This Day in Indie History: François Truffaut

French moviemaker François Truffaut was born this day in 1932. Famous for being part of the French New Wave, the writer-director originally found himself a member of the French Army. After deserting early and a resulting prison sentence, Truffaut began dedicating his life to film. To this day, his contributions—including the script for Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and the semi-autobiographical The 400 Blows—remain some of the most memorable to emerge from the period.

Factoid: The movies of François Truffaut are still studied today, but the creative mind is also noted as the first advocate of the popular “auteur theory.” The theory, first published André Bazin in Cahiers du Cinema, is said to be the start of the French New Wave—pressing directors to imprint a unique signature to their work.