SOURCE: "Adaptation of an Auteur: Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1961) from the novel by Henri-Pierre Roché," in Modern European Filmmakers and the Art of Adaptation, edited by Andrew Horton and Joan Magretta, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1981, pp. 89-99.

In the following essay, McDougal argues that Truffaut's adaptation of Henri-Pierre Roché's novel Jules et Jim is both true to the novel and contains autobiographical aspects of Truffaut's life.

The film of tomorrow seems to me even more personal than a novel, individual and autobiographical, like a confession or a private diary.

                                François Truffaut, 1957

In 1956, François Truffaut was browsing in a Paris bookstore when his eyes fell on a copy of Jules et Jim by Henri-Pierre Roché. He was immediately drawn to the title and, as he studied the jacket, intrigued to discover that it was a septuagenarian's first novel. At the time Truffaut was twenty-four and supporting himself...