More important French director?

Question

Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, or Francois Truffaut?

I know there are a lot more great French directors, but these are the four I think of when I think of French film. And by more important I don't have any real guidelines, more important to you, more influential, more important to cinema, whatever you want to do, but give a reason.

Answer 1

This is a tough one.  They are all great directors.

I think the easiest one to eliminate from the running is Robert Bresson - not because he's less great than the others, but because his influence isn't as wide reaching, in my opinion.  He mastered his own filmmaking style - but it is, in my mind, fairly unique to him.  Not a lot of directors have tried to imitate it.  

Next I'd eliminate Truffaut.  His writings and films certainly were important to the French New Wave and to cinema in general, but it seems to me that Godard is the more iconic and influential New Wave director.

Godard's "Breathless", in my mind, is one of those films that changed cinema forever.  Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" seems almost conventional in comparison.  He took everything to the extreme, experimenting heavily with the conventions of cinema.  His theories and style are still very influential to this day - his influence can still be seen in many of the movies being made today.  I would rank him as the second most important director from your list.  

Several of the filmmaking techniques that are often said to have been created by Orson Welles in "Citizen Kane" - were actually used earlier, by Jean Renoir.  He also started making films quite some time before the others, and as such has had more time for his influence to spread.  Just for that, I would rank him as the most important director from your list.  "The Rules of the Game" and "Grand Illusion" are among the most important (and influential) films ever made.  

For the record, Francois Truffaut is probably actually my favorite of the bunch (which is different from most important, in my mind) - "The 400 Blows" had a huge influence on me when I first saw it as a fourteen or fifteen year old - and it still one of my top ten favorite films.  And, though it's not a popular opinion in the film community, it's my opinion that he never made a bad film.

Answer 2

tony (toni) gatliff-he made a series of films in french, romanian, spanish, romany, ect. he is romany and his films are gypsy-based the most famou s are gadjo dilo and latcho drom which is a musical kind of