François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black has been reviewed as if it were a filmed sequel to Truffaut's book on Alfred Hitchcock. But it isn't. Whereas Hitchcock is basically a genre director, Truffaut's temperament is closer to the sprawling humanism of Renoir. Of course, no director can memorize the life's work of another director without picking up a few tricks and ideas along the way…. [The] mere fact that The Bride Wore Black is a violent melodrama with a soupçon of suspense is sufficient grounds for most critics to tag Truffaut with a Hitchcock label. However, even Renoir is not entirely a stranger to violent melodrama. The murders in La Chienne, La Bête Humaine, The Crime of Monsieur Lange, and The Rules of the Game are as memorable as any in the history of the cinema. But these murders do not make Renoir a genre...