Crecia C. Swaim
Although both films have children for main characters, my students may not initially see many opportunities for identification. The time periods are not contemporary, the towns don't look like our city, or even our suburbs, the cobblestones and winding alleys of the little town of Thiers are nothing like the streets of our area, the clothes are "corny" (as are the hairdos), and everyone is white (except for one Asian woman and young girl in
L'Argent de Poche
)! In the past I have stayed away from films like these precisely because I feared that my students would have a hard time seeing past the differences to all the similarities. That is why I have spent time showing them other faces and places of the Francophone world first.(4) Showing the diversity within the French-speaking world, as well as the universality of human emotion across cultures, has primed my students to see these French places and people without judgment, which is increasingly more difficult in light of today's strong political opinions concerning France. Another way in which many students will find opportunity for identification is in the discussion of Truffaut's birth and troublesome, semi-neglected youth; I write about it in fairly great detail in the next section, establishing for students the filmmaker as a real person with familiar obstacles.