Francois Truffaut and Wes Anderson

I've slowly been working my way down a list of films that I should see by influential directors through the century. The first director I wanted to take a look at, for no real particular reason was Francois Truffaut. I had seen the film he's arguably best known for, the French New-Wave masterpiece, "The  400 Blows" before. I had liked that, and I figured I would check out the other four films in the Antoine Doinel series, including "Antoine and Colette" "Stolen Kisses" "Bed and Board" and "Love on the Run".

 Out of those films, I really appreciated the third, "Stolen Kisses". I really couldn't place my finger on it, but there was something about that film that struck a chord with me. It was fun and lighthearted, all underscored by this lovable quirkiness. I believe at one point I said aloud to myself, "I really like this film". And it wasn't until I saw one shot, which was perfectly framed, dead on in the center of the screen, that I realized what felt so right to me. It reminded me a lot of Wes Anderson.

 Anderson is one of my favorite film directors. His movies are always quirky and charming, and I find the style of photography pretty endearing. Moonrise Kingdom and The Fantastic Mr. Fox are two of my favorite films.

I figured that this couldn't be coincidental, so I powered up the old google machine, and type in a fine-tuned, well-worded search of "Wes Anderson Francois Truffaut". Surprisingly, there were a lot of hits that came up. These are two articles that appeared, one from 2012 (Just before Moonrise Kingdom) and one from 2002.

http://film-dot-com.tumblr.com/post/20856422516/francois-truffaut-inspired-wes-andersons-moonrise

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/movies/watching-movies-with-wes-anderson-from-centimes-a-wealth-of-ideas.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

I guess I shouldn't really be surprised at this point by the fact that great filmmakers have been inspired by other great filmmakers. I suppose this one just struck home the most for me, given the circumstances. If anything it serves as a reminder that inspiration does not come out of a vacuum and in order to get better at making films, you need to see what other people have done right first.