Quentin Tarantino called François Truffaut a “bumbling amateur”
There are a number of directors that Quentin Tarantino admires so much that he has made countless references and homages within his filmography. Amongst them are the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, the utter violence of Brian de Palma, and the ultra-cool suaveness of French director Jean-Pierre Melville.
However, one director that Tarantino is certainly not in admiration of is the legendary French New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut. He had been discussing Truffaut’s contemporary countryman Claude Chabrol with his Video Archives podcast co-host Roger Avery in an interview with Sight & Sound.
“[Chabrol’s] thrillers are drastically better than the abysmal Truffaut-Hitchcock movies, which I think are just awful,” Tarantino said. “I’m not a Truffaut fan that much anyway. There are some exceptions, the main one being The Story of Adele H. But for the most part, I feel about Truffaut like I feel about Ed Wood.”
Drilling the point home, Tarantino put the sword to Truffaut, saying: “I think he’s a very passionate, bumbling amateur”. At least there is a silver lining for Truffaut in that Tarantino admires his 1975 historical drama film, and it must be said that it’s fair to Tarantino to make these comments, having seen several of his films, rather than throw out the words without consideration.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Tarantino has expressed his distaste for Truffaut and his works. In the novelisation of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Tarantino has his character Cliff Booth go to watch a couple of Truffaut classics at the cinema, but he is less than pleased with what he sees.
Tarantino wrote: “[Booth] tried Truffaut twice, but he didn’t respond to him. Not because the films were boring (they were), but that wasn’t the only reason Cliff didn’t respond. The first two films he watched (in a Truffaut double feature) just didn’t grab him. The first film, The 400 Blows, left him cold. He really didn’t understand why that little boy did half the shit he did. And he thought the mopey dopes in Jules and Jim were a fucking drag.”
Well, one thing is clear then, Quentin Tarantino does not like François Truffaut. Not only does he not like the director himself, but he also extends that distaste to his fictional characters and has them dislike him too. While Tarantino holds several filmmakers close to his heart, the French New Wave icon is certainly not one of them.
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