About this project:

Often love affairs are instable, fleeting and unpredictable. It seems emotions change in a chaotic way. On this assumptions some mathematicians recently modeled a love relationship in terms of dynamic system. One of the case study of this kind of works is Jules et Jim, the autobiographical novel of Henri Pierre Roché and his cinematographic version by François Truffaut. The main psycho-physical features of the three characters and their long and turbulent triadic relationship have been synthesized in a mathematical model enlightening the relationship as a real chaotic system.

Since we strongly agree with Kurt Richardson that «there exists an infinitude of equally valid, non-overlapping, potentially contradictory descriptions» for any complex system. And there is «the need for synthesizing a wide variety of perspectives in an effort to better understand the problem at hand, and how we might collectively act to solve it» and we strongly agree with Paul Cilliers that when: «dealing with complexity there are simultaneous roles for the natural and the human sciences, for both mathematics and imagination», we asked our student to model the Jules, Jim and Catherine System form their point of view, using the designer visual attitude, to better understand it. (Density Design: “Jules et Jim” by Donato Ricci, January 23rd, 2009)

About Density Design:

Density Design is a research and teaching program. Born as a laboratory course in the final year of the Master Degree in Communication Design at the Politecnico di Milano, it develops into a research group. Using complexity as a keyword to understand reality, combining it with a continuous research for information aesthetics and representation, DensityDesign explores the emergent relationships among communication design, information visualization and complex systems. (more)

At first, I found those visualizations much more confusing than the film. Thus, the problem of modeling or representing : a guy (Henri Pierre Roché) lived his life, tried to understand it, to make some sense out of what he experienced. He than tried to create a model so that he could explain what he thought he knew about his life to other : a novel was born our of this effort. Truffaut read the novel, he experienced it and tried to make sense of the story he read, maybe using his own experiences. Than, he proposed himself to show what he thought and felt by the means of movie making, BW film, Cinemascope ratio, fixed frame, voice over reading, music, etc. Finally, design students watch the film (I don’t know if they read the book) and tried to visually represent in a static form, using science and imagination, the way they felt about the film, the way they understand it. It’s a big challenge, to say the least.

Jules et Jim, François Truffaut, 1962

• I found the photo in sterile’s photostream on Flickr (click for hi-res).
• There’s a virtual exposition about the film at the Bibliothèque du Film (Cinémathèque Française). In French.
• An essay in English about Jules et Jim by John Powers hosted by The Criterion Collection website.
• Another essay, this time by Dudley Andrew over at Film Reference (in English).
• Technical information about the film in French (Cinémathèque Française).

La Nuit Américaine fits squarely in that micro-genre of films which concern themselves with the process of making a film, a genre energised by Federico Fellini’s neurotic Otto e Mezzo (1962) and continued with Godard’s Le Mépris (1963), Paul Mazursky’s Alex in Wonderland (1970), Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories (1980) and, most recent, the Charles Kauffman-penned Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002). In fact, it is almost the case that every director whose work is heavily based on individual experience will inevitably yield such a piece. Truffaut himself speaks of this expectation when explaining his decision to make a film on the cinema: “Because it’s been in my mind for a long time. And I feel as if I’ve waited an enormous time to make it.” (Senses of Cinema: “Illusion 24 frames per second: François Truffaut’s La Nuit Américaine” by Danny Fairfax, 2005

• This photo along with 34 others can be found at Tout Le Cine.com
• A still from the opening sequence at Movie Stills Collection.
• An extensive dossier about the film in French at the Bibliothèque du Film (Cinémathèque Française).

400 Blows, François Truffaut, 1959 / IMDb