SOURCE: "Wild Lives," in Literature/Film Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 3, July, 1973, pp. 218-25.

In the following essay, Ross analyzes Fahrenheit 451 and The Bride Wore Black, and suggests why the critics and the public have not considered them to be among Truffaut's best work.

The three films made by Truffaut after his major triumph with Jules and Jim were met with increasing reserve by both critics and general audiences. Undeniably, The Soft Skin, Fahrenheit 451, and The Bride Wore Black lack the sweet-and-sour charm of Jules and Jim (or Shoot the Piano Player), let alone the more consistently affable charm of the semi-autobiographical sequels to The Four-Hundred Blows. Nor are these films, even Fahrenheit 451, as obviously rife with cultural significance. They are also surprisingly conservative in form, their melodrama and violence unredeemed by a counterpointing play of visual gags (such as we find in Shoot the Piano Player). Nor, in their...