This interview was conducted both in English and French (translated by me) in late May of 1984 in François Truffaut's (1932–1984) private office at Les Films du Carrosse, the production company in Paris he founded and ran. His last public appearance had been in a television interview on 13 April 1984, for the Apostrophes series hosted by Bernard Pivot. When Truffaut generously agreed to meet with me for what was intended to be a print interview (which did not materialize at the time), he was clearly weak, but unquestionably lucid. He died from brain cancer on 21 October 1984.

Interview

Yes, of course. During the war, I saw many films that made me fall in love with the cinema. I'd skip school regularly to see movies–even in the morning, in the small Parisian theaters that opened early. At first, I wasn't sure whether I'd be a critic or a filmmaker, but I knew it would be something like that. I had thought of writing, actually, and that later on I'd be a novelist. Next I decided I'd be a film critic.