[Jules et Jim] is very much a conscious attempt on Truffaut's part to make a synthesis of his first two films: to combine the "big" subject with obvious human significance of Les Quatre Cents Coups with what he calls the "plastic enterprise" of Shoot the Pianist….

Friendship, Truffaut seems to be saying, is rarer and more precious than love. Or perhaps he is also saying that friendship, not being as natural or as innate as sex relationships, must always be destroyed by the forces of nature re-asserting themselves—just as in Goethe's Elective Affinities, to which several references are made in the film, the wilderness is always waiting to destory the carefully nurtured garden.

Shoot the Pianist moved back and forth between comedy and tragedy with intoxicating brio. In Jules et Jim both elements are constantly present, one within the other, as in a chemical suspension. Although the film begins gaily enough, one soon realises that, under the gaiety, tragedy is already present. And even at the end, terrifying though it is, one feels that life is nevertheless re-asserting itself. This precarious balance, this refusal of the genres, is of course very reminiscent of Jean Renoir; and indeed Renoir's influence can be felt throughout the film, in its treatment of character, direction of actors, and feeling for landscape. (p. 142)

What belongs undeniably and unmistakably to Truffaut is the film's sense of movement…. [His technique] is even more brilliant than in Shoot the Pianist; and as someone pointed out the other day, technique, after all, comes from the Greek word for art—techne. There will be those who will regret the simplicity of Les Quatre Cents Coups, and there will be those (myself included) who still have a sneaking nostalgia for the anarchy of Shoot the Pianist. But no one, I think, will have any more doubts about Truffaut's stature: he is right up there with the great directors (make your own list) of our time. (p. 143)