Hitchcock Chronology: Claude Chabrol

January

François Truffaut's controversial article "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français" is published in the January edition of Cahiers du cinéma. Truffaut criticises the current state of French film and argues the case for auteurs de films — filmmakers who are responsible for all aspects and stages of the film — being the future of cinema. The article opens up the ongoing discussion about auteur theory and anticipates the French New Wave (La Nouvelle Vague) style of filmmaking. Truffaut himself will be in the vanguard of the New Wave, along with fellow Cahiers contributors Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette and Claude Chabrol.^[1]^[2]

January

Returning for their Christmas holiday in St. Moritz, the Hitchcocks travel to Paris in early January to oversee the French dubbing of To Catch a Thief. Whilst there, Hitchcock meets with François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol for a Cahiers du Cinéma interview. After Truffaut and Chabrol manage to accidentally fall into an icy pond on their way to meet Hitchcock, damaging their tape recorder in the process, they reschedule and meet that evening at the Plaza-Athénée Hotel.^[3]

September

12th - French director Claude Chabrol, co-author of the influential book Hitchcock - the First Forty-Four Films, dies aged 80.

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