125 - Bed and Board, 1970, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.

Friday, May 5, 2017

125 - Bed and Board, 1970, France. Dir. Francois Truffaut.

I don't know much, but one thing I do know.  If you use art to settle accounts, it's no longer art.

So says Christine to Antoine.

He is writing a novel about his childhood.

So he says.

She does not like this business of writing about your childhood, of dragging your parents through the mud.

Christine is Antoine's wife.

His wife?

They got married.

And have had a baby.

Antoine Doinel is all grown up!

Well . . .

At least he is married.

And in classic Antoine fashion he will fail at odd jobs.

First he sells flowers for a florist.

But his enthusiasm will not let him stop at that.

His creativity is far too ebullient.

He decides to dye white carnations. 

With a heated chemical using his own heating process.

Pink.  Yellow.  Red.

Especially red.

He is in search of pure red.

He gets black.

Burnt-Flower Black.

On to his next job.

He stumbles into an American company when the other applicant--with the superior reference letter--steps into the bathroom.

His duty--to operate radio-controlled boats all day.

Really.

At a model harbor.  To assist potential investors in imagining how the real harbor will look.

In walks Kyoto.

Do not do it, Antoine.

Antoine does it.

And now we are at this point.

Christine gets in the taxicab.

Kiss me.

He leans in and kisses her.

Just like their first kiss.

Back when they dated.

You're my little sister, my daughter, my mother.

I'd have liked to be your wife too.

The taxicab drives away.

He watches.

He walks the street alone.

He passes the cinema.  With the giant poster.

John Ford.  Les Cheyennes.  Cheyenne Autumn.

Richard Widmark.  Carroll Baker.  Karl Malden.  Sal Mineo.  Dolores del Rio.  Ricardo Montalban.  Gilbert Roland.  Arthur Kennedy.  Patrick Wayne.  Elizabeth Allen.  John Carradine.  Mike Mazurki.  George O'Brien.  Ken Curtis.  John Qualen.  Harry Carey Jr.  Ben Johnson.  Mae Marsh.  Denver Pyle.  Edward G. Robinson.  And Jimmy Stewart.

What a cast!

Truffaut has maintained his love of film.

In fact, earlier in the movie, M. Hulot walks past Antoine!  With the hat, the pipe, the pants, and the posture.

Played not by Jacques Tati but Jacques Cottin in a solid imitation.

Antoine does a double-take.

Truffaut is playing.

And with this film, and all the Antoine Doinel films, he seems to be writing a novel about his childhood.

But he does not drag his parents through the mud.

He delights in the foibles and follies of people.

The supporting cast alone are worth the price of admission.  The people who inhabit the apartments around the courtyard where Antoine and Christine live and who walk in and out of their lives.

The man who looks out the window and mocks Antoine.  Like Statler and Waldorf in the balcony of The Muppet Show.

The opera singer.

The violin student and her mother.

The woman who perpetually and unsuccessfully hits on Antoine.

The man who borrows money from him every time he sees him.

Their parents.

Their neighbors.

All the people they pass on the stairs.

Truffaut sees life through the eyes of a lyrical Romanticism. 

With boyish insouciance.  Playfulness.  Joie de vivre.  Love of life.

And love.

Antoine and Christine are going to be all right.