The 400 Blows
This article is about the French film. A 1980s jazz/funk band were named after the film; see 400 Blows.
Les Quatre Cent Coups (
The 400 Blows) (
1959) is a
French film directed by
François Truffaut.
One of the defining films of the
French New Wave, the film displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. Notably, the story revolves around
Antoine Doinel, an ordinary adolescent in
Paris, who is thought by his parents and teachers to be a trouble maker. The title of the film is a
French idiomatic expression which means roughly "Raising Hell". Legend has it the young Weinstein brothers attended "The 400 Blows" believing it to be racy European fare. They were so moved by the experience it led to a deep and enduring love of film and eventually to their founding
Miramax.
This film's story is admittedly autobiographical, reflecting many of the events of Truffaut's own life. The film's style amounts to an autobiographical history of French film, most notably a scene borrowed wholesale from
Jean Vigo's
Zéro de Conduite. It is dedicated to the man who became his spiritual father,
André Bazin, who died just as the film was about to be released.
The 400 Blows is, besides a character study, an exposé of the injustices of the treatment of juvenile offenders in France at the time.
Antoine was born while his mother was unmarried (as is revealed later in the film). Afterwards she married an older man to "give him a name." She is unhappy in her married life and resents Antoine because of the situation. The family is financially insecure, and Antoine is poorly dressed and poorly fed, and sleeps in a sleeping bag (which he prefers because "at least it's warm") on a cot crammed next to the back entrance to the apartment. Both his mother and his step-father consider him an unwanted burden.
He engages in a series of childish pranks, usually at the instigation of his schoolmates, and bears the blame for each of them.
Eventually, at the instigation of his friend René, he pilfers a typewriter from his father's workplace. After he and René find that it cannot be pawned, he attempts to return it. When he is apprehended by the night-watchman (or, perhaps, the concierge) his step-father turns him in to the police.
After his arrest his mother effectively surrenders control over him to the investigating magistrate, saying that he is incorrigible, leaving him to the "mercy" of the French judicial system. Antoine is put in a detention center, and then a work camp.
His mother makes no plea for leniency, rather she agrees to his commitment to the work camp.
He eventually escapes. The film ends on the famous freeze-frame where Antoine is on a beach with his feet in the surf, looking back to the shore, with no place left to flee. He had never seen the sea before.
During his interrogation at the detention center it comes out that, instead of being raised with his mother and step-father, he has usually been shuffled off to his other relatives.
The film was widely acclaimed, winning numerous awards, including the Best Director award at the 1959
Cannes Film Festival, the Critics Award of the 1959 New York Film Critics' Circle and the Best European Film Award at
1960's Bodil Award. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 1959 Academy Awards, and lost to Pillow Talk.
Truffaut made four other films with Léaud depicting Antoine at later stages of his life. He meets his first love, Colette, in
Antoine et Colette, which was Truffaut's contribution to the 1962 anthology
Love at Twenty. He falls in love with Christine Darbon (
Claude Jade) in
Stolen Kisses, he marries Christine in
Domicile conjugal (
Bed and Board), but the couple have separated in
Love on the Run.
*
Jean-Pierre Léaud: Antoine Doinel
*
Claire Maurier: Gilberte Doinel, the mother
*
Albert Rémy: Julien Doinel
*
Guy Decomble: The French Teacher (Sourpuss)
*
Patrick Auffay: René Bigey
*
Georges Flamant: Monsieur Bigey
*
Pierre Repp: The English Teacher
* The Children: Daniel Couturier, François Nocher, Richard Kanayan, Renaud Fontanarosa, Michel Girard, Henry Moati, Bernard Abbou, Jean-François Bergouignan, Michel Lesignor;
* Avec Luc Andrieux, Robert Beauvais, Bouchon, Christian Brocard, Yvonne Claudie, Marius Laurey, Claude Mansard, Jacques Monod, Henri Virlojeux.
* Photography by Henri Decaë
* Camera: Jean Rabier, asst.: Alain Levent, stills: André Dino
* Editing by Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte
* Music by Jean Constantin
* Sound by Jean-Claude Marchetti with Jean Labussière
* Set design by Bernard Evein
* Adaptation and Dialogue by Marcel Moussy
* Direction and Screenplay by
François Truffaut* Direction assisted by
Philippe de Broca, Alain Jeannel, Francis Cognany, and Robert Bober
* Production Supervision by Jean Lavie with Robert Lachenay
Dedicated to the memory of
André Bazin.
*
List of actors*
List of directors*
Cinema of France*
List of French language films*
List of movies*
Criterion Collection essay by Annette Insdorf
