Godard vs. Truffaut

Not just the two prime figures of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut were also close friends. That 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. But the cord between them was decisively severed after the release of Truffaut’s immensely popular Day for Night. Godard found the film to be dishonest, and told Truffaut as much in the first of a series of angry letters between the two men. In a new supplement on our release of Day for Night, film scholar Dudley Andrew goes into great detail about this legendary conflict; here’s an excerpt from that interview.