[The Green Room] suggests the gradual evolution of Truffaut from seemingly the merriest of the old nouvelle vague directors to seemingly the most morbid of them all. The Pirandellian tensions between Truffaut the director and Truffaut the actor is exploited here to project a very personal contemplation of death…. The privileged cinematic moments in The Green Room have to do with Truffaut's candle-lit ceremonies dedicated to the dead in his own real and vicarious life. The love of the dead comes naturally to the lovers of old movies. Indeed, the dead of the screen are venerated because they can no longer desecrate their images with the indiscretions of their errant flesh and life-sustaining foibles. Truffaut has been simply more candid than most of his colleagues in confessing that he has lived most of his life in a misty dream.

Andrew Sarris, "The Provincial Critic and the Venetian Blind...