Here is my favorite Truffaut film (along with Shoot the Piano Player). Simple storytelling with a great Hollywood ending...he get's the girl. Enjoy some classic Truffaut.
From John Nesbit at Old School Reviews:
Most cinefiles are familiar with François Truffaut's great works, but many of his commercial and critical "failures" contain outstanding work; indeed the least of Truffaut's work surpasses the best work of many lesser auteurs. Such is the case for La Peau Douce (The Soft Skin), which Truffaut sandwiched between his supreme Jules et Jim and Fahrenheit 451 when he realized that the latter project couldn't begin immediately. He holed up with writer Jean-Louis Richard for less than a month to crank out a script about an adulterous affair.
A visual thinker like Hitchcock, Truffaut often created projects that sprang from an image. There's even an element here reminiscent of Buñuel's sexual fixation with lower extremities. According to Richard:
"Originally two images had struck François' imagination. A woman and a man kissing in a taxi and the sound of their teeth clinking. And female legs in silk stockings, crossing and uncrossing, and the sound of stockings rubbing against one another. The kiss in the taxi of course in an adulterous kiss. I don't think there are many husbands who kiss their wives making their teeth clink."
Known for his personal cinema, Truffaut understood the territory explored in The Soft Skin intimately, even though he claimed that the story was based on newspaper accounts. Borrowing the surname of his best friend from childhood to serve as a tribute, protagonist Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) could easily represent Truffaut's secret alter-ego, as the famous director discretely engaged in a number of adulterous affairs that eventually led to the breakup of his own marriage. The film follows a well-known publisher/scholar (specializing in Balzac), who becomes infatuated with an airline stewardess during a lecture tour in Lisbon and then hopelessly entangled as he pursues the doomed affair.
A classic case of mid life crisis, Lachenay has grown comfortable with his bourgeois lifestyle, despite having an attractive, adoring wife, Franca (Nelly Benedetti) and a responsive young daughter, Sabine (Sabine Haudepin). Ironically, his new mistress Nicole (Françoise Dorléac) is far cooler than his wife, frequently holding Pierre at arm's length whenever feeling their trysts too sordid. And this is most of the time since Paris isn't a safe location--they must travel to outlying towns and seek second rate hotels to avoid discovery.
Without words, Truffaut's camera captures Pierre's wavering commitment to his new lover--a love message telegram is crumpled and discretely tossed into an airport waste can when Pierre discovers that Nicole's flight has been delayed, guilt and discomfort are clearly evidenced when he feels obligated to call back home, and exasperation and concern compete with each other when he sees at a distance that another man is desperately attempting to pick up his lover. The language is economical (a Truffaut trademark), and Nicole observantly picks up Pierre's inability to verbally communicate his love.
Both are trapped in an inevitable disaster, and no matter how much you may despise the situation and want to scream at Pierre to return to normalcy, Truffaut crafts no morality tale here. It's a finely nuanced and tightly scripted character study that allows us to come to understand the viewpoints of the two major characters--even more than the actors may have realized when filming the project.
Experienced stage actor Desailly carries the film expertly, combining a charming aloofness with quiet desperation as his character clumsily veers through a maze of lust and deceit on a collision course with destruction. His performance is masterful, but it's the only time that he would collaborate with Truffaut—for good reason, as Desailly found the filming environment much more chaotic than stage acting. According to Truffaut, Desailly “didn't like the film, the character, the subject or me.” But still, Truffaut gets an perceptive performance from his lead actor.
Understandably, The Soft Skin didn't pack box office clout, but why it's not received more critical acclaim is puzzling. Although it lacks the charm of his Antoine Doniel films and doesn't contain the depth of his other more highly regarded films, this simple narrative penetrates the complications arising from adultery with far more discernment than any film I can recall. Truffaut's own marriage and affairs traveled similar paths, serving as source material to illumine others to the pitfalls. We can be thankful for Truffaut's personal sensitivity and for his courage. Not every director has been willing to display his own follies so publicly.
Technical Information:
Title: La peau douce/The Soft Skin
Year: 1964
Country: France/Portugal
Director: François Truffaut
Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: PAL
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 7.39 GB
Length: 1:52:52
Programs used: MTR, ImgBurn
Resolution: 720x576
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Video: MPEG2 @ ~6200 kb/s
Frame Rate: 25 fps
Audio 1: French- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 256 kb/s
Audio 2: French Commentary- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 256 kb/s
Subtitles: English
Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras (French only):
- Françoise Dorléac
- François Truffaut commente quelques scenes du film (1965)
- Bande-annonce
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