For his feature-film debut, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), François Truffaut drew inspiration from his own childhood. Truffaut's on-screen alter ego, Antoine Doinel, is played by the young Jean-Pierre Léaud. Antoine Doinel is an ordinary adolescent from Paris who is often misunderstood and thought of as a a troublemaker by his parents and his teacher. His insensitive teacher, whom he calls "Sourpuss" (Guy Decomble) often singles him out and punishes him in front of his peers in his French class, making him stand in the corner after being caught with a "risque" picture his classmates have been passing around. As punishment the teacher orders him to stay in the class while the rest of them go out to recess where he writes a poem about the teacher on the classroom wall. When the class returns he is ordered to clean off the writing he has put up on the classroom wall and eventually given an assignment to do.
At home life isn't much different for Antoine. His mother (Claire Maurier) frequently argues with her husband (Albert Rémy), Antoine's stepfather. His family is financially insecure and Antoine sleeps in a sleeping bag on a cot crammed next to the entrance of their flat.
The day after being punished by his teacher Antoine and a friend of his skip school and go around the city playing games, enjoying a ride at a fair where you stand while you're spinning around quickly, and just wandering around the city for fun. But while they are wandering around, Antoine spots his mother who is kissing another man, presumably a co-worker of hers. But as his friends that he had never seen the man before, he won't be in trouble as his mother would most likely not want to cause a scandal with her husband.
When he is asked where he had been the day before, his excuse is that his mother had died. His parents come to the school where Antoine's mother is upset at his deception and why he had decided to kill her off instead of his stepfather, who angrily slaps him in the face for his lie in front of his classmates.Antoine and his mother don't have a very affectionate relationship but after Antoine has discovered her affair, she begins to show some affection towards the poor lad. She promises him to give him money if his grades go up, but only if he keeps the deal a secret from his stepfather. She even tries to keep it a secret by taking him to the movies and out for some delicious ice cream even though he had just accidentally set fire to their apartment, or rather a small section in his room where he has created a small shrine for Balzac.
Like most boys, Antoine often causes mischief, which is often instigated by his friend René, and eventually punished for the deed. Antoine runs away from home and begins living secretly with René. They steal a typewriter from his stepfather's job and plan to pawn it off, however, their plan is unsuccessful as the man they were selling it to starts going off with it on his own, but they get it back but have not real use for it. They go back to where they got it and as Antoine visits the office where they got it he is caught by the night watchman, who calls his stepfather, who turns him in to the police.
After his arrest, his parents place him with the investigating magistrate, saying that he is hopeless. Antoine's mother requests that he be sent to a work camp by the sea, as he has never seen the ocean before. Antoine is locked up with adult criminals and prostitutes and eventually put on a bus to be sent to the work camp.
In a session with a psychologist at the detention center, he reveals that he had in fact spent most of his childhood with his grandmother because his mother had not wanted to take care of him. In fact she had actually not wanted to have a child at all and had planned to get an abortion. It is also revealed that Antoine is well aware that the man he knows as his father and refers to "Dad" is in fact his stepfather.
Antoine is visited by his friend René who is not let in to see him but gets to leave him something. His mother also visits him alone saying that the letter he had written to them about his stepfather had hurt him and further stating that they were ready to take him back but the neighbors' gossip put an end to that even though she's gotten used to being criticize by others. She also tells him to not go crying to his stepfather who has said to let him know that he has now washed his hands off of him completely. He now has no other use than to live at the reform school or at a labor center where he may earn the living he wants.
One day while the boys are all playing soccer in the field, Antoine makes an escape through a fence and is chased by one of the staff. Antoine successfully hides from the man by standing under a bridge while the man goes over. Antoine runs for hours it seems. He eventually reaches the shoreline of the sea. The film ends in the now famous scene with Antoine running into the ocean and turning back to the land with the film concluding with the camera zooming in and then freezing on Antoine's face, looking straight into the camera, a still from the film that will forever be embedded in your mind.
Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel in the famous closing shot in
François Truffaut's The 400 Blows looking into the camera.
For his first film, Truffaut made what might arguably be the most personal film in his entire filmography with many autobiographical touches added throughout the duration of the film. It is a character study of the young protagonist that shows the injustices of the treatment of juvenile offenders in France during that specific time. This focus is something that is quite easy to relate to especially as someone who has gone through adolescence where you are always getting the blame and always being punished for the little things that go on in ones life. It touches on many emotions that go on inside the mind of young adolescent male such as wanting just be free of everything. It can often be compared to Jean Vigo's Zero For Conduct (Zéro De Conduite) which deals with a repressive educational establishment where acts of rebellion occur that are, like The 400 Blows was to Truffaut's childhood, very much autobiographical of Vigo's childhood.
Influenced by Orson Welles and Jean Renoir as well as the Italian Neorealism movement of the '40s and '50s, Truffaut's moving camera with long takes, combined with shooting on location and recorded with natural sound, The 400 Blows' look at Antoine's trials and tribulations caught the eye of critics and audiences everywhere. Henri Decaë's cinematography was very influential on the French films to come out in the '60s who's work with filmmakers like Claude Chabrol, Louis Malle and Jean-Pierre Melville are all notable as well. The music by composer Jean Constantin is also very lovely and fits the emotions that run throughout the film. Released during the same year as Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À Bout De Souffle), The 400 Blows' success helped put Truffaut at the forefront of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague) movement of the '60s. François Truffaut and star Jean-Pierre Léaud would continue together in Antoine Doinel's story in three more films: the short Antoine and Colette (Antoine et Colette), which was part of the film Love At Twenty (L'Amour à Vingt Ans); followed by the features Stolen Kisses (Baisers Volés) in 1968; Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal) in 1970; and concluding with Love On the Run (L'Amour En Fuite) in 1979.
[The 400 Blows was awarded the Best Director prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the Best Foreign Film Award of the 1959 New York Film Critics' Circle and the Best European Film Award at 1960's Bodil Awards. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 32nd Academy Awards]
Visit Amazon.com to purchase The 400 Blows. I highly recommend the Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection.
