The 400 Blows (film)
"The 400 Blows" (French: "Les Quatre Cents Coups") is a 1959 French film that marks the directorial debut of François Truffaut. Recognized as a foundational work of the French New Wave movement, the film draws on Truffaut's own childhood experiences and features the story of Antoine Doinel, a thirteen-year-old boy grappling with neglect from his parents, struggles with authority figures, and a life that leads him into petty crime. Shot on a low budget but lauded for its artistic and technical merit, the film employs innovative techniques common in New Wave cinema, such as jump cuts and cinema vérité, to convey a personal narrative about lost youth and alienation.
Antoine's journey unfolds in a Parisian setting, emphasizing his feelings of isolation as his parents are preoccupied with their own lives, including his mother's affair. After facing consequences for his misbehavior, Antoine is sent to a juvenile detention center. The film culminates in a poignant freeze frame that captures his fleeting moment of joy by the sea, symbolizing both freedom and confinement. "The 400 Blows" received critical acclaim, winning the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival and earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. It remains a significant artistic statement in film history, reflecting the desire for visual storytelling and a departure from traditional narrative forms.
The 400 Blows (film)
- Release Date: 1959
- Director(s): François Truffaut
- Writer(s): Marcel Moussy; François Truffaut
- Principal Actors and Roles: Jean-Pierre Léaud (Antoine Doinel); Guy Decomble (French Teacher); Claire Maurier (Gilberte Doinel); Albert Rémy (Julien Doinel)
The 400 Blows, or Les Quatres Cents Coup, is a French film that was released in 1959 and was director Francois Truffaut’s debut. The title is derived from a French idiom meaning "to raise hell."
The film was one in a series of films by Truffaut in a movement that was called the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) in the 1950s and 60s. This new cinematic movement found its roots among young French filmmakers. They sought to branch out to create more personal, touching films, and those that are written by the director. The 400 Blows was Truffaut’s very own story and he adapted it, with the help of Marcel Moussy, for the silver screen. The film follows Doinel, an adolescent boy as he experiences his lost youth and struggles with his parents, teachers, and other figures of adult authority.
Even though the 99-minute film was shot quickly and with a very low budget, it is considered by many critics to be artfully, technically, and creatively done, especially since Truffaut had the help and influence of cinematographer Henri Decae. In the series of films that Truffaut made, The 400 Blows was probably the most highly acclaimed and one of the best examples of the goals of the New Wave. For this film, Truffaut was nominated for and won best director at the Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
The film takes place in Paris where Antoine Doinel is a thireteen-year old boy living with his mother and stepfather. Antoine’s family is poor and his parents are busy with their own lives. Antoine’s living conditions are difficult. The apartment in which he lives with his parents is small, and his parents are frequently not home. When they are home, they aren’t interested in what Antoine is doing nor do they care to ask. They are focused on their own lives and their issues. For example, Antoine’s mother is having an affair with someone at work.
As his parents largely neglect him, Antoine passes his time with his friend Rene. Yet, with a lack of supervision and parental support, Antoine soon gets into trouble. His string of lies that he tells at school cast him as a troublemaker. His parents, who have been attached throughout the film, do not know how to handle his behavior. They give up trying to help him, though the film clearly shows that they never really tried to establish a relationship with Antoine to find out why he had turned to a life of petty crime and lies.
After Antoine is caught stealing a typewriter, his stepfather turns him in to the authorities. He is then sent to a center for juvenile delinquents. While he is there, he meets with a child psychologist, whom we do not see on camera or hear. Yet the audience knows that Antoine has been given questions to answer.
From the center, Antoine is sent to a labor center. As the boys play soccer, Antoine escapes and reaches the sea. The film ends with a freeze frame of Antoine, walking away from the waves.
Significance
Much of The 400 Blows is constructed with vignettes and the storyline is based on Truffaut’s real-life experiences as a youth. Jean-Pierre Leaud, an actor with no acting experience, plays Antoine, which makes the film even more authentic and personal. Much of the film focuses on situations Truffaut faced as a young person, innocently portrayed by Leaud. For example, after lying to school administrators and playing hooky, Antoine’s stepfather turns him over to the police. Antoine spends two nights in jail before being sent to a delinquent center, a vivid memory that Truffaut expertly and visually produces on screen.
Truffaut uses the New Wave technique of the jump cut to make a powerful closing statement about youth, and his youth, at the end of the film. Antoine escapes from the detention center and reaches the sea, where he is at first joyous and free. Yet the scene reveals that his freedom is curtailed by his captivity. Antoine had dreamed of reaching the sea, and he achieves this desire in this scene, but the water—like the adult world that restricts him and is incomprehensible to him—prevents him from going anywhere. Antoine is alone, much as he feels among his parents and other adults. At this point, the audience does not know what will happen to Antoine.
The 400 Blows not only became a symbol of the New Wave cinema movement that emerged in France in the mid-twentieth century, but it utilized many of the techniques the movement advocated, including a style called cinema verite, which is the use of a hand-held camera, loose direction, jump cut (the joining of two noncontiguous shots), freeze frame, and abstract storytelling. The movement looked to reinvent cinema, giving it a focus not on the literary but the visual aspect of the storyline. As such, The 400 Blows celebrates visual freedom and expression, as vividly illustrated in the scene when Antoine and his friend Rene run away from school and pose like birds flying through the air in freedom. The boys even spontaneously sneak into a cinema—the one love that Truffaut discovered in his youth and paved the way for his artistry—during this innocent time of self-expression and liberty.
Awards and nominations
Won
- Cannes Film Festival (1959) Best Director: François Truffaut
Nominated
- Academy Award (1959) Best Screenplay (Original): Marcel Moussy, François Truffaut
Bibliography
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