Truffaut's Two English Girls Italian Promotional Cards

A kind reader just sent me some scans of some Italian promo cards for one of my favorite Truffaut films, 1971's Two English Girls, and I wanted to share them here. I adore this film and these cards are really special and are much appreciated:

Directed By Jodie Foster

I imagine there are very few film fans who would deny that Jodie Foster is one of the most talented American actresses of the past forty years. From her teenage roles in the likes of TAXI DRIVER to her Oscar winning turns in THE ACCUSED and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Jodie has consistently been an actor of uncommon intelligence and strength. I have been equally intrigued by her work behind the camera and the two films she has managed to complete are two that I have revisited often in the past fifteen years.
I must admit that I feel very connected to both the films that Jodie Foster has directed and get pretty emotional about them. One reminds me very much of my childhood while the other makes me remember the most important relationship I have had in my life. I'll try to look at the films honestly and not get too personal but it might be a bit difficult for me, which is why I have held off writing on them.
In 1988, just before her career was about to undergo a major renaissance, Jodie stepped behind the camera for the first time with an episode from the TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE series entitled DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX. This finely tuned episode of the series immediately showed Jodie as someone with a confident directors eye who knew how to compose a shot and work with her actors. This shouldn't have been surprising as Jodie had literally grown up on film sets and had been closely watching everyone from Martin Scorsese to Adrian Lyne.

Shortly after finishing up Demme's THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in 1990 Jodie began preparing her feature length film debut as a director. Working from a touching and well constructed script from the acclaimed Scott Frank, LITTLE MAN TATE would be shot on a small budget in a number of locations including Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio in late 1990. The film would premiere at Toronto Film Festival in September of 1991 and would earn mostly positive reviews and was a small hit when it hit US theaters just before Halloween 1991.
LITTLE MAN TATE, with it's focus on a frustrated and lonely child prodigy and his struggling single mom, really hit home with Foster and she brings a really sweet and poignantly easy going directorial style to the film. It is a remarkably assured debut feature that would recall the works of one of Jodie's biggest personal influences, Francois Truffaut, and it holds up much better than most pre-PULP FICTION films of the nineties.
Jodie's fierce intelligence really comes through in LITTLE MAN TATE. Most first time directors, especially actors stepping behind the camera, usually attempt to wow the audience with flashy camera moves and tricks but Jodie is smart enough to not let the style of the film overwhelm its themes or actors. Which isn't to say that LITTLE MAN TATE isn't a beautifully shot film it just isn't a showy one. Working with cinematographer Mike Southon and composer Mark Isham, Jodie's first feature is a lovely and thought provoking little character study that seems about as far away from the formulaic mainstream modern Hollywood film as possible.
Chief among LITTLE MAN TATE'S many charms are the performances Jodie draws from her cast. Nine year old Adam Hann-Byrd is remarkable in the title role, giving an incredible natural and moving performance as the struggling boy genius who wants nothing more to fit in and have fun. Equally compelling is Dianne Weist as the well meaning but overbearing head of the school that wants to take Fred away from Dede. Rounding out the cast is the always great Debi Mazar and in a very solid performance, a young Harry Connick Jr. Jodie herself plays Dede and it is actually one of my favorite performances of hers even though she seems slightly unhappy with it on the dvd's valuable commentary.
Reportedly Joe Dante was originally set up to do LITTLE MAN TATE and I imagine it would have been a much different film had Dante directed it. I think Dante's LITTLE MAN TATE would have been a good film but Jodie brings a real humanity and feminine touch to the film that seems essential to the thematic feel of it. There is never a moment in the film where we feel separated from Dede and what she is going through, it is a much more honest look at what it is like to be a single mother raising a child than most Hollywood films have ever even thought to picture. Much credit has to go to Frank's outstanding script for this as well.
I feel a very strong connection to LITTLE MAN TATE. While I was far from a boy genius (as a look at my grades will attest to) I was mostly raised by a single mom and LITTLE MAN TATE gets this dynamic so right that I find it to be one of the most knowing relationships between a mother and son in American film history. I also relate a lot to Foster anyway and I grew up with her and her films. It is also noteworthy to recognize just how much Foster obviously loves not only Truffaut but the French New Wave as a whole and LITTLE MAN TATE feels much closer to say Eric Rohmer than Steven Spielberg.
I had just graduated from High School when LITTLE MAN TATE came out and it remains a really special film to me. It was a film that I thought a lot about and watched my first year at college and it is a work that I still get very emotional about.
Jodie would win a second Oscar for SLIENCE OF THE LAMBS just as LITTLE MAN TATE was getting ready to hit home video and she quickly stepped back in front of the camera for a series of more great performances including SOMMERSBY (1993) and NELL (1994) before directing her second feature, 1995's HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is an even more accomplished film that LITTLE MAN TATE and one of the most underrated films of the nineties. Jodie had just seen Mathieu Kassovitz's intense LA HAINE and had been instrumental in bringing it to American shores. Jodie obvioulsy had this film in mind as HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS would, like LITTLE MAN TATE, have a much more European feel to it than most Hollywood films of the nineties.
On its incredible commentary track Jodie says something along the lines that she wanted to make an anti-holiday film as she was tired of the overly nostalgic and sentimental attitude of most Thanksgiving and Christmas works. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS certainly isn't the first film to look at a dysfunctional family around the Holidays but it is hard to think of a more insightful one. Working from a script by W.D. Richter with an astonishing Holly Hunter leading one of the best ensemble casts of the nineties, Foster's film is a funny and bold look at how much family members can damage each other.
Joining Hunter's Claudia Larson are Robert Downey Jr. (one of his best performances) as her brother, Charles Durning and Anne Bancroft as her parents and a young Claire Danes as her daughter. Foster would call Danes the best actress of her generation and if Danes hasn't yet lived up to her promise, at least her small turn in HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is among her best.
Even shot more unfussy than LITTLE MAN TATE, Jodie's direction of HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS is incredible in how easily she maneuvers between each character and storyline. This couldn't have been an easy script to film and many seasoned directors would have had trouble balancing it out but Jodie never slips.
It is perhaps a bit ironic that Jodie Foster's anti-holiday film has become one of the key holiday films of the past decade. It is routinely stuck in with all the classic holiday films for sale between Thanksgiving and Christmas and pops up on tv all the time in those two months. It has defiantly become my Thanksgiving film of choice as I can heavily relate to its cynical and finally hopeful nature.
I saw HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS with my girlfriend Jennifer in November of 95 and it remains one of my most memorable and emotional film going experiences. There is a moment towards the end of this film when Jodie allows us to see a special memory for each of her characters. I remember glancing over at Jennifer and wondering if that moment with her in that theater would turn out to be one of those special memories for me...and over a decade after losing her, I must say, it is.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS received some baffling mixed reviews and only did modestly well at the box office. There are very few films from the nineties that move me more than Foster's second film as a director though and I will take it over most of the decade's 'great' films.
Since HOME FOR THE HOLIDAY'S Jodie Foster has yet to direct another film. Her doomed FLORA PLUM project is apparently never going to happen and her announced SUGARLAND appears to be in trouble. I think it's tragic that such an obviously intelligent and skilled director like Jodie can't get these projects off the ground. Hopefully one day she will return to the directors chair but if not LITTLE MAN TATE and HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS make up a fine, if small, legacy for her.
Both films are available on dvd and they each come with two of the most insightful, intelligent and honest commentaries I have ever heard. Much like the film's themselves, Jodie Foster comes across in these talks as someone not only incredibly smart but finally very human and real. They both remain very special works to me, as does their creator who I first saw nearly thirty years for the first time in the original FREAKY FRIDAY.

An Artist and Muse Double Feature #23 and #24

I really like my ongoing 'Artist and Muse' series. It allows me to post some of my favorite behind the scenes photos and highlight some remarkable artistic relationships where both parties are equally and simultaneously 'artist' and 'muse'.
Today I was inspired by Cinebeats birthday tribute to the powerful Isabelle Adjani to offer up my first double bill of this series.

Adjani's performance for Francois Truffaut in THE STORY OF ADELE H. is one of the the greatest I have ever seen. Searing, intense and finally heartbreaking, the 19 year old Adjani delivered arguably the greatest performance anyone ever did for Truffaut which puts her ahead of some very strong competition.
I love reading Truffaut's accounts of the teenage powerhouse on his set, at times he seems nearly frightened by the emotion and dedication that she invested in the role and his close ups of her remarkable face are among my favorites in screen history. Adjani would receive her first Oscar nomination for THE STORY OF ADELE H. and in my view she should have won it.

Adjani's follow up to THE STORY OF ADELE H. was Roman Polanski's masterful THE TENANT. Long one of Polanski's most underrated masterpieces, THE TENANT features Adjani in a relatively small but extremely effective role that would show that she was capable of playing anything delivered to her.

Adjani would unfortunately never work with either Francois or Roman again but these two performances would kick start one of the great careers in modern cinema. Isabelle would soon be working with directors ranging from Werner Herzog to Andrzej Zulawski and can still frankly wipe the floor with most of modern cinema's greatest actors. I'd like to join in and wish her a, day late, happy birthday and I hope that one day she decides to return to the cinema screen again.

Life With Antoine Doinel

This month marks the 48th anniversary of the premiere of Francois Truffaut's first feature film, THE 400 BLOWS, at the Cannes Film Festival. It is hard to believe that the saga of Antoine Doinel began nearly fifty years ago as Truffaut's films still retain all of their freshness and emotional pull even in today's overwhelmingly hectic world.
Truth be told if I had to pick a series of films for my imaginary desert island it would be Truffaut's Doinel films, that began with THE 400 BLOWS and ended with 1979's LOVE ON THE RUN. Truffaut is my favorite director and his Doinel films feel more like members of my family rather than just fading pieces of celluloid.
Truffaut was only 26 when he began filming THE 400 BLOWS with his 14 year old star, Jean Pierre Leaud. The Leaud collaboration would continue through nearly the rest of Truffauts life with Jean Pierre becoming his greatest discovery, surrogate son, and screen stand in to Francois.
THE 400 BLOWS tells the story of young, troubled and attention starved Antoine Doinel. Doinel is one of the great characters in cinema history and Jean Pierre Leaud is one of the great actors. Based on Truffaut himself, we watch as Doinel is systematically and emotionally abandoned by his neglectful parents and a corrupt school system.
Truffaut was already a well known and controversial critic when THE 400 BLOWS premiered and won the Golden Palm at Cannes. Truffaut would also be awarded the best director prize and he would end up being nominated for an Oscar for his remarkable screenplay, which he had based on a short story that he had written in the early fifties.
THE 400 BLOWS is one of the most perfect films ever made. From the iconic and groundbreaking opening shots of Paris to hearing the first notes of Jean Constantin's lovely score, Truffaut announces himself immediately as a director of massive importance. THE 400 BLOWS would be as far away from the stuffy studio made French films that Truffaut had rallied against so much in his, sometimes savage, reviews. Coupled with Henri Decae's cinematography and one of the most haunting last shots in film history, THE 400 BLOWS is one of the finest debut films ever made and it marked the arrival of the heart of the French New Wave.
THE 400 BLOWS was made as a stand alone film, Truffaut apparently had no plans to continue Doinel's story, but when he was asked to deliver a short for the anthology film LOVE AT TWENTY in 1962 he asked Leaud if he felt like giving it another go.
The short ANTOINE AND COLETTE was said to be possibly Truffaut's favorite of all of his films. The Golden Bear nominated film presents us with Doinel in his late teens, lonely and living on his own. He sees and becomes infatuated with a girl named Colette, played by the lovely Marie-France Pisier in her debut, and begins dating her. If THE 400 BLOWS chronicled Doinel's struggle with his parents and school then ANTOINE AND COLETTE introduces the two themes that would occupy the rest of the series, Antoine's relations with women and his search for surrogate parents.

ANTOINE AND COLETTE is a melancholic little film that benefits greatly from Georges Delerue's tender score and the remarkable black and white photography of Raoul Coutard. Truffaut makes it clear that even though Doinel is again abandoned by someone he loves in the form of Colette at least he is emotionally adopted by her parents, which gives the film and Doinel some well earned hope.
Throughout the early and mid sixties Leaud became one of the French New Wave's most recognizable faces and he worked with everyone from Jean-Luc Godard to Jean Cocteau. He also became increasingly political and idealistic and was at the front of the protest lines in 1968. Bertolucci would use clips of Leaud protesting to great effect in THE DREAMERS a few years back and it is Leaud's own changing values and the sense of strife that was plaguing France in 68 that sets the scene for the next Doinel film.

STOLEN KISSES is considered by many to be the masterpiece of the Antoine Doinel series. It is my second favorite after BED AND BOARD and it contains some of the series lightest and most heartfelt moments. For me it remains an undeniably important film in that it introduced the world to the heartbreaking and mesmerizing Claude Jade. Truffaut fell in love with Jade making the film and I fall in love with her every time I watch it. Her opening shot in the film, peering through a window at Antoine, is one of my favorite shots in any film.
STOLEN KISSES is a sneaky film. Dedicated to the great cinema lover Henri Langlois, it is one of the most subtle revolutionary films ever made. Seemingly apolitical the film was clearly influenced by the problems plaguing France and the increasing divisions between the young generation and old. A key to Leaud and Truffaut's views comes with an almost throw away line of dialogue mentioning how important making love is. STOLEN KISSES would mark a shift in the series from being solely about Antoine Doinel to being about Antoine and Claude Jade's Christine.
The film was the first of the series shot in color and Denys Clerval's eye popping photography of Paris and various interiors make this one of the most beautiful films of the late sixties. Clerval would also shoot Truffaut's striking MISSISSIPPI MERMAID the following year but would never work with Truffaut again after 1969. The score this time, featuring some of the best music of the series, is by the great Antoine Duhamel. Duhamel is one of France's most underrated composers and his work on a few of Truffaut's films is especially noteworthy. Unfortunately the two would have a falling out on the next Doinel film and would never work together again. A recent import cd of Duhamel's scores is available from DustyGroove and is highly recommended.

STOLEN KISSES can't be brought up without mentioning the amazing Delphine Seyrig. One of the most beautiful and best actresses of her generation, the much admired Seyrig delivers one of her best performances in STOLEN KISSES. Her untimely death in 1990, due to lung cancer, robbed French cinema of one of its great actors.
1970's BED AND BOARD is the series' real conclusion. Telling the tale of Antoine and Christine's first year of marriage, Truffaut clearly designed the film to end the series. As I mentioned it is my favorite of the Doinel cycle and one of the most underrated films of the seventies. Leaud and Jade form one of the great couples in screen history in this film and the film's overwhelmingly natural feel makes it a unique one in all of cinema.

BED AND BOARD marked the first time Truffaut worked with Nestor Almendros. Francois had seen and been so overwhelmed by Almendros' work with Eric Rohmer that he hired him not only for BED AND BOARD but also THE WILD CHILD which was released the same year. The two would work together five more times, including Truffaut's final film 1983's CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS.
BED AND BOARD ends the Doinel series for me. The final shots of Antoine and Christine with their newborn at the beginning of their lives together gives closure to the set of films and Truffaut, Leaud and Jade knew it. It is a perfect final film for the characters so it makes it all the more mystifying why 1979's LOVE ON THE RUN exists.
I don't mean to be too hard on the 'official' final film to the Doinel series. I like the film very much and can watch it on its own but I don't like to connect it with the other films. I need Antoine Doinel and Christine Darbon to be together and seeing them separated in LOVE ON THE RUN is depressing stuff. The final film is largely made up of many shots of the other Doinel films of the past and it continues the now central story of Doinel and his relationships with different women. It's an emotionally bankrupt film and one of Truffaut's weakest. Truffaut himself regretted making it and even though it contains some sublime moments, such as the great title song and the returning Pisier, it isn't on the same level as the other films.

Truffaut would complete just three films after LOVE ON THE RUN before passing away at the tragically young age of 52 in 1984 due to a brain tumor. Godard, whom had famously fallen out with Truffaut and Leaud in the seventies, would say that French Cinema 'lost it's protection' when Francois died. He was right...Truffaut and the emotional weight his best films carried were always a reminder of cinema's power to help, heal and affect people's lives in a positive way.

Claude Jade died six months ago and I am still shook up about it. She had just published her well received memoirs in France and had also recorded some audio commentaries for the French Doinel dvds, which I hope to hear one day. She was the first person I ever posted about on this blog, I love and miss the warmth she brought to the screen and will be writing more on her in the future.

Leaud will turn 63 in a couple of weeks. He has had one of the most remarkable careers in French screen history with over 80 films to his credit, many with some of the most important European directors in all of cinema. His work as Antoine Doinel has perhaps overshadowed his career and the fact that he is a fine actor with a capacity to do any kind of role. Still I can't imagine that Leaud minds being recognized as one of the most famous characters in screen history.

Francois Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud gave cinema a really remarkable gift with the five Antoine Doinel films. They are unique in film history and a testament to creation and collaboration. Most importantly they reminded us that cinema, long the most under-appreciated art form, should be valued as something that has the capability to remind people of the importance of love, forgiveness and acceptance.

The Antoine Doinel series is available from Criterion in an expansive box set featuring beautiful prints, vintage documantaries, commentaries, a book and much more. I personally think that, along with the Rohmer box, it is the best Criterion release available.

Many books and articles are available on Truffaut that delve deeper into the Doinel series. This was just my small little tribute to a group of films that changed not only the way I felt about movies but life in general.

The Great Ones Vol. 1 (Side B Track 1)

Sometime on June 26th, 1967 a rented Renault 10 slammed into a post just outside of Nice, flipped over and burned the young woman driving alive. Her body was soon identified as French actress Francois Dorleac, she was one of the most popular and beloved stars of the sixties and she was just 25 years old. Her family and friends were shattered to hear the news, including her 24 year old sister Catherine Deneuve. Messages from all over the world poured in from colleagues and fans all reflecting the same stunned reaction that such a beautiful and talented young woman had been taken away.
Dorleac came from a theatrical family, her father was French stage actor Maurice Dorleac and she was in the theatre herself as a young child. Growing up she was known for her vivacious personality and always seemed to give the family, which seemed closed off, a lightness.
She was only 18 when she began her film career and she was featured in series of small roles until landing two roles just after her 21st birthday that would change her life. The two roles would show her amazing versatility, one would let her play close to herself while the other would call upon her to mine some of her family's polar qualities.
Philippe de Broca's hysterical and frantic spy spoof That Man From Rio would give Francoise opportunity to show her comedic chops opposite one of France's biggest stars, Jean Paul Belmondo. She stole the film outright, winning over not only the audiences that flocked to see it but the cast and crew as well. Everyone seemed to agree on one thing about Francoise, they all loved her.
The Soft Skin was the film that really solidified her as a dramatic force to be reckoned with. One of Francois Truffaut's coldest films and most controversial. It divides many of his fans and briefly damaged his career since his film just before had been the hugely popular Jules and Jim. While The Soft Skins critical reception was cold reaction to Francoise's performance as the airline stewardess that leads Jean Desailly in an adulterous affair was universally acclaimed. Truffaut himself would rhapsodize about her to the press and finally conceded that even if the film was one of his weakest, working with Dorleac had made it a valuable experience.
She would continue to work in France for a couple of years before branching out to the English language market with Genghis Khan and Where The Spies Are. Film offers were pouring in when she would release her greatest film and one of the key films of the 60s, Cul-De-Sac directed by a young Polish filmmaker named Roman Polanski.
Polanski was just at the beginning of his legendary career and Cul-De-Sac is an important work that, along with his Repulsion and Knife In The Water, would establish him as the great master of cinematic oppression. Never had a filmmaker been able to tap so securely into people's darkest neurosis and psyches. He was a virtual hurricane of ideas and creation in this period and Dorleac delivers a great performance for him, tapping into dimensions that her earlier work had only hinted at. Polanski would get the same out of Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion as Catherine had followed Francoise into films.
Francoise would change gears completely after Cul-De-Sac with the colorful musical Young Girls of Rochefort opposite Hollywood legend Gene Kelly and her sister Catherine. She would prove equally at home in a Hollywood style musical under the direction of Jacques Demy and truth be told outshone her legendary sister with ease.
Her final film, Billion Dollar Brain, would be made by Ken Russell, here at the beginning of his career and just before making a string of genius films. A cold war drama co-starring Michael Caine that has grown in stature over the years shows Francoise at the peak of her beauty and talent.
Francoise Dorleac is much more than one of the could have been great ones. She would have without question become one of the most respected and important actresses of the seventies and had already shown that she could have conquered International and American films. Her death changed everyone around her, mostly her sister who would become the legend Francoise never had the chance to. Recalling the young girl that he had made The Soft Skin with, Truffaut wrote in 1968:
"Francoise Dorleac represented even more,
a person such as one meets rarely in one's lifetime,
an incomparable young woman whose charm, femininity,
intelligence, grace and unbelievable moral force made her
unforgettable to anyone who had spoken with her for an hour."
These photos are from the lovely book that her sister put together in the late 90s called Elle Sappelait Francoise...
She is still missed and loved by those who knew her and by us who remember the roles and spirit she left us.

The Great Ones Vol.1 (Side A Track 6)

Glancing at the roles Tuesday Weld turned down throughout her career reads like a list of someone hell bent on not succeeding. She was quoted as saying that she turned down Bonnie and Clyde because, "I don't ever want to be a huge star, do you think I want to be a success?", other roles she turned down included Lolita, Rosemary's Baby, True Grit, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bob Carole Ted and Alice, Cactus Flower, Performance, The Stepford Wives, The Great Gatsby, Chinatown and Frances. Rumor has it that one of the reasons that Truffaut didn't direct Bonnie and Clyde was because she wouldn't play Bonnie, Beatty would continue to pursue her finally settling on Faye Dunaway who built her entire career from that role.
I found out about Tuesday Weld fairly young after seeing her with Elvis in 1961's Wild In The Country. Even in that early performance at just 18 she had a electrically charged weariness that most actors even after years of performing couldn't equal. The late 50's and early 60's would see her working a lot in TV and films of varying quality. Her role as Thalia Menninger on Dobie Gillis made her a major teen idol and this would be exploited in many of her earlier youth oriented films.
Things started to turn for her in 1963's Soldier In The Rain where she more than held her own with Steve Mcqueen and Jackie Gleason. It would be another Steve Mcqueen film two years later that would see her first really great performance, this as Christian in 65's The Cincinnati Kid. Her bad girl persona had been stripped away with this role, Ann-Margret handled that for the film, and she brings an uncommon sweetness to Christian. Mcqueen turns in some of his finest work feeding off Weld which makes it all the more regrettable that she didn't appear in Thomas Crown with him a few years later.
1966 was her major breakthrough with George Axelrod's jaw dropping satire, Lord Love A Duck. One of the major American films of the 1960's and a major disaster upon release although even its critics hailed Tuesday's work as the destined to be lost college student Barbara Ann Greene. Her favorite of all her roles would grow as the film would in stature each year. It's one of the few American films of the period that is the equal to the European cinema that would dominate the decade.
Ongoing personal problems began to dismantle Weld after this and she only worked in TV for the next two years losing much of the momentum that Lord Love A Duck created but by the time she made 68's Pretty Poison many critics were aware that they were dealing with one of the best actresses in the country. Although she has always despised the film her intense work as the monstrous SueAnn in Pretty Poison might be her greatest performance. Rarely has a sociopath been portrayed with so many dimensions. This would also mark her first appearance with another famously self destructive talent, Anthony Perkins.
She would take another two years off but would return in 1970 giving a trio of performances that rank alongside any great actors work in any period. Starting with 1970's I Walk The Line through to 71's A Safe Place and concluding with 72's Play It As It Lays we find Weld going for broke in a trilogy of films that all failed upon initial release and are all ripe for rediscovery.
Shortly before it's release I Walk The Line was taken away from great director John Frankenheimer and recut, shortened and re scored. I believe if his original cut ever surfaces it will play as one of the great films of the early 70s, as it stands even in it's tampered form it is still an uncommonly powerful film. Shot on location in Gainsboro Tennessee and telling the tale of a small town sheriff, wonderfully played by Gregory Peck, falling for and ultimately being destroyed by the daughter of a family of bootleggers. Weld's Alma is one of her most complex characterizations, even in the film's haunting last scenes we still aren't totally sure of her motivations. It's a bravura performance that feels totally authentic, something that is usually missing from interpretations of the South. Watching Weld's work in this and the two films following I am struck by the line in Johnny Cash's theme song, "I keep a close watch on this heart of mine". These performances, even at their most almost embarrassingly open moments, are ultimately very mysterious, hidden and guarded much like the woman portraying them.
Henry Jaglom was an actor in the 1960s who had befriended Weld as well as Orson Welles and Jack Nicholson, when he somehow got a major studio to back his first film A Safe Place all three would appear in it. Attempting to recount the plot of A Safe Place would be about the most foolish thing one could attempt to do, it's a film to be experienced and not talked about. It is also the hardest to find major film that Tuesday Weld ever made, grey market copies are all that are in circulation of this film that was a critical and commercial disaster upon release. In my eyes it's one of the great films of the seventies, a truly uncompromising personal vision made by a group of artists who knew ultimately that time would have to catch up with their film, it still hasn't.
Weld's final great starring role would come in Frank Perry's Joan Didion adaption Play It As It Lays, a film that would divide critics but a role that finally granted Weld universal acclaim. She would receive a Golden Globe nomination but was controversially ignored come Oscar time. It's a difficult film to watch and it's probably the best portrayal of someone having a complete mental breakdown ever filmed. Weld seems to bring all of her personal demons out for this role, her costar was once again Anthony Perkins and he also seems to bring more than just his acting tools to the part. This is cinema as deep therapy with the audience ultimately being as exhausted as the cast by the end of it.
Play It As It Lays would act as Tuesday Weld's Raging Bull. Like De Niro she would never again be as beautiful or as transcendent in a role. There would be great work after, her oscar nominated turn in Looking For Mr Goodbar, Michael Mann's Thief opposite James Caan and especially Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America with De Niro himself but she would never again open that window she had early in her career. Much like her character Noah at the end of A Safe Place, she would seemingly just disappear.
The mere mention of her name for some evokes wonderful long thought lost dreams of adolescence, for others it recalls the greatest fuck up of the 1960's. A woman who could have controlled the most legendary of all decades but ultimately couldn't be bothered. Either way her films continue to become more and more available and more and more people see them. Who knows in 20 years perhaps the list of roles she turned down will seem less and less important and maybe films like Lord Love A Duck and A Safe Place will be required watching for young film students. I almost hope not, I'd hate to lose her to the thing she hated so much in the first place. She remains like Axelrod's, punk before punk, description of Lord Love A Duck:
"This motion picture
is against
teenagers...
their parents...
beach movies....
cars...schools...
and several hundred
other things.
An Act of Pure Aggression."
or
to paraphrase a song in another film of hers, she remains a rose grown wild.

So long Christine Doinel

I remember very clearly the moment when I first saw Claude Jade. I was 15 and sitting in study hall reading James Monaco's The New Wave instead of whatever assignment I was ignoring that day. The book, which would prove so important to me, was a trade paperback with the pages already yellowing and it's black and white photos becoming less and less clear each time I looked at them. I had found the book in a used Evansville, Indiana bookstore and it fuelled my new found appetite for French film and especially Jean-Luc Godard. The photos of Claude of course were in the Truffaut section and while they conveyed little of what made her so special they stuck with me.

Years later I was at College in Lexington Kentucky in a particular cleaning house phase of my life when I rented a number of Francois Truffauts films from a local video store. Over the period of a few nights I felt transformed by this man and his evoctive memory films. Why I waited so long to discover Truffaut I don't know but I found them at the perfect time.

All of the films I watched that week had a profound affect on me but it was the third Antoine Doinel adventure, Baisers Voles (Stolen Kisses), that left me feeling the warmest. Suddenly those blurry black and white photos I had stored in my memory for so long became alive and I could finally see that her hair was as red as I had imagined with her skin as fair as I had hoped.

Claude Jade was an accomplished screen and stage actress in France. She won awards, wrote a book and even made a film with Hitchcock but it's her work with Truffaut in three films as Christine Doinel that I hold so close.

Upon hearing the news that cancer had taken this lovely woman away a couple of weeks ago made me feel of course very sad but also reminded me of what a wonderful thing it was to be 20. That's how old she was when she made Stolen Kisses in 1968 and that's how old I was when I first saw it around 1993. I think of her as an old friend that I might run into again, a secret crush that I kep't to myself inhabiting a world where things like aging and cancer don't exist.

I'm reminded of what Tony Bennett said upon hearing that Frank Sinatra died, "I don't have to believe that" and that's how I feel about Claude Jade. I have no doubt we'll meet again at 20 and if only for a moment I'll be able to tell her that I've missed her.