Elliptical, full of wit and radiance, this is the best movie ever made about what most of us think of as the Scott Fitzgerald period (though the film begins much earlier); Truffaut doesn’t linger—nothing is held too long, nothing is overstated, or even stated. He explores the medium and plays with it. He overlaps scenes; uses fast cutting, in the manner of Breathless, and leaping continuity, in the manner of Zero for Conduct; changes the size and shape of the images, as Griffith did; pauses for Jeanne Moreau to sing a song (Boris Bassiak’s “Le Tourbillon”). Throughout, Georges Delerue’s music is part of the atmosphere; it’s so evocative that if you listen to it on the phonograph, it brings back the emotions and images—such as Jim and Catherine’s daughter rolling on a hill.