock, Hawks, Ray and Sturges, who had previously been
treated with contempt by critics, were considered canonical by Cahiers du Cinéma,
due to their total command of the medium, their imprinting their mark on their films’
overall design and their cinematic innovations. This new cinematic canon appeared
initially in published critiques but was soon expanded and made its mark on Truffaut
and Godard’s films. Robert Stam describes the delight with which the New Wave
directors emphasized the intertexts in their films. He postulates that this was the first
generation of filmmakers to have the entire history of film available for plunder and
homage. Often they made films against tradition, especially by flouting the generic
conventions of antecedent cinema (Stam, 1992, p. 21). His statement aptly
summarizes the profound significance of cinematic heritage as the intertextual
reservoir of the New Wave, a fact which must be taken into account when interpreting
their films.
The strong and unique linkage between the New Wave’s films and cinema history and
tradition is reconfirmed in Jean-Luc Godard’s conversation with Youssef Ishaghpour :
39
“We’re born in the museum, it’s our homeland after all, we’re the only ones…”
(Godard and Ishaghpour, 2005, p.70).
To sum up, the following factors epitomize the elements shared by New Wave
filmmakers, which also link their cinematic language to the theory of intertextuality:
1. Reflexivity;
2. The subversion against the obvious in classical cinematic language and the
crystallization of a new cinematic language;
3. A new historical order, in the sense described by Eliot, based on undermining
the classical canon of films and consolidating an alternative canon of directors.
The third and last point positions Bloom’s theory as a central theory for the discussion
of this school of filmmaking.
François Truffaut as Reflected Through the Prism of Harold
Bloom
As mentioned above, Stam referred to the potential benefits of applying Bloom’s
theory to the examination of the relationship between Truffaut and Jean Renoir.
Moreover, nine years earlier, Inez Hedges based her analysis of Truffaut’s
relationship with Jean Cocteau on Bloom’s thesis. Whereas Stam spoke only of
potential benefits, Hedges focused on Cocteau’s Orpheus, and to a certain degree on
another Cocteau film on the same topic, The Testament of Orpheus, co-produced with
Truffaut.
Hedges’ thesis focuses on coping with death, and the cinematic representation
constitutes a part of that coping mechanism. The Orpheus myth, both of Cocteau’s
films and Truffaut’s The Green Room, all deal with death as a concrete state of reality
and with art as a way of coping with the abstract idea of death. It therefore makes
sense to apply a theory based on coping with “the greatest of the dead” in a discussion
of these films. The Green Room in Truffaut’s film is a real room, in which the film’s
protagonist hangs a picture and lights a candle in memory of each of the dead people
in his life, people who were involved in his real life, as well as cultural icons (French
culture and general culture) who had meaningful significance in his life, such as the
writer Honoré de Balzac. The Green Room is part of the Bloomian pantheon by
definition, in that it applies Bloom’s argument, whereby a poet writes in rebellion
against the voice of the dead poet speaking to him.
40
That being the case, the film’s theme obviously invites discussion of a theory
dominated by the idea of “the greatest of the dead” who make it difficult for an artist
to live in the present, real world.
This study attempts to examine whether Bloom’s theory is relevant to the rest of
Truffaut’s films, other than the unique case of The Green Room. Hedges considered
the application of Bloomian theory to the cinema problematic, or as she put it:
There are difficulties in transposing Bloom’s terms to the cinema, if only
because the visual style of a Cocteau or a Truffaut is so clearly that of its
author (Hedges, 1991, p. 59).
In fact, even Bloom himself relates to this difficulty and clearly differentiates between
the anxiety of influence and the anxiety of style. He argues that in most cases the
anxiety of influence leads young artists to develop a style that is different and
antithetical to that of their artistic father (Bloom, 1975, p. 20).
In May 1975, in an interview with Anne de Gaspéri, Truffaut said:
I can’t get away from writing…the taste for writing has been pursuing me ever
since I concerned myself as a critic with the form of the screenplay. I didn’t
think I would become a filmmaker but, rather, a scriptwriter (Dixon, 1993, p.
156).
Truffaut’s statement is similar to the theory formulated by Bloom, whereby reading is
a miswriting, writing is a misreading, and poetry and literary criticism are actually
two aspects of the same art. Following this idea, this study examines the possibility
that Truffaut formulates concepts similar to Bloom’s, concepts regarding the
relationship between miswriting and misreading and between texts and their creators.
The following excerpt, from an interview conducted by Anne Gillain, who studied the
links between Truffaut’s biography and his films, echoes Bloom’s assertion, whereby
a poem is always about a previously written poem and writing is an expression of the
poet’s desire to revive his initial reading experience:
[…] I found myself working as a welder in a small factory near Paris. The
advantage of welding is that it’s good for your concentration. Wearing my
dark glasses and with the gas canister in front of me, I passed the time trying
to recall the last film I’d seen. In the morning, when I arrived, I’d say to
myself: ‘I’ll try to revive21
City Lights (1931) or Monsieur Verdoux (1947).’
21
The bold highlighting is mine. A.P.
41
And that’s what I did, scene by scene, to make it last longer (Gillain, 1988, p.
26).
Truffaut’s description of his cinematic experience even before becoming an active
filmmaker is reminiscent of Bloom’s formulation regarding the writing stage itself.
Truffaut’s obsession with undermining truths that are usually considered above
questioning or criticism, especially in the context of quality films and filmmakers,
appears repeatedly both in his writing as a film critic and in his films, as does his
incessant preoccupation with the issue of a work’s origin. Moreover, the subversion
and undermining of prejudices and deeply rooted conceptions may be construed as a
facet of his rebellion against a dominant father, all of which underline the necessity of
utilizing the tools defined by Bloom in examining and interpreting Truffaut’s works.
The essence of the oedipal relationship in the Bloomian discourse signifies that the
father forces himself on the son and the son struggles with him and tries to silence
him. In other words, the son must define his personal identity in light of the father’s
presence. In Truffaut’s case, the lack of a father and the search for a male role model
played a decisive role in his private life as well as in his films, which are often highly
autobiographical. Indeed, these themes appear in many of his films, which are
frequently evidently oedipal in nature. Truffaut’s biographers, Antoine de Baecque
and Serge Toubiana, described his multi-faceted search for a substitute father figure
thus:
Truffaut’s secret, of course, was his unknown father, whom he sought to
replace with the artists he most admired. Jean Genet and André Bazin were the
first to fit into this surrogate role. Truffaut wrote as much to Lachenay on
August 15, 1951: ‘In three weeks Bazin and Genet did for me what my parents
never did for me in fifteen years’ (Truffaut, 1951) (De Baecque and Toubiana,
1999, p. 62).
The quote above clarifies the manner in which Truffaut’s search for an actual father
evolved and developed into a search for an artistic father. De Baecque and Toubiana
believe this is linked to his recorded interviews with canonical filmmakers, one of the
film criticism innovations introduced by Truffaut:
Between the spring of 1954 and the autumn of 1957, Cahiers would publish a
series of interviews, conducted mostly by Truffaut and Rivette, with Jean
Renoir, Luis Buñuel, Roberto Rossellini, Abel Gance, Alfred Hitchcock,
Howard Hawks, Robert Aldrich, Joshua Logan, Anthony Mann, Max Ophűls,
42
Vincente Minnelli, Jacques Tati, Orson Welles, Gene Kelly, Nicholas Ray,
Richard Brooks, Luchino Visconti, and, finally, Fritz Lang. This constitutes a
corpus that is one of the great innovations of Cahiers du Cinéma, and it still
remains a foundation and pillar of modern criticism. François Truffaut
expected a great deal from each of these meetings. They no doubt derived
from a deep trait in his personality: the need to find masters and learn
from them22
(ibid. p. 90).
In light of the above, it would seem that the application of Bloom’s theory may
provide new insights into Truffaut’s works, regarding innovations and origins, as well
as the manner in which he chose to integrate film criticism and filmmaking and the
new historical order that he initiated in the cinema.
From Realistic-Classical Narrative to Modernism
The importance of intertextuality in a work of art as well as in its interpretation is one
of the definitive characteristics of modernism. In addition to Truffaut’s sophisticated
usage of this tool, he also modified the traditional structure of cinematic narrative,
together with his New wave colleagues, especially Godard and Resnais. They
completed the process begun by Orson Welles twenty years earlier in Citizen Kane—
the creation of a new narrative that brings the cinema into the modern era. In order to
comprehend the upheaval they brought about in film, we must be perfectly clear as to
the difference between the classic and modern narratives.
Classic Cinematic Narratives
Truffaut undermines fundamental cinematic conventions throughout his films. In
order to distinguish between the various categories of his struggle with cinematic
classics, we must first define the classical cinematic storyline, differentiating between
narrative, a term which applies to pre-cinema dramatic forms such as theater and
literature, and utterances unique to the cinematic medium. And while Truffaut’s
innovations regarding elements unique to film must be considered in the context of
the fifty to seventy-year history of the medium (depending on the point in Truffaut’s
career under discussion), undermining the narrative structure itself means rebelling
22
The bold highlighting is mine. A.P.
43
against a heritage of over two thousand years23
and against the developments
undergone by the dramatic narrative in literature and theater.
It would seem that the distinction between narrative structure and other forms of
cinematic utterance is appropriately expressed in Robert Stam’s assertion whereby
despite the cinema’s apparent modernity and despite its being a technological
medium, the aesthetics of illusions adopted by the medium was for the most part
conservative. According to Stam, notwithstanding some exceptional experiments in
film language beginning with Méliès, Keaton, the French avant-garde, the German
Expressionists, the Soviet montage school and through to the films of Alain Resnais,
classic feature films perpetuated an aesthetic parallel to that of the nineteenth century
mimetic novel. Mainstream films adopted the mimetic aspirations spurned by other
arts. Film inherited the illusionistic ideal that impressionism had relinquished in
painting that Jarry as well as the Symbolists had attacked in the theater and that
Proust, Joyce and Woolf had undermined in the novel (Stam, 1992, p. 10).
Stam’s assertion requires clarification in that some of the few cases in point he
mentions as early innovative experiments in the history of cinema constituted
breakthroughs in terms of unique cinematic techniques and film language but were
conventional in terms of cinematic narrative. Feature films made by filmmakers from
the Soviet montage school, such as Eisenstein’s Potemkin, or outstanding German
Expressionist films such as Robert Wiene’s Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919)
were innovative and pioneering in terms of editing techniques, cinematography,
scenery and acting styles, but their narrative structure was simple, direct and linear.
Or to use Stam’s terminology, they were modeled on the mimetic novel of the
nineteenth century, which defined an imaginary world characterized by inner
consistency, reasonable causal relationships and psychological logic.
Traditional realism, based on a unified and coherent narrative, was seen as
obscuring contradictions and projecting an illusory ‘mythic’ unity. The
modernist text, in contrast, foregrounded contradiction and allowed the
silenced to speak (Stam, 2000, p. 141).
Stam explains how classic Hollywood screenwriting adopted the mimetic novel model
according to Aristotle’s unities principle:
23
Since Aristotle's Poetics, 330B.C.
44
The classical Hollywood film presents psychologically defined individuals as
its principal causal agents. These agents struggle to solve clear-cut problems
or to attain specific goals, the story ending with either a resolution of the
problem or a clear achievement or non-achievement of the goals. Causality
revolving around character provides the prime unifying principle, while spatial
configurations are motivated by realism as well as compositional necessity.
Scenes are demarcated by neo-classical criteria—unity of time, space, and
action. Classical narration tends to be omniscient, highly communicative, and
only moderately self-conscious. If time is skipped over, a montage sequence
or scrap of dialogue informs us; if a cause is missing, we are informed about
its absence. Classical narration operates as an ‘editorial intelligence’ that
selects certain stretches of time for full-scale treatment, while paring down or
scissoring out other ‘inconsequential’ events (ibid., p. 144-145).
The following chapters will reveal how Truffaut’s films depart from the classical
narrative, undermine it and define a new narrative that corresponds to the
characteristics that, according to Stam, typify modernist narration.
45
“The poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the
work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in
what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is
conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.”
(T.S. Eliot, 1950 (1919), p. 11)
7
Hypotheses and Goals
As stated in the introduction, this book has been adapted from a study of
intertextuality in Truffaut’s films and its broader implications regarding film studies
in general. A review of the original study’s goals and methods may provide an
overview of the wider significance of the specific Truffaut films to be discussed in the
following chapters.
Study’s Goals
1. This study examines whether intertextuality is a necessary condition in order
to attain a full interpretation of Truffaut’s cinematic texts, as claimed by
certain literary theoreticians regarding literary texts, and the possibility of
applying this hypothesis to any given cinematic text.
2. The study demonstrates that the above premise is particularly valid when
referring to rhetorical intertextuality, a field infrequently addressed in current
cinematic research.
3. Hypotheses 1 and 2 will be examined in the special cases in which both the
text and the intertext are films. In light of the lack of existing analyses of
cinematic intertexts, this study will focus on these intertexts and examine their
potential as interpretive tools in the study of cinema. The study’s premise is
that identifying and deciphering the cinematic intertext are essential elements
in providing an illuminating understanding of a cinematic text.
4. This study attempts to apply Bloom’s theory to Truffaut’s cinematic oeuvre.
5. The study examines the validity of this theory, as well as its limitations in
providing insight into Truffaut’s films, his filmmaking processes and the new
cinematic canon he defined.
46
6. The study examines whether the Bloomian discourse requires modification
when applied to the cinema rather than poetry. Bloom, for example, discusses
the fact that every poem is actually about another poem. In other words, the
poem is a misreading of an earlier poem. If a film is a misreading of an earlier
film, can it be a misreading of more than one preceding film?
7. The study investigates whether, in Truffaut’s case, one ought to distinguish
between different types of misreading. There are cases of psychological
explanations for coping with the anxiety of influence and expression of the
desire to influence rather than be influenced, and other examples in which the
misreading actually changes the cinematic language. One could perhaps use
Bloom’s own terminology and differentiate between misreading—a term
which applies to the first instance, and miswriting, which describes the second.
8. The study examines the role of cinematic intertextuality in the organization of
cinema history, both as a tool used by Truffaut and as a tool available to the
researcher who aspires to place Truffaut (or any other filmmaker) in the
historical order. With this goal in mind, the study will attempt to refute the
frequent claim whereby Truffaut’s films are described as acts of homage to
Hollywood classics or even sometimes as their imitations, whereas this study
demonstrates that Truffaut rebelled against classic films and misread them,
even when his admiration and respect for them was strong. In other words, the
study shows that in comparing the accepted perception, as expressed by
Turner, and the unique outlook posited by Hirsh regarding a specific film,
Hirsh’s approach accurately reflects the entirety of Truffaut’s cinematic
corpus.
9. The study examines the role of cinematic intertextuality in shattering
cinematic codes and creating alternative codes, in other words, in extending
and shaping cinematic language.
47
Methodology
The study examines eleven films by Truffaut: The Mischief Makers (Les Mistons,
1957), The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups, 1959), Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez
sur le Pianiste, 1960), Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim, 1961), Antoine and Collette
(Antoine et Colette, 1962), The Soft Skin (La Peau Douce, 1964), Stolen Kisses
(Baisers Volés, 1968), Mississippi Mermaid (La Sirène du Mississipi, 1969), Bed and
Board (Domicile Conjugal, 1970), Day for Night (La Nuit Américaine, 1973), and
Love on the Run (L’Amour en Fuite, 1978). Each film is examined and interpreted
based principally on intertextuality but relating also to a complex of cinematic and
narrative elements. The cases examined are those in which intertextual analysis
reinforces the analysis of the text as a closed text and therefore serves as a means of
cinematic utterance that combines with other means to create a full meaning, as well
as cases in which intertextuality enables new insights and an expansion of the
meaning of the closed text. The intertextual interpretation is conducted in the
following manner:
1. Identification of an intertextual nexus in which we have a text and an
intertext;
2. Definition and characterization of the latter—identification of identical
elements, similarities and dissimilarities between the primary text and
the intertext being examined;
3. Indication of the intertextual nexus’ context and function in the film
under discussion;
4. Examination of the intertextual nexus’ contribution to larger
complexes such as: structure, genre, cinematic school, creation of
expectations, cinematic utterance, cinematic statements and historical
order.
Once we have clarified our goals and defined our vocabulary and discourse,
we will address the heart of our discussion in the following chapters: a new
reading into Truffaut’s films.