Two in the Wave

"Two in the Wave" is the story of a friendship. Jean-Luc Godard was born in 1930; Francois Truffaut two years later. A shared love of movies brought them together. They wrote for the same magazines, Cahiers du Cinema and Arts. When the younger of the two became a filmmaker with "The 400 Blows," which triumphed in Cannes in 1959, he helped his older friend shift to directing, offering him a screenplay which already had the title A bout de souffle, or Breathless.

Through the 1960s the two loyally supported each other. History and politics separated them in 1968, when Godard plunged into radical politics but Truffaut continued his career as before. Between the two of them, actor Jean-Pierre Leaud was torn like a child caught between two separated and warring parents. Their friendship and their break-up embody the story of French cinema.