Truffaut’s “The Soft Skin”
On a recent day off in Manhattan, I saw Truffaut’s The Soft Skin (1964) at Film Forum. I should admit here that if you put me in front of a film made in the 1960s, shot in black and white, and set in Paris, for a while it doesn’t matter what the characters do – I am entranced by the atmosphere, gripped by nostalgia for a time I barely remember and a place I never knew.
But even for me that can’t sustain a whole movie, and The Soft Skin – while not a masterpiece – has a few other things to recommend it. For me its most brilliant sequence comes when the main character, a married, middle-aged intellectual and magazine editor (played by Jean Desailly), is on the road with his mistress (Françoise Dorléac). They stop at a filling station; after the pump is put into the car’s tank – an obvious metaphor for sex – the camera moves to the rising numbers showing the cost of the gas. Meanwhile, the mistress, having been told minutes earlier by her lover that he prefers her dresses to the jeans she is wearing, impulsively takes out a dress and goes to the restroom. As the man pulls out his wallet – about to pay the price for what he has gotten – his mistress reappears, looking different to him now. It’s the whole story, told in a minute, without words.
The ending, which seems to come out of nowhere, weakens the film even as it gives the story’s events a feeling of consequence they might otherwise lack. The guy sitting alone behind me didn’t seem to feel ambivalent about it. “Good for you,” he said to the screen.
Earlier, the main character gives talks on Balzac and Gide. That he does so before sold-out, adoring crowds is one element of the nostalgia I felt. Or maybe the word is fantasy.
3 Responses to “Truffaut’s “The Soft Skin””
The best thing I got out of Library School was a film class I took partially dedicated to the works of Truffaut. You are so right. A black and white ’60s film set in Paris does not have to be good.
Thanks for “filling” me in on all the symbolism. I’m going to have to see this one again.
I recently responded to an article of yours in the Oberlin Alumni Magazine on my blog, which focuses on Oberlin’s writing culture. I’ve linked to your blog both in the article and also in my blogroll. Just thought you might like to check it out!
Thanks!
Ariel
http://ocbooklove.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/the-self-published-find-their-promised-land-on-the-internet/
Ariel — Just found your comment among a whole mess of spam. Thanks so much!
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