Leos Carax garnered a reputation as both an enfant terrible of contemporary French cinema and heir to the New Wave tradition. Inspired primarily by Jean-Luc Godard, he has written and directed what are clearly personal films. Some critics have objected to the strangeness of the work and though they lack so-called mainstream appeal, Carax's films exhibit a masterful command of filmmaking technique. He has tended to concentrate on one theme, the folly of love, and his first three films all focus on one couple. And just as Francois Truffaut used Jean-Pierre Leaud and Federico Fellini employed