CLASSIC TRUFFAUT

On March 28, an essential François Truffaut retrospective begins at Film Forum. The series kicks off with screenings of several of the director’s early career landmarks: 1959’s The 400 Blows, 1960’s Shoot the Piano Player, 1962’s Jules and Jim. One ’60s Truffaut work that often gets overlooked — perhaps because the director himself called it the “saddest and most difficult” experience of his career — is his 1966 English-language adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. But, taking into consideration its spectacular splotches of red, the affecting Bernard Herrmann score, and the dual-role performance of Julie Christie, the movie practically plays like Truffaut’s response to Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Jules and Jim’s Oskar Werner co-stars as Guy Montag; the cinematography is from the great director Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now).

Wed., April 2, 1, 3:10, 5:20 & 7:30 p.m., 2014