Tavernier examines the French filmmakers that most inspired him in his youth (Jacques Becker, Marcel Carné and Jean Renoir), his favourite actors (Jean Gabin, Eddie Constantine and Lino Ventura), film composers (Maurice Jaubert and Joseph Kosma), Jean-Pierre Melville, with whom he worked as an assistant, and the films he promoted when working as a publicist for Georges de Beauregard's Rome-Paris Films.