Marcel Carné on François Truffaut

from Marcel Carné's "Ma Vie à Belles Dents" (My Life with Gusto) page 297.

"If the critics as a group found the film “a failure but not unworthy” “Terrain Vague” would, however, earn me the most unforeseen compliment...from François Truffaut himself! The one who had so often vituperated me in the pages of "ARTS" , who had declared that I “photographed Prevert’s films”, wrote me a card from Carcasonne. He told me that he “had read some unjust articles” (and me, wow!): he had seen the film “in the middle of a packed and eager audience and had reacted exactly as it”... Three days later, he sent me a letter in which he declared to me, that since his postcard from Carcasonne, he had “thought over “Terrain Vague” much and that his feelings were yet more strongly reinforced.”

Notwithstanding, he signed his letter, “Admiringly yours”... I did not answer him. What could I say? That, while thanking him for his letter, I regretted that he liked my film only after having ceased his collaboration at “ARTS”."