Jules and Jim

Jules and Jim (French: Jules et Jim, IPA: [ʒyl e dʒim]) is a 1962 French film directed by François Truffaut. Set around the time of World War I, it describes a tragic love triangle involving French Bohemian Jim (Henri Serre), his shy Austrian friend Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jules' girlfriend and later wife Catherine (Jeanne Moreau).

The film is based on Henri-Pierre Roché's 1953 semi-autobiographical novel describing his relationship with young writer Franz Hessel and Helen Grund, whom Hessel married. Truffaut came across the book in the mid-1950s whilst browsing through some secondhand books at a bookseller along the Seine in Paris. Later he befriended the elderly Roché, who had published his first novel at the age of 74. The author approved of the young director's interest to adapt his work to another medium.

The film won the 1962 Grand Prix of the French film price Étoile de Cristal and Jeanne Moreau won that year's prize for best actress. The film ranked 46 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. The soundtrack by Georges Delerue was named as one of the "10 best soundtracks" by Time magazine in its "All Time 100 Movies" list. Professor Stephen Hawking has called it his "favorite movie of all time". The shooting of the movie was the subject of a documentary directed in 2009 by Thierry Tripod.

Jeanne Moreau

Jeanne Moreau (French pronunciation: ​[ʒan mɔʁo]; born 23 January 1928) is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director. She is the recipient of a César Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for individual performances, and several lifetime awards.

Moreau made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. She began playing small roles in films in 1949, impressing in a Fernandel vehicle Meutres? in 1950 and alongside Jean Gabin as a showgirl/gangster's moll in Touchez Pas au Grisbi, eventually achieving prominence as the star of Lift to the Scaffold (UK)/Elevator to the Gallows (USA) (1958), directed by Louis Malle and Jules et Jim (1962), directed by François Truffaut. Most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continues to appear in films to the present day.

Early life and education

François Truffaut

François Roland Truffaut ([fʁɑ̃.swa ʁɔ.lɑ̃ tʁyfo]; 6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was a French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic, as well as one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry, having worked on over 25 films. Truffaut's film The 400 Blows came to be a defining film of the French New Wave movement. He also directed such classics as Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Jules et Jim (1961), The Wild Child (1970), Two English Girls (1971), Day for Night (1973) and The Woman Next Door (1981).

Early life

Truffaut was born in Paris on 6 February 1932. His mother was Janine de Montferrand. His mother's future husband, Roland Truffaut, accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. He was passed around to live with various nannies and his grandmother for a number of years. It was his grandmother who instilled in him her love of books and music. He lived with his grandmother until her death when Truffaut was eight years old. It was only after his grandmother's death that he lived with his parents for the first time. The identity of Truffaut's biological father was unknown, though a private detective agency in 1968 revealed that their inquiry into the matter led to a Roland Levy, a Jewish dentist from Bayonne. Truffaut's mother's family disputed the findings but Truffaut himself believed and embraced them.

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.

The New York Times

The New York Times (sometimes abbreviated to NYT) is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18, 1851, by the New York Times Company. It has won 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization.

The paper's print version has the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the United States. It is ranked 39th in the world by circulation. Following industry trends, its weekday circulation has fallen to fewer than one million daily since 1990. Nicknamed for years as "The Gray Lady", The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record". It is owned by The New York Times Company. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. – whose family (Ochs-Sulzberger) has controlled the paper for five generations, since 1896 – is both the paper's publisher and the company's chairman. Its international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the International New York Times.