TWO IN THE WAVE
Directed by Emmanuel Laurent
Written by Antoine de Beacque
Released in 2010
Directed by Emmanuel Laurent
Written by Antoine de Beacque
Released in 2010
Two in the Wave (2010) sings the song of friendship gone adrift. The two friends, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, were the front line of what has become known as the French New Wave in Cinema beginning around late 1957 and ending, if it ever did, around 1973 when Godard and Truffaut exchanged some frank and unpleasant letters calling one another out for various betrayals of talent.
The dissolution of a working partnership (the best example of which is Breathless, which was co-written by the two men, these cinematic Lennon and McCartney) feels bitter even now as we watch Emmanuel Laurent's documentary draw us in on the revolutionary aesthetics of two men who began as film critics and ended up the lenses of their generation.
Here is what the film's own website has to say about the two prominent figures:
Jean-Luc Godard was born in 1930, François Truffaut two years later, and they met for the love of the cinema. They wrote in the same magazines, the Cahiers du cinema and Arts. When the cadet became filmmaker, with the 400 Blows, which triumphed at Cannes in 1959, he helped his protege to go to the achievement, offering him his scenario already entitled Breathless. Throughout the 1960s, they shook the elbows.
That blurb is accurate. But it does not convey just how much fun you may have as you connect with either or both or neither of these monumental characters. Truffaut was always burning for the story, the story, yes, give me biography or autobiography, merci! Godard, contrariwise, saw himself as a man of the people, a man of the street, and with the Paris riots of May 1968, Godard recognized the role of art in politics.
As their friendship/partnership strains under the weight of this difference of emphasis, they compete for the attention of actors, for awards, for analysis, for everything, in the process making some wonderful movies and a certain share of slop.
You do not have to be a film aficionado to enjoy this motion picture. You do not necessarily need to know who the two men are. It is enough, I suspect, to care about the mutual engagement these two geniuses experienced: a love of movies.
The dissolution of a working partnership (the best example of which is Breathless, which was co-written by the two men, these cinematic Lennon and McCartney) feels bitter even now as we watch Emmanuel Laurent's documentary draw us in on the revolutionary aesthetics of two men who began as film critics and ended up the lenses of their generation.
Here is what the film's own website has to say about the two prominent figures:
Jean-Luc Godard was born in 1930, François Truffaut two years later, and they met for the love of the cinema. They wrote in the same magazines, the Cahiers du cinema and Arts. When the cadet became filmmaker, with the 400 Blows, which triumphed at Cannes in 1959, he helped his protege to go to the achievement, offering him his scenario already entitled Breathless. Throughout the 1960s, they shook the elbows.
That blurb is accurate. But it does not convey just how much fun you may have as you connect with either or both or neither of these monumental characters. Truffaut was always burning for the story, the story, yes, give me biography or autobiography, merci! Godard, contrariwise, saw himself as a man of the people, a man of the street, and with the Paris riots of May 1968, Godard recognized the role of art in politics.
As their friendship/partnership strains under the weight of this difference of emphasis, they compete for the attention of actors, for awards, for analysis, for everything, in the process making some wonderful movies and a certain share of slop.
You do not have to be a film aficionado to enjoy this motion picture. You do not necessarily need to know who the two men are. It is enough, I suspect, to care about the mutual engagement these two geniuses experienced: a love of movies.
