By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
The Tribune

Almost everything about influential French filmmaker Francois Truffaut shows a passion for movies and the human condition.

"I want a film I watch to express either the joy of making cinema or the anguish," Truffaut once said. "I am not interested in ... films that don't vibrate."

Film fans can see just how vibrant cinema can be this winter when The Palm Theater in San Luis Obispo offers a 10-part series on the late director.

When Truffaut died suddenly at 52 of a brain tumor in 1984, the world lost an artist who understood life, individual freedom and people, especially lovers and children.

Truffaut uses his own childhood in his first feature film, "The 400 Blows" (1959). The semi-autobiographical classic will open The Palm's Thursday night series on Jan. 7.

The film introduces Truffaut's alter-ego, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud), an adolescent boy sent to reform school after being neglected by his parents and rejected by his teachers.

Truffaut went on to make four more films about Antoine, including "Stolen Kisses" (1968), a comic classic about young love which The Palm will show Feb. 11.

The quintet--made over 20 years--follows the likeable Antoine's life through love, marriage, divorce and various jobs.

Truffaut found his own calling in the movies, first as a critic and then a filmmaker. One of his most famous essays established the "auteur theory," arguing for films that reflect the individual artist's experiences and vision.

"The 400 Blows" and Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" (1959) launched the rebellious "New Wave" a movement, which advocated a spontaneous, informal, personalized filmmaking style.

Truffaut's style is impressionistic, capturing a full life by showing slices of it. His films are deceptively simple yet unpredictable, with fresh characters and new ways to see familiar things.

Seeing the ordinary in a new light is the focus of "The Wild Child" (1969), one of his most touching and memorable films. Based on a true story, it's about a doctor in 1798 trying to "civilize" a feral child (found living like an animal) using techniques still practiced by Montessori educators.

The film is as much about the teacher (Truffaut) learning to appreciate the boy's unrestrained freedom and harmony with nature as it is about the child learning to communicate with people.

Throughout the black-and-white film, Truffaut uses a silent film technique which reduces the entire screen to a tiny circle to emphasize the boy's singularity and isolation.

Truffaut elicits an amazing performance from Jean-Pierre Cargol who is totally convincing as a child experiencing the most common things for the first time.

The filmmaker enjoyed a special rapport with children.

"Small Change" (1976) is an upbeat and entertaining film about several children in a small provincial town. Like a kaleidoscope, Truffaut's camera jumps between characters, steadily painting a fuller picture of the things children go through.

The title refers to the coins, real or imaginary, that children spend growing up. "Kids are solid as rock," one adult character observes. "They stumble through life but they're not hurt. They're much tougher than we are."

Steven Spielberg, who shares Truffaut's affinity with children, honored the French director by casting him as a trusting scientist hoping to communicate with extraterrestrials in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977).

Truffaut pays homage to his favorite films and filmmakers in "Shoot the Piano Player" (1960), a black comedy with obvious references to "Casablanca" (1943).

It's about a piano player (Charles Aznavour) with a secret, whose anonymity in a seedy Paris bar is threatened by gangsters, his tentative romance with a waitress and his own past.

Truffaut blends slapstick humor, romance, melodrama and tragedy to show man can't escape life, love or their consequences.

Facing the consequences underscores two suspenseful revenge films in which Truffaut emulates Alfred Hitchcock, with whom Truffaut conducted and published a famous interview in 1967.

"The Soft Skin" (1964) concerns a husband's infidelity. "The Bride Wore Black" (1968) is about a woman who tracks down five men responsible for her husband's death.

"Bride" contains obvious allusions to Hitchcock films, including a musical score by Bernard Herrmann whose work on "Psycho" (1960) is unforgettable.

Truffaut may have imitated Hitchcock's technique but his humanistic approach owes more to Jean Renoir, son of the famous impressionist painter and creator of such film masterpieces as "Grand Illusion" (1937) and "Rules of the Game" (1939).

Renoir and Truffaut celebrate the joy of love and life, despite human folly and despair. "Life is hard, maybe," says one Truffaut character, "But it's wonderful."

The fragility of love and friendship fills "Jules and Jim" (1961), Truffaut's lyrical story about the complicated relationships between a woman and the title characters.

Catherine, the main character, is a free spirit unwilling to be bound by tradition but whose love for two men can't survive.

The film contains some of Truffaut's most beautiful images, including a charming bicycle ride in the country recalling Renoir's "A Day in the Country" (1936).

A decade later Truffaut made "Two English Girls" (1972) about two sisters in love with the same man. It will be shown in a new uncut version containing extra footage.

The series fittingly ends March 11 with "Day for Night" (1973), Truffaut's loving look at the art of movie making.

Truffaut plays a harried director, offering insights into how he worked, coping with high-strung actors and using events from everyday life to enrich his art.

He also pokes fun at himself, alluding to a famous scene with a movie poster in "The 400 Blows." But mostly, he celebrates the joy of movies, a joy his audience can share and appreciate.

The films are in French with English subtitles. Tickets cost $5 ($3.50 seniors and children 12 and under). A money-saving series pass is available for $30. Call 541-5161 for showtimes.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter. They don't speak French but don't let subtitles stop them from seeing good films.

• "The 400 Blows" (1959) (Jan. 7)
• "Shoot the Piano Player" (1960) (Jan. 14)
• "Jules and Jim" (1961) (Jan. 21)
• "Love at Twenty" (1962)
• "The Soft Skin" (1964) (Jan. 28)
• "Fahrenheit 451" (1967)
• "The Bride Wore Black" (1968) (Feb. 4)
• "Stolen Kisses" (1968) (Feb. 11)
• "Mississippi Mermaid" (1969)
• "The Wild Child" (1969) (Feb. 18)
• "Bed and Board" (1970)
• "Two English Girls" (1972) (Feb. 25)
• "Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me" (1973)
• "Day for Night" (1973) (March 11)
• "The Story of Adele H" (1975)
• "Small Change" (1976) (March 4)
• "The Man Who Loved Women" (1977)
• "The Green Room" (1978)
• "Love on the Run" (1979)
• "The Last Metro" (1980)
• "The Woman Next Door" (1981)
• "Confidentially Yours" (1983)