The Wild Child (, released in the United Kingdom as The Wild Boy) is a 1970 French film by director François Truffaut. Featuring Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner and Jean Dasté, it tells the story of a child who spends the first eleven or twelve years of his life with little or no human contact. It is based on the true events regarding the child Victor of Aveyron, reported by Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard. The film sold nearly 1.5 million tickets in France.
Plot
The film opens with the statement: "This story is authentic: it opens in 1798 in a French forest."
One summer day in 1798, a naked boy of 11 or 12 years of age (Jean-Pierre Cargol) is found in a forest in the rural district of Aveyron in southern France. A woman sees him, then runs off screaming. She finds some hunters and tells them that she saw a wild boy. They hunt him down with a pack of dogs who chase him up a tree and attack him when he falls. He fights them off leaving one dog wounded, then continues to flee and hides in a hole. The dogs continue to follow his scent, eventually finding his hidy hole. The hunters arrive and force him out of the hole using smoke to cut off his air supply. After he emerges, the men grab him.
Living like a wild animal and unable to speak or understand language, the child has apparently grown up in solitude in the forest since an early age. He is brought to Paris and initially placed in a school for "deaf-mutes". Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (François Truffaut) observes the boy and believes that he is neither deaf nor, as some of his colleagues believe, an "idiot". Itard thinks the boy's behavior is a result of his deprived environment, and that he can be educated.
Itard takes custody of the boy, whom he eventually names Victor, and removes him to his house on the outskirts of Paris. There, under the patient tutelage of the doctor and his housekeeper (Françoise Seigner), Victor gradually becomes socialized and acquires the rudiments of language. There is a narrow margin between the laws of civilization in rough Parisian life and the brutal laws of life in nature. Victor finds a sort of equilibrium in the windows that mark the transition between the closed interiors and the world outside. But he gains his ability to have social relations by losing his capacity to live as a savage.
Cast
Jean-Pierre Cargol as Victor of Aveyron, the wild child
François Truffaut as Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, the Doctor at the National Institution for Deaf Mutes Françoise Seigner as Madame Guérin, Dr. Itard's housekeeper Paul Villé as Remy, an old peasant Jean Dasté as Professor Philippe Pinel, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine Pierre Fabre as the attendant at the National Institution for Deaf Mutes Claude Miller as Monsieur Lémeri Annie Miller as Madame Lémeri Nathan Miller as Baby Lémeri René Levert as Gendarme Jean Mandaroux as the doctor attending Itard Mathieu Schiffman as Mathieu Jean Gruault as a visitor at the Institute Robert Cambourakis as a countryman Gitt Magrini as a countrywoman Jean-François Stévenin as a countryman Laura Truffaut as a girl at farm Eva Truffaut as a girl at farm Guillaume Schiffman as a boy at farm Frédérique Dolbert as a girl at farm Eric Dolbert as a boy at farm Tounet Cargol as a girl at farm Dominique Levert as a girl at farm Mlle Théaudiére as a girl at farm