The Wild Child
Encyclopedia
The Wild Child (1970
) is a French film
by director
François Truffaut
. The film features Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner
and Jean Dasté
. The film had a total of 1,458,164 admissions in France.
in southern France. A woman sees him, then runs off screaming. She finds some hunters and tells them that she saw a wild boy. They hunt him down with a pack of dogs (a Beauceron
, a German Shepherd
, an Airedale Terrier
and an English Springer Spaniel
). The dogs, upon picking up the boy's scent
, chase him up a tree. A branch breaks off, and the dogs attack him when he falls. He fights them off leaving them wounded, then continues to flee and hides in a hole. Unfortunately, the dogs find him, force him out of the hole, and the men grab him.
Living like a wild animal and unable to speak or understand language, the child has apparently grown up in solitude in the forest since an early age. He is brought to Paris and initially placed in a school for "deaf-mute
s". Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
(François Truffaut
) observes the boy and believes that he is neither deaf nor, as some of his colleagues believe, an "idiot". Itard thinks the boy's behavior is a result of his deprived environment, and that he can be educated.
Itard takes custody of the boy, whom he eventually names Victor, and removes him to his house on the outskirts of Paris. There, under the patient tutelage of the doctor and his housekeeper (Françoise Seigner
), Victor gradually becomes socialized
and acquires the rudiments of language.
There is a narrow margin between the laws of civilization in rough Parisian life and the brutal laws of life in nature. Victor finds a sort of equilibrium in the windows that mark the transition between the closed interiors and the world outside. But he gains his ability to have social relations by losing his capacity to live as a savage.
Jean Gruault and the director François Truffaut were inspired by the early nineteenth-century journal of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
, which was based on the true events surrounding The Wild Boy of Aveyron
, as the boy was called.
The staff at Variety
magazine also praised the drama, and wrote, "This is a lucid, penetrating detailing of a young doctor's attempt to civilize a retarded boy found living in the woods in Southern France in the 18th century. Though based on a true case [Jean Itard's Memoire et Rapport sur Victor de L'Aveyron, published in 1806], it eschews didactics and creates a poetic, touching and dignified relationship between the doctor and his savage charge...It progresses slowly but absorbingly. Truffaut underplays but exudes an interior tenderness and dedication. The boy is amazingly and intuitively well played by a tousled gypsy tyke named Jean-Pierre Cargol. Everybody connected with this unusual, off-beat film made in black-and-white rates kudos."
Film critic Vincent Canby liked the acting, and wrote, "The Wild Child is not the sort of movie in which individual performances can be easily separated from the rest of the film, but young Cargol, who early in the film looks and sounds like a Mediterranean Patty Duke
, responds with marvelous, absolute faith to his costar and director, Truffaut, who himself performs with humane, just slightly self-conscious cool."
Nominations
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
) is a French film
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
by director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
. The film features Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner
Françoise Seigner
Françoise Seigner was a French actress. She is best known for her theatre work, but also acted in a few movies, such as The Wild Child and the 2005 adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel By The Pricking Of My Thumbs...
and Jean Dasté
Jean Dasté
Jean Dasté, born Jean Georges Gustave Dasté, was an actor and theatre director....
. The film had a total of 1,458,164 admissions in France.
Plot
One summer day in 1798, a naked boy eleven or twelve years of age (Jean-Pierre Cargol) is found in a forest in the rural district of AveyronAveyron
Aveyron is a département in southern France named after the Aveyron River.- History :Aveyron is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790....
in southern France. A woman sees him, then runs off screaming. She finds some hunters and tells them that she saw a wild boy. They hunt him down with a pack of dogs (a Beauceron
Beauceron
The Beauceron is a guard dog and herding dog breed falling into the working dog category whose origins lie in the plains of Northern France. The Beauceron is also known as Berger de Beauce or Bas Rouge .-Appearance:This breed stands 61 to 70 cm in height and weighs 30 to 45 kg The...
, a German Shepherd
German Shepherd Dog
The German Shepherd Dog , also known as an Alsatian or just the German Shepherd, is a breed of large-sized dog that originated in Germany. The German Shepherd is a relatively new breed of dog, with its origin dating to 1899. As part of the Herding Group, the German Shepherd is a working dog...
, an Airedale Terrier
Airedale Terrier
The Airedale Terrier is a breed of the terrier type that originated in Airedale, a geographic area in Yorkshire, England. It is traditionally called the "King of Terriers" because it is the largest of the terrier breeds...
and an English Springer Spaniel
English Springer Spaniel
The English Springer Spaniel is a breed of gun dog traditionally used for flushing and retrieving game. It is an affectionate, excitable breed with an average lifespan of twelve to fourteen years. Descended from the Norfolk or Shropshire Spaniels of the mid-19th century, the breed has diverged into...
). The dogs, upon picking up the boy's scent
Odor
An odor or odour is caused by one or more volatilized chemical compounds, generally at a very low concentration, that humans or other animals perceive by the sense of olfaction. Odors are also commonly called scents, which can refer to both pleasant and unpleasant odors...
, chase him up a tree. A branch breaks off, and the dogs attack him when he falls. He fights them off leaving them wounded, then continues to flee and hides in a hole. Unfortunately, the dogs find him, force him out of the hole, and the men grab him.
Living like a wild animal and unable to speak or understand language, the child has apparently grown up in solitude in the forest since an early age. He is brought to Paris and initially placed in a school for "deaf-mute
Deaf-mute
For "deafness", see hearing impairment. For "Deaf" as a cultural term, see Deaf culture. For "inability to speak", see muteness.Deaf-mute is a term which was used historically to identify a person who was both deaf and could not speak...
s". Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was a French physician born in Provence.Without a university education and working at a bank, he was forced to enter the army during the French Revolution but presented himself as a physician at that time...
(François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
) observes the boy and believes that he is neither deaf nor, as some of his colleagues believe, an "idiot". Itard thinks the boy's behavior is a result of his deprived environment, and that he can be educated.
Itard takes custody of the boy, whom he eventually names Victor, and removes him to his house on the outskirts of Paris. There, under the patient tutelage of the doctor and his housekeeper (Françoise Seigner
Françoise Seigner
Françoise Seigner was a French actress. She is best known for her theatre work, but also acted in a few movies, such as The Wild Child and the 2005 adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel By The Pricking Of My Thumbs...
), Victor gradually becomes socialized
Socialization
Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies...
and acquires the rudiments of language.
There is a narrow margin between the laws of civilization in rough Parisian life and the brutal laws of life in nature. Victor finds a sort of equilibrium in the windows that mark the transition between the closed interiors and the world outside. But he gains his ability to have social relations by losing his capacity to live as a savage.
Cast
- Jean-Pierre Cargol as Victor, l'enfant sauvage (the wild child)
- François TruffautFrançois TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
as Le Dr. Jean Itard - Françoise SeignerFrançoise SeignerFrançoise Seigner was a French actress. She is best known for her theatre work, but also acted in a few movies, such as The Wild Child and the 2005 adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel By The Pricking Of My Thumbs...
as Madame Guerin - Jean DastéJean DastéJean Dasté, born Jean Georges Gustave Dasté, was an actor and theatre director....
as Professor Philippe Pinel - Annie Miller as Madame Lemeri
- Claude MillerClaude MillerClaude Miller is a French film director, producer and screenwriter.-Career:Claude Miller was born to a Jewish family. A student at Paris' IDHEC film school from 1962 through 1963, Miller had his first practical cinematic experience while he was in uniform, serving with the Service Cinéma de l'Armée...
as Monsieur Lemeri - Paul Villé as Remy
- Nathan Miller as Baby Lemeri
- Mathieu Schiffman as Mathieu
- Jean Gruault as visitor at Institute
- Robert Cambourakis as countryman
- Gitt Magrini as countrywoman
- Jean-François Stévenin as countryman
- Laura Truffaut as girl at farm
- Eva Truffaut as girl at farm
Background
The screenwriterScreenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
Jean Gruault and the director François Truffaut were inspired by the early nineteenth-century journal of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard
Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was a French physician born in Provence.Without a university education and working at a bank, he was forced to enter the army during the French Revolution but presented himself as a physician at that time...
, which was based on the true events surrounding The Wild Boy of Aveyron
Victor of Aveyron
Victor of Aveyron was a feral child who apparently lived his entire childhood naked and alone in the woods before being found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance, France, in 1797. He was captured, but soon escaped after being displayed in the town...
, as the boy was called.
Critical reception
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review and discussed the film's theme as one of Truffaut's favorites. He wrote, "The story is essentially true, drawn from an actual case in 18th Century France, and Truffaut tells it simply and movingly. It becomes his most thoughtful statement on his favorite subject: The way young people grow up, explore themselves, and attempt to function creatively in the world...Truffaut places his personal touch on every frame of the film. He wrote it, directed it, and plays the doctor himself. It is an understated, compassionate performance, a perfect counterpoint to Jean-Pierre Cargol's ferocity and fear...So often movies keep our attention by flashy tricks and cheap melodrama; it is an intellectually cleansing experience to watch this intelligent and hopeful film."The staff at Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine also praised the drama, and wrote, "This is a lucid, penetrating detailing of a young doctor's attempt to civilize a retarded boy found living in the woods in Southern France in the 18th century. Though based on a true case [Jean Itard's Memoire et Rapport sur Victor de L'Aveyron, published in 1806], it eschews didactics and creates a poetic, touching and dignified relationship between the doctor and his savage charge...It progresses slowly but absorbingly. Truffaut underplays but exudes an interior tenderness and dedication. The boy is amazingly and intuitively well played by a tousled gypsy tyke named Jean-Pierre Cargol. Everybody connected with this unusual, off-beat film made in black-and-white rates kudos."
Film critic Vincent Canby liked the acting, and wrote, "The Wild Child is not the sort of movie in which individual performances can be easily separated from the rest of the film, but young Cargol, who early in the film looks and sounds like a Mediterranean Patty Duke
Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely...
, responds with marvelous, absolute faith to his costar and director, Truffaut, who himself performs with humane, just slightly self-conscious cool."
Awards
Wins- National Board of Review: NBR Award, Best Director, François Truffaut; Best Foreign Language Film, France; 1971.
- National Society of Film Critics AwardsNational Society of Film CriticsThe National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
, USA: NSFC Award, Best Cinematography, Néstor Almendros; 1971. - French Syndicate of Cinema CriticsFrench Syndicate of Cinema CriticsThe French Syndicate of Cinema Critics has awarded 4 prizes - the Prix Méliès annually since 1946 to the best French film of the year. The Prix Léon Moussinac, awarded to the Best Foreign Film category was added in 1967...
: Critics Award, Best Film, François Truffaut; 1971.
Nominations
- Laurel AwardsLaurel AwardsThe Laurel Awards were cinema awards to honor pictures, actors, actresses, directors and composers. This award was created by Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine, and ran from 1958 to 1968, then 1970 and 1971....
, 3rd place (Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine): Golden Laurel, Best Foreign Film; 1971.
External links
- The Wild Child film trailer at You Tube