The Soft Skin
(La Peau douce)
With Jean Desailly, Françoise Dorléac, Nelly Benedetti.
France/Portugal, 1964, 35mm, black & white, 118 min.
French with English subtitles.
Made in reaction to the triumph of Jules and Jim (1961), Truffaut’s fourth feature surprised many of his admirers. Again employing a love triangle as the basis for his story, this time the director addressed what he called “a truly modern love; it takes place in planes, elevators, it has all the harassments of modern life.” Drawing his screenplay from several news items, Truffaut recounts the story of an adulterous affair between a middle-aged literary critic and a stewardess he meets on a plane to Portugal. In between Jules and Jim and The Soft Skin, Truffaut had been preparing his book on Hitchcock, and the lessons of the master are evident in the rigor of the direction here—especially in the irony that portrays the hero’s mistress as a cool, teasingly uninvolved blonde while all the passion lurks in the dark-haired wife’s libido.
