Francois Truffaut

Francois Roland Truffaut (February 6, 1932 to October 21, 1984) was a French filmmaker, actor and critic widely recognized as a founding figure of the French New Wave. He studied under film critic Andre Bazin and became a leading proponent of auteur theory, the idea that a film's director is its true author, while writing for the influential journal Cahiers du Cinema. His debut feature, The 400 Blows (1959), starring Jean-Pierre Leaud as Truffaut's alter ego Antoine Doinel, became a defining work of the New Wave, and he continued the Doinel character across later films including Stolen Kisses (1968) and Bed and Board (1970). Other significant films include Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Jules and Jim (1962) and The Last Metro (1980). His Day for Night (1973) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and he published the influential book-length interview Hitchcock/Truffaut (1966), which shaped later critical regard for Alfred Hitchcock.