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By studying the conditions in which François Truffaut’s film, The Bride Wore Black, was conceived, written, produced, and shot, we aimed to shed light on the multifaceted expressions of widowhood among the film’s auteur, the writer of the adapted text (William Irish), and the film’s lead actress, Jeanne Moreau. Irish was a perpetual widower with a fetishistic taste for black; Truffaut was desperately seeking ways to get beyond the loss of passions both in the flesh and on the screen; and Moreau portrayed widowhood through her black and white outfits designed by Pierre Cardin, grieving over the brutal death of her fictional husband who was shot dead on the steps of the church immediately after their wedding, and helping every one of her characters/future victims to die. As Truffaut admits in a letter to Hitchcock: “The widow is a virgin”: a paradox that lies at the core of the film and all its interpretations.