Correspondence, 1945-1984

by François Truffaut and Dillas and de Givray editors Jacob

Book Overview

The five hundred letters collected here span the whole of Tuffaut's extraordinary career, from the ardent and troubled adolescent to the years of grandest accomplishment in the French cinema. Noteworthy correspondents incude Jean-Luc Goddard, Alfred Hitchcock, Louis Malle, Helen Scott, Eric Rohmer, and lifelong friend Robert Lachenay.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374522022
• ISBN13: 9780374522025
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Noonday Press
• Length: 589 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

This books needs a much better translation.

This stilted and, at times, much-Gallicised translation of Truffaut's letters detracts greatly from the enjoyment of this book. One always has the impression that we are almost, but not quite, getting the proper gist of his letters. I am not sure what qualifications Gilbert Adair, the translator, holds, but he seems to have missed a chapter or two on achieving a natural-sounding translation. As I read, I kept wanting to see the original French so that I could see for myself what Truffaut had actually said. Here's just one small example of a poor translation: "There exist two copies of the recording..." which is obviously an attempt at translating a very simple phrase in French "Il existe deux copies de l'enregistrement…" This would most naturally be translated as "There are two copies of the recording..." Still, the translation, though stilted and often laborious and pedantic, is adequate enough to convey Truffaut's great intellect and boundless passion for cinema.

Charm, passion, integrity

This collection of Truffaut's letters is an extraordinary portrait of a man of enormous charm, passion, integrity and (sometimes brutal) honesty. The immediacy of his writing makes his voice emanate from these pages. What an enormous privilege it must have been to count oneself among his friends. And what a daunting foe he must have been as well.An inspiring, invigorating book.