Top 10 Actor-Director Pairings
Jean-Pierre Leaud and François Truffaut
In 1959, when he made The 400 Blows — an instant astonishment that set the French New Wave churning — François Truffaut, then 27, had no idea of following his teenage hero, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, through two more decades of seriocomic escapades. But the end of that film, a freeze-frame of Antoine on a beach, left Truffaut and his audiences asking, What next? The callow charisma of young Leaud also begged to be used again.
What followed was a lovely short film (Antoine and Colette) and three features (Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board and Love on the Run) that fleshed out Antoine's early maturity — or, rather, his prolonged, love-addled adolescence. Truffaut died early, at 52; Leaud's performances grew ever more eccentric, until he became the Crispin Glover of French cinema. If Truffaut had lived, we might be following Doinel into dotage. What we're left with is a delightful document of the bond between an endearingly quirky actor and the most likable great director in movie history.