“The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love. The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has.”

-
Francois Truffaut

Jamie, Erin, Kyle, Cody, Melissa, Brandon, and I went to see Jules and Jim (Truffaut, 1962) at Film Streams yesterday. Our group alone doubled the attendance.

Much is to be said about the film’s innovative camera work, fresh and revolutionary for its time. I love the brief freeze frames they use a handful of times – especially when Catherine is revealing the way she looks now and before. The sequence on the bridge (see above) is still exciting and breathtaking even after a few times of seeing it referenced.

However, what is most striking is the complexity of the triangular relationship at the core of the film. Friendships and romantic entanglements are shown with all of the messiness, depth, confusion, manipulation, sincerity and love that often characterize them. Every character shows strength and vulnerability at some point in the film, and throughout you get glimpses of the layers beneath each character’s exterior. The scenes between the three of them (four including the child, Sabine) crackle with both warmth and more intensely, tension. Within this threesome, the characters vacillate between their public and private selves, often slipping back into a skin that they thought they had shed.