Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball

Georges Delerue - Shoot The Piano Player: Finale (from Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of Francois Truffaut)

Poster art: French edition (click on individual posters for artist/film info) (via)

Georges Delerue - Jules & Jim: Brouillard (Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of Francois Truffaut)

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)

Bernard Herrmann - Prelude (Fahrenheit 451: Original Film Score)

“When [Francois] Truffaut spoke to me about doing the score for the film, I said, ‘…You’re a great friend of [avant-garde composers] and this is a film that takes place in the future. Why shouldn’t you ask one of them? ‘Oh no, no,’ he said. ‘They’ll give me music of the twentieth century, but you’ll give me music of the twenty-first.’

I felt that the music of the next century would revert to a great lyrical simplicity and that it wouldn’t have truck with all this mechanistic stuff. Their lives would be scrutinized. In their music they would want something of simple nudity, of great elegance and simplicity. So I said, ‘If I do your picture, that’s the kind of score I want to write- strings, harps, and a few percussion instruments. I’m not interested in all this whoopee stuff that goes on being called the music of the future. I think that’s the music of the past.’”

-Herrmann, quoted in Steven Smith’s A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann 

Bee Duffell (L) and Francois Truffaut on the set of Fahrenheit 451 (1966) “Like me, Antoine [in The 400 Blows] is against violence because it signifies confrontation. For me, what replaces violence is running away, not from what is essential but in order to obtain what is essential. That is what I showed in Fahrenheit 451. This is the most important aspect of the film, the apology for cunning. ‘Oh, really, so books are banned? Fine, we’ll learn them by heart!’ This is the ultimate cunning.” (via)

Bee Duffell (L) and Francois Truffaut on the set of Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

“Like me, Antoine [in The 400 Blows] is against violence because it signifies confrontation. For me, what replaces violence is running away, not from what is essential but in order to obtain what is essential. That is what I showed in Fahrenheit 451. This is the most important aspect of the film, the apology for cunning. ‘Oh, really, so books are banned? Fine, we’ll learn them by heart!’ This is the ultimate cunning.”

(via)

Georges Delerue - The Woman Next Door: Le Secret De Madam Jouve (from Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of Francois Truffaut)

Francois Truffaut: Are you in favour of the teaching of cinema in universities? Alfred Hitchcock: Only on condition that they teach cinema since the era of Méliès and that the students learn how to make silent films, because there is no better form of training. Talking pictures often served merely to introduce the theatre into the studios. The danger is that young people, and even adults, all too often believe that one can become a director without knowing how to sketch a decor, or how to edit. Truffaut: In your opinion, should a film suggest painting, literature, or music? Hitchcock: The main objective is to arouse the audience’s emotion and that emotion arises from the way in which the story unfolds, from the way in which sequences are juxtaposed. At times, I have the feeling I’m an orchestra conductor, a trumpet sound corresponding to a close shot and a distant shot suggesting an entire orchestra performing a muted accompaniment. At other times, by using colours and lights in front of beautiful landscapes, I feel I am a painter. On the other hand, I’m wary of literature: a good book does not necessarily make a good film. -excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott Photographer: George Dodge

Francois Truffaut: Are you in favour of the teaching of cinema in universities?

Alfred Hitchcock: Only on condition that they teach cinema since the era of Méliès and that the students learn how to make silent films, because there is no better form of training. Talking pictures often served merely to introduce the theatre into the studios. The danger is that young people, and even adults, all too often believe that one can become a director without knowing how to sketch a decor, or how to edit.

Truffaut: In your opinion, should a film suggest painting, literature, or music?

Hitchcock: The main objective is to arouse the audience’s emotion and that emotion arises from the way in which the story unfolds, from the way in which sequences are juxtaposed. At times, I have the feeling I’m an orchestra conductor, a trumpet sound corresponding to a close shot and a distant shot suggesting an entire orchestra performing a muted accompaniment. At other times, by using colours and lights in front of beautiful landscapes, I feel I am a painter. On the other hand, I’m wary of literature: a good book does not necessarily make a good film.

-excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Photographer: George Dodge

Georges Delerue - Chère Louise (Chère Louise: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)


Richie Andrusco inLittle Fugitive (1953, dir. Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin, & Morris Engel) “The title character is a 7-yr-old boy who runs away from his Brooklyn neighborhood to the Coney Island amusement park after his older brother plays a cruel prank on him. Anticipating the advances in lightweight camera equipment that would propel cinéma-vérité documentary a few years later, Engel did the cinematography with a small, portable 35mm camera he helped design.[Little Fugitive] made a big impression on other aspiring filmmakers who wanted to follow their own instincts outside Hollywood’s orbit. They included John Cassavetes & Martin Scorsese, who began setting stories against vivid New York City backgrounds a few years later. François Truffaut was inspired by the picture’s childhood subject and spontaneous production style when he created his prize-winning debut feature, The 400 Blows, in 1959. ‘Our New Wave would never have come into being,’ he told an interviewer years later, ‘if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie.’” (via)

Richie Andrusco inLittle Fugitive (1953, dir. Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin, & Morris Engel)

“The title character is a 7-yr-old boy who runs away from his Brooklyn neighborhood to the Coney Island amusement park after his older brother plays a cruel prank on him. Anticipating the advances in lightweight camera equipment that would propel cinéma-vérité documentary a few years later, Engel did the cinematography with a small, portable 35mm camera he helped design.

[Little Fugitive] made a big impression on other aspiring filmmakers who wanted to follow their own instincts outside Hollywood’s orbit. They included John Cassavetes & Martin Scorsese, who began setting stories against vivid New York City backgrounds a few years later. François Truffaut was inspired by the picture’s childhood subject and spontaneous production style when he created his prize-winning debut feature, The 400 Blows, in 1959. ‘Our New Wave would never have come into being,’ he told an interviewer years later, ‘if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with [this] fine movie.’”

(via)

Anthony Dawson & Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) (via) Francois Truffaut: I should mention that this is one of the pictures I see over and over again. Basically, it’s a dialogue picture, but the cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the players are so polished that one listens to each sentence religiously. It isn’t all that easy to command the audience’s undivided attention for a continuous dialogue. Hitchcock: I just did my job, using cinematic means to narrate a story taken from a stage play. All of the action in Dial M for Murder takes place in a living room, but that doesn’t matter. I could just as well have shot the whole film in a phone booth. Let’s imagine there’s a couple in that booth. Their hands are touching, their lips meet, and accidentally one of them leans against the receiver, knocking it off the hook. Now, while they’re unaware of it, the phone operator can listen in on their intimate conversation. The drama has taken a step forward. For the audience, looking at the images, it should be the same as reading the opening paragraphs of a novel or hearing the expositional dialogue of the stage play. You might say that the filmmaker can use a telephone booth pretty much in the same way a novelist uses a blank piece of paper. -excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Anthony Dawson & Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) (via)

Francois Truffaut: I should mention that this is one of the pictures I see over and over again. Basically, it’s a dialogue picture, but the cutting, the rhythm, and the direction of the players are so polished that one listens to each sentence religiously. It isn’t all that easy to command the audience’s undivided attention for a continuous dialogue.

Hitchcock: I just did my job, using cinematic means to narrate a story taken from a stage play. All of the action in Dial M for Murder takes place in a living room, but that doesn’t matter. I could just as well have shot the whole film in a phone booth.

Let’s imagine there’s a couple in that booth. Their hands are touching, their lips meet, and accidentally one of them leans against the receiver, knocking it off the hook. Now, while they’re unaware of it, the phone operator can listen in on their intimate conversation. The drama has taken a step forward. For the audience, looking at the images, it should be the same as reading the opening paragraphs of a novel or hearing the expositional dialogue of the stage play. You might say that the filmmaker can use a telephone booth pretty much in the same way a novelist uses a blank piece of paper.

-excerpted from Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut & Helen G. Scott

Francois Truffaut on the set of Shoot the Piano Player (1960, via François Truffaut: The Complete Films) “I shall wind up my defense of criticism by observing that excessively kind notices, coming from all sides and lasting a career, can sterilize an artist more effectively than the cold shower that wakes one up to real life. That must have been what Jean Paulhan had in mind when he wrote, ‘Bad reviews preserve an author better than alcohol preserves a piece of fruit.’” -Francois Truffaut, What Do Critics Dream About? (1975)

Francois Truffaut on the set of Shoot the Piano Player (1960, via François Truffaut: The Complete Films)

“I shall wind up my defense of criticism by observing that excessively kind notices, coming from all sides and lasting a career, can sterilize an artist more effectively than the cold shower that wakes one up to real life. That must have been what Jean Paulhan had in mind when he wrote, ‘Bad reviews preserve an author better than alcohol preserves a piece of fruit.’”

-Francois Truffaut, What Do Critics Dream About? (1975)

Georges Delerue - Jules & Jim: Main Title (via Georges Delerue: Music from the Films of Francois Truffaut)

Jeanne Moreau as “Thomas” in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut) (via François Truffaut: The Complete Films) “Catherine was proud of her successful disguise. The men were moved, as if by a symbol they didn’t understand.”

Jeanne Moreau as “Thomas” in Jules & Jim (1962, dir. Francois Truffaut) (via François Truffaut: The Complete Films)

“Catherine was proud of her successful disguise. The men were moved, as if by a symbol they didn’t understand.”

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut) “Someone told me the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, because I was saying science fiction is uninteresting and arbitrary. But when I was told, ‘This is about a society where books are banned, and where the firemen, instead of putting out fires, burn the books that they find,’ I wanted to make the movie, because I wanted to show books in difficulty, almost as if they were people in difficulty. It took me years to raise the money, and finally I had to make the picture in England, which was a serious handicap, but I kept the same idea. There were four or five book-burnings [in the film]. In the first one you could see the books in piles of 10 and 20, while in the last one you could read the type as it was consumed by the flames, you could see the pages curling, and I wanted the audience to suffer as if it were seeing animals or people burning.” -Francois Truffaut

Fahrenheit 451 (1966, dir. Francois Truffaut)

“Someone told me the story of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, because I was saying science fiction is uninteresting and arbitrary. But when I was told, ‘This is about a society where books are banned, and where the firemen, instead of putting out fires, burn the books that they find,’ I wanted to make the movie, because I wanted to show books in difficulty, almost as if they were people in difficulty. It took me years to raise the money, and finally I had to make the picture in England, which was a serious handicap, but I kept the same idea.

There were four or five book-burnings [in the film]. In the first one you could see the books in piles of 10 and 20, while in the last one you could read the type as it was consumed by the flames, you could see the pages curling, and I wanted the audience to suffer as if it were seeing animals or people burning.”

-Francois Truffaut