Fracois Truffaut

            After directing the shorts Une Visite (1954) and Les Miston (1957), Truffaut received widespread recognition for his feature-length big-screen debut, The 400 Blows, an iconic 1959 semi-autobiographical work that followed the travails of youngster Antoine Doinel, played by actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, who would continue the role in future Truffaut films. Truffaut won the Cannes Best Director prize for Blows, receiving a screenwriting Academy Award nomination as well and more importantly becoming a key figure in his country's Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave, movement of moviemaking.

             Truffaut followed up with 1960's Shoot the Piano Player and 1962's Jules and Jim, with the latter often considered a defining work that chronicled the story of two men and a woman caught in a layered romantic triangle.

            Truffaut developed a reputation for having an on-screen sensitivity to women, children and relationships' intricacies not often seen from male directors. Some of his additional work over the ensuing decade includedFahrenheit 451—an English-language 1966 adaptation of the Ray Bradbury dystopic novel—as well as The Wild Child (1970) and Two English Girls(1971).

          I personally find Truffaut's style of film making to be very bold at the time he was making films like The 400 Blows. This film definately would have inspired directors such as Wes Anderson.