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The François Truffaut film that inspired Quentin Tarantino

Posted on by angelo

Despite the hatred towards the director, did this film by François Truffaut inspire Quentin Tarantino?

(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still / Jack de Nijs / Anefo)

There’s no shortage of filmmakers who have been inspired by François Truffaut over the years, but despite his open disdain for the director’s work, was Quentin Tarantino one of them?

Of course, it’s no secret that the writer and director responsible for Reservoir Dogs, pulp FictionAnd Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is something of a cinematic magpie, regularly channeling or paying homage to his favorite films through a number of different methods, whether it’s reproducing a shot, taking a snippet from the soundtrack, or peppering his films with winks and nods to his influences.

But having criticized Truffaut, it would be reasonable to assume that the iconic figure of the French New Wave, who has gone down in history as one of the best to ever do it, would not be someone Tarantino would look to for inspiration. Ironically, he may well have done just that, and in doing so, stolen the very type of film he was denigrating in the first place.

The two-time Oscar winner has compared Truffaut to Ed Wood, calling him a “passionate, clumsy amateur,” and has particularly decried his late-career Hitchcockian thrillers as “simply awful.” By his own admission, Tarantino was “not a big Truffaut fan,” at least until 1968. The bride wore black enters the scene.

At the height of its thriller era, Truffaut’s adaptation of Cornell Woolich’s novel The Bride Wore Black The film opens with Julie Kohler, played by Jeanne Moreau, prevented from committing suicide, the newly widowed woman devastated by the death of her husband-to-be on their wedding day.

But instead of letting grief overwhelm her, she decides that revenge is a more acceptable substitute. Kohler scribbles five names into her book of vengeance, then sets about eliminating them one by one for their role in her lover’s untimely death, with special treatment reserved for the former head of the serpent.

A planned wedding that ends in tragedy? A bullet-riddled incident that triggers a quest for revenge? A determined female protagonist who tracks down individual targets and eliminates them? An elusive figurehead who played a central role in the death of a loved one? Sounds a lot like the broad strokes of the plot. Kill Billalthough Tarantino has disavowed this specific period of Truffaut’s career.

He listed a number of films that were key references when developing the Uma Thurman starring vehicle, but The bride wore black He may not be a fan of Truffaut’s work, but it’s no coincidence that there are so many obvious similarities between the two projects, especially when Tarantino isn’t shy about drawing inspiration from the past to inform his cinematic present.

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