Francois Truffaut's 400 Blows: Too Painful to Watch, Too Important Not to Watch

This past week, I’ve been reading a collection of interviews with Francois Truffaut. I have a strange relationship with his film The 400 Blows.I think it’s one of the most perfect films ever made, and an important record of how hopeless life can be for children - but I find it almost unbearable to watch, for exactly the reasons that I admire it.

A friend once asked me if I would ever consider writing an autobiography, and I told him it wasn’t necessary, because my childhood i...