Francois Truffaut was known for his filmic contributions to the French New Wave, as well as for his self-taught style and his visionary and incendiary philosophies about the film industry. His contemporary Jean-Luc Godard was an equally formidable icon of the French New Wave, known for his wealthy upbringing and bohemian affiliations. Truffaut released The 400 Blows in 1959 to almost universal acclaim, and Godard released his best-loved film, Breathless, a playful take on film noir, in 1960. For many critics, the release of these two films mark the start of the French New Wave, and the friendship shared between Godard and Truffaut and their eventual conflict and falling out can provide a great deal of context for the movement.
Both Truffaut and Godard enjoyed misbehaving and pushing the envelope, in their work and in their lives. While Truffaut was born into relative poverty to a woman who didn't want him (The 400 Blows is rather faithfully aligned with his biography), Godard was born into a wealthy family with good connections. Their contrasting socioeconomic positions did not stop each of them from seeking to transgress whenever possible and scandalize their communities. Truffaut turned to petty crime and film as a way of escaping poverty and neglect, while Godard shocked his community by running towards the experimental and misbehaving however he could (he once stole a painting by Renoir that was in the possession of his grandfather).
The two filmmakers became close friends early in their careers. In an article about their relationship in The New Yorker, Richard Brody writes, "Truffaut was an outsider trying to break in; Godard was an insider trying to break out. They were living a romantic story from Balzac, the writer they admired above all others, and they planned to conquer Paris, and then the world, with their genius." Their breakout films, The 400 Blows and Breathless, are incredibly different yet have come to represent the New Wave. At this time, each was an enthusiastic fan of the other.
As they continued to make films, however, and filmmakers of all kinds were struggling to justify the relevance of the French New Wave in the face of a skeptical mainstream public, Truffaut and Godard's differences—aesthetic, personal, and otherwise—began to emerge. Indeed, their differences seem to have been mainly political. As Godard's politics grew more radical, Truffaut withdrew, at one point saying, "I will never be on the side of the sons of the bourgeoisie.” In Truffaut's eyes, Godard's infatuation with the experimental, the avant-garde and the political was informed by a certain sense of "radical chic." As an article for The Criterion Collection states, "[Godard and Truffaut's friendship] began to change in the late sixties and early seventies, when their careers diverged dramatically, as Truffaut explored more commercial avenues of filmmaking and Godard’s films grew ever more militantly political."
The friendship between the two pioneers of the New Wave became truly contentious after the release of Truffaut's 1973 film Day for Night. Godard thought it was horrible, and sent Truffaut a letter requesting funds to make his own filmic response to Truffaut's film. Godard wrote in his letter that he was entitled to the earnings of Truffaut's more mainstream career, writing, "Given Day for Night, you should help me, so that viewers don’t think that films are only made your way.” Truffaut responded with a vengeance, criticizing Godard's rudeness, his jealousy at Truffaut's mainstream success, his inconsistency, and his pandering to a trendy Left. Truffaut held nothing back, at one point writing, “Like Sinatra, like Brando, you’re nothing but a piece of shit on a pedestal." The filmmakers never reconciled, but continued to follow one another's careers. Truffaut died of a brain tumor in 1984.
Godard is still alive. In an interview he gave in 2007, he is quoted as saying, "...the beautiful thing about cinema is that it still always allows us to argue.”
