Remember the scene in Day for Night when Truffaut, playing himself, unwraps a shipment of film books from America? There he is, in the middle of an exhausting production, still clearly deligh ted to spend his only free time reading about the process that is making him miserable. That same kind of tireless passion infuses his own book. Here are the films and filmmakers who moved him, first as a critic and then as a director. To read Truffaut, the accomplished master, enthusing over the works of others is warmly satisfying. I feel surrounded by geniuses.