One of my biggest problems with the French New Wave is that their respective films are too long. Oh, not in terms of how many minutes, mind you. What I mean is that I feel that many times, their films outstretch their subject matter. Stories that should only take maybe 30-40 minutes are stretched out into full length films. The Soft Skin is a fine example. This film only has about half an hour of plot, yet it is nearly two hours long. The film follows a successful writer and family man who falls in love with an airline stewardess and starts an affair. He falls madly in love, but she doesn't take it as seriously as he does. His wife finds out and promptly murders him in a cafe with a shotgun. Like I said, this story should not have taken two hours to tell. Yet Truffaut indulges in long, drawn out scenes of pointless conversation and dialogue. It leaves me wondering why. Someone recently told me that they didn't like the French New Wave because they believed that their respective directors didn't actually like making films. I heartily disagree. I think that Truffaut loved making films. The problem is that he didn't know when to stop making a film. As a result, we have to sit in silence through such misfires as The Soft Skin.
6/10
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