Film Screening in French with English subtitles
Stolen Kisses ( Baisers volés) by François Truffaut, 1968, 90min
Discharged from the army as unfit, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) seeks out his sweetheart, violinist Christine Darbon (Claude Jade). He has written to her voluminously (but, she says, not always nicely) while in the military. Their relationship is tentative and unresolved. Christine is away skiing with friends when Antoine arrives, and her parents must entertain him themselves, though glad to see him. After she learns that Antoine has returned from military service, Christine goes to greet him at his new job as a hotel night clerk. It is a promising sign that perhaps this time, the romance will turn out happily for Antoine. He is, however, quickly fired from the hotel job. Counting the army, Antoine loses three jobs in the film, and is clearly destined to lose a fourth, all symbolic of his general difficulty with finding his identity and “fitting in”.
François Roland Truffaut was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. After a career of more than 25 years, he remains an icon of the French film industry, having worked on over 25 films.
The film will be introduced by Annette Insdorf, Professor of Film at Columbia University's School of the Arts, and Moderator of the "Reel Pieces" series at Manhattan's 92Y, where she has interviewed over 200 film celebrities. She is the author of Intimations: The Cinema of Wojciech Has; Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski; Francois Truffaut, a study of the French director's work; Philip Kaufman, and the landmark study, Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (with a foreword by Elie Wiesel). Her latest book is Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes, and she received the Mel Novikoff Award from the 2018 San Francisco Film Festival.
This event is free and open to the public.
The film will be shown in French with English subtitles.
This event is co-sponsored by the Columbia Maison Française with additional support by the Albertine Cinematheque, a program of FACE Foundation and Villa Albertine, with support from the CNC / Centre National du Cinema, and SACEM / Fonds Culturel Franco-Americain.
Please email [email protected] to request disability accommodations. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs.
