Towards the end of class, we started discussing the barrier of the fence that restricted the young Truffaut from reaching images of the movie Citizen Kane. I believe this barrier represents the problems that went into the making of his film “Meet Pamela”. Truffaut runs into problems left and right. One of the actresses needs to be in a bathing suit but refuses because she is pregnant. Another actress is too drunk to perform her lines. The main character dies and the script needs to be rewritten. Alfonse and Julie are both on the verge of mental breakdowns which makes it impossible to keep shooting.

As the director, Truffaut has to deal with all of these problems. It gives him severe anxiety throughout, which explains his reoccurring dream as a young boy on the street. In both the dream and real life, Truffaut gets around these barriers. As a young boy he reaches through the fence and slyly grabs the images of Citizen Kane. As a director, he fixes all the problems he encounters some way or another.

I believe these barriers are true to what happens with film making. It is a challenge and directors, as well as actors, are always being tested. Barriers symbolize the difference between reality and make believe in films. The actors in La Nuit Americane get mixed up with what is real life and what is acting. For example, Julie and Alfonse, characters of love interest in the film, end up together in bed even though Julie is happily married. Boundaries were broken, and the actors often said they were quitting films, it was just too hard. I think there is a constant struggle with people involved with films, going back and forth between these boundaries (or barriers) of reality and film.