Francois Truffaut

Truffaut's films beautifully demonstrate the idea that a film can express its director as personally as a novel can reveal its author. Moreover, his development of a gently self-conscious visual style made him more than the entertainer he believed he was: there is genuine artistry in his motion pictures. He affected the course of French cinema — indeed world cinema — by blending auteurist art with accessible cinematic storytelling.

Unlike other New Wave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Tru...