One of the pioneering figures of the French New Wave, François Truffaut began his career in film writing thoughtful and intelligent criticism for the legendary French magazine "Cahiers du cinéma." Along with fellow contributors/future filmmakers Éric Rohmer (Pauline à la plage), Claude Chabrol (Violette), Jacques Rivette (Céline et Julie vont en bateau), and Jean-Luc Godard (Passion), Truffautushered in the age of the auteur, writer/directors who controlled every aspect of their film from conception to release.
Rejecting the French cinematic establishment of the time, represented by such classicist luminaries as Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, Jean Cocteau, Max Ophuls, and others, Truffaut and his colleagues took the world by storm in the late 50s and early 60s. They rejected conventional narrative structure and polished performances, crafting a style thatowed more of its inception to Italian neorealism and classic Hollywood westerns than it did their French forebears.
Godard strictly upheld the rule that only these five men, himself included, were official members of the French New Wave. So although their contemporaries such as Louis Malle (The Lovers),Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Samouraï), and others worked in the New Wave milieu, they weren't considered part of the movement. Then, of course, there's the "Left Bank" faction, considered in opposition to the New Wave's freewheeling look by featuring a more controlledlook from directors like Agnès Varda(One Sings The Other Doesn't, Le Bonheur), Alain Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad), and Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort), among others.
Truffaut's1959 debut The 400 Blowsquickly became recognized as a bold step forward for cinema,exercising tremendous influence overthe generation of American filmmakers that would come to dominate in the 1970s.Interestingly enough, Truffaut's best known films are almost entirely skin-free affairs from his early films likeThe 400 BlowsandJules et Jimto his prolific years when he made such masterpieces as Fahrenheit 451 and Day for Night.
Truffautdidn't use nudity just because he could, but in fact, utilized it to enhance the naturalism he sought in most of his work. Of the core nucleus of the French New Wave—Rohmer, Rivette, Truffaut, Chabrol, and Godard—the number of films he made with nudity is second only to Chabrol, so he feels like an accessible entry point fora discussion about nudity in the French New Wave.
Shoot the Piano Player (1960)
For his second film, Truffaut crafted a film that doesn't fit comfortably into any one genre—It's hilariously funny and achingly tragic, mysterious and predictable, action-packed yet deliberately paced. That it also manages to take itself seriously in all of this sets it apart from the work of his contemporaries, like Godard, who often saw the absurdity in tragedy. This film believes wholeheartedly in both its comedy and its tragedy, making it all the more masterful.
Truffaut draws heavily from American film noir for the look, feel, and sound of the film. Whereas his American counterparts couldn't use nudity in the days of the Hays Code, laxer laws in France allowed Truffaut the ability to add another dimension to noir. Noir is nothing if not a precursor to exploitation films of the 60s and 70s, so why wouldn't noir have featured nudity were the censorship laws in America not so restrictive. The gorgeous and busty Michèle Mercier takes off her top and climbs into bed, but her man covers her breastswhile jokingly saying...
That's not the way it is at this movie, however, as we get a pretty good long look at her breasts before Truffaut taunts the audience with his cleverness...
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
Tarantino has acknowledged his many influences on his 2003 modernrevenge tale Kill Bill, but he claims never to have seen what might be the single heaviest among them, this 1968 effort starring the absolutely astonishing Jeanne Moreau. Crafted as Truffaut's homage to one of his personal favorite filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock, The Bride Wore Black finds Moreau playing a woman out for revenge on the men who assaulted her and murdered her husband on their wedding day.
Truffaut would eventually disown the film, disappointed by its uneven tone and constant clashes with his cinematographer, and while it'snot the best filmhe made with Moreau in the 60s, it's still an incredibly stylish affair. Moreau kicks things off by appearing in a topless photograph over the opening credits...
Moreau goes topless again an hour and twenty four minutes later, her breasts visible in the reflection of a crackled mirror after having dispatched her latest conquest...
It's not just the world of film that has taken inspiration from The Bride Wore Black, as Kate Bush beat a lot of them to the punch with this 1980 tune...
Perhaps it's possible Tarantino never saw this film or doesn't remember seeing it, anyway. Maybe his influences are just as strongly realized as Truffaut's, and he ended up making a similar kind of film without realizing it. Anything's possible.
Stolen Kisses (1968)
The third film in Truffaut's Antoine Doinel saga that began with The 400 Blowsonce again starsJean-Pierre Léaud—who also appeared in Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris—as the enfant terrible, as he did in all five films made over a twenty year period. Eat your hearts out Linkater, Hawke, and Delpy! The notion of a director revisiting certain characters throughout their career certainly didn't start with Truffaut, but he gave the art house crowdtheir first franchise—in a manner of speaking.
Here Doinel is in his early twenties and discharged from army and back into the arms of hisgirl—played by Truffaut's fianceeClaude Jade—who doesn't particularly like him, but leads him on throughout the film. Antoine's next job finds him working as a hotel clerk, where he finds himself in the middle of a prickly situation when a jilted husband insists thathis philandering wife (Martine Brochard) is somewhere in the hotel with her lover. Antoine works his way into the room during the confrontation, giving himself and the audience quite an eyeful of Brochard sitting topless in bed...
Sadly we don't have any clips from his fifth and final Antoine Doinel film, 1979's Love on the Run, and it is highly recommended though sadly out of print via The Criterion Collection. It can, however, be watched onCriterion's streaming service.
Mississippi Mermaid (1969)
Having appeared in several films by "Left Bank"er Jacques Demy, not to mention Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour, Catherine Deneuve was a well established star in France when she teamed with Truffaut for the first time on this 1969 literary adaptation. Co-starring another French luminary, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Trruffaut shot the film chronologically so that the relationship between his leading characters could better develop right alongside their real-life counterparts, Deneuve and Belmondo.
Deneuve stars as amail order bridewho comes to live with a wealthy plantation owner (Belmondo), who welcomes her despite the fact that she doesn't look anything like the picture he was sent of her. Nevertheless, he lets down his guard just long enough for her to abscond with his money, revealing herself to be a con woman. This sends him on a hunt to track her down, and if this sounds familiar at all, you may have seen the remake titled Original Sin from 2001 with Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas.
While the 2001 film has the edge when it comes to explicit sexuality, it can't hold a candle to the original which exploits the many charms of its writer/director and two stars, all working in their prime. Don't go thinking this is some skinless affair, however, as we do get two brief looks at Deneuve's breasts, the first coming just past the one hour mark as she changes shirts while her car is broken down...
22 minutes later, we get another brief flash as she throws a shirt on before exiting the room...
Two English Girls (1971)
Just a year after making their fourth Antoine Doinel film, Bed Board, Truffaut and leading man Jean-Pierre Léaud reunited for this adaptation of the novel "Two English Girls and the Continent" by "Jules et Jim" authorHenri-Pierre Roché. Léaud stars as Claude, a man courted by Anne Brown (Kika Markham) in hopes that he may marry her introverted sister Muriel (Stacey Tendeter). Claude's mother insist that the two live engaged but apart for one year, during which time Claude resumes his freewheeling bachelor lifestyle and ultimately decides to break off their engagement. This devastates Muriel, but opens a door for Anne, who really kinda always had a thing for him anyway.
Though it was originally released as a 108 minute film, just prior to his death, Truffaut restored over twenty minutes of footage to the film, making it a much more wholly satisfying affair by delving deeper into the inner worlds of these characters. The twisted things they do to one another over the course of the narrative run counter to the luscious production and costume design by, respectively,Michel de Broin and Gitt Magrini.
Upon moving to Paris to study art, Anne sleeps with Claude, giving us a great look at Kika Markham's breasts as herecites to her the myth of Eurydice...
Later in the film, Claude entices Muriel to lose her virginity to him before she sails to Belgium to become a teacher. This brings us a great, albeit brief, look at Stacey Tendeter's breasts...
A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972)
A sociology student working on his thesis regarding the mind of the criminal woman gets more than he bargained for when talking to busty babeBernadette Lafont in Truffaut's dark comedy Une belle fille comme moi, or, A Gorgeous Girl Like Me. And why shouldn't he? This sensationally stacked brunette beauty is a charmer and a half, who spins a tale for the unsuspecting student of murder and revenge and how she was just looking out for herself.
Lafont was quite the prolific actress, amassing nearly 200 credits in her career, and this film marked her nude debut. She clearly got a taste for it as she would go nude nearly a dozen more times in her career, but it all started here as she gives us a look at her breasts while in bed with some dopey musician just 32 minutes in...
8 minutes later we catch another glimpse as she attempts to change her clothes in the back of a truck...
The Man Who Loved Women (1977)
See! Truffaut was even doing memes before those were a thing. I'm telling you, the man was ahead of the curve. Written while Truffaut was working as an actor on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this 1977 film opens with the funeral of our main character Bertrand (Charles Dennerfrom The Bride Wore Black). As the title—and the forty-plus women all weeping away at his funeral—would lead you to believe, Bertrand loved women. Like, really loved them.
The film flashes back from the funeral to show us Bertrand's life as a serial philanderer with substantial commitment issues. 13 minutes in we get to see him chatting up a topless Sabine Glaser in bed...
26 minutes later, he gets a phone call and in the reflection of the mirror, we can see Valérie Bonnier's breasts as she changes behind him...
While it's not Truffaut's best film, it does feature a terrific performance from the gorgeous—albeit fully clothed—Brigitte Fossey, as a woman who finds herself at repulsed by Bertrand's behavior. At first, anyway. Throughout the course of the film, as she gets to know him, she begins falling in love with the man she thinks he could be, were he able to keep his dick in his pants for five minutes. This is all the more tragic because, as we know from the beginning of the film, he ends up dead—appropriately enough he is hit by a car while chasing two women with great legs.
The film received an English language remake six years later, directed by Blake Edwards and starring Burt Reynolds, which is only worth checking out before the originalbecause it's the one and only placeto see Marilu Henner completely nude.
The Woman Next Door (1981)
Truffaut's penultimate film, made a year before he turned 50, reunited him with Gerard Depardieu for this terse romantic drama inspired by the mythical tale of Tristan and Iseult. Depardieu plays Bernard, happily married to Arlette (Michèle Baumgartner), but when they move into a new house, he is shocked to find his former lover Mathilde—played by Truffaut's own wifeFanny Ardant—also married and living next door. Clearly still feeling jilted by Bernard, the two do their best to avoid one another, but soon find themselves back on the train to pound town.
35 minutes in we get a quick flash of tit from Fanny as she sits down on the bed following her first fling with Depardieu in some time...
Just seven minutes later, she gives Depardieu's wife the shock of a lifetime when she twirls around in her flowing dress, briefly showing off her bush...
Two years later, Truffaut would release his 35th film, Confidentially Yours, and in 1984, he would die of a brain tumor on the night he was to attend the premiere of his friend Miloš Forman's film Amadeus. We were likely cheated out of dozens more films from this great mind over the last 35 years, and if only he had lived to see how many filmmakers would embrace him as an influence, just as he had embraced his own. Thankfully he was prolific enough to leave us with a deep library of classic films, all worthy of one's time and attention.
Other François Truffaut Films with Nudity Not Covered in This Column
Check out the Other Directors in Our Ongoing "SKIN-depth Look”Series
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Non-nude images via IMDbCriterion.com