The 400 Blows - Francois Truffaut

The 400 Blows is something of a strange case. It’s hailed as being one of the most groundbreaking films ever made, yet watching it what remains the more astonishing is its simplicity. Francois Truffaut’s debut feature length was based on his own experiences as a child and focuses on the experiences of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a French boy in his early teens who is always getting in trouble in school and at home. His mother Gilberte (Claire Maurier) is a young looking woman tired with the routine of her life..

The 400 Blows is something of a strange case. It’s hailed as being one of the most groundbreaking films ever made; yet watching it, what remains the most astonishing is its simplicity. Francois Truffaut’s debut feature length is based on his own experiences as a child and focuses on events in the life of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a French boy in his early teens who is always getting in trouble at home as well as in school.

His mother, Gilberte (Claire Maurier), is a young looking woman tired with the routine of her life and the restraints of her social status. His stepfather, Julien (Albert Rémy), is a racecar fanatic who gets along with Antoine but holds resentment over the fact that they have no blood relation. His teacher (Guy Declombe), who the students have named Sourpuss, often blames Antoine for everything and reminds him of his stupidity and laziness. Therefore Antoine is often left to his own devices as he comes up with things to do with his friend René (Patrick Auffay). For Antoine fate seems to conspire against him; he is the one who gets caught with the pinup his classmates had been watching seconds before, he is the one who accidentally starts a fire trying to pay tribute to one of his heroes. He catches his mom with her lover and gets sent to a reform camp for stealing.

Early on in the film there is a remarkable shot where we see a woman facing backwards from the camera as she waits for children to come out of school. Her position and expectancy immediately trick us into believing she will have something important to do in the story: can she be Antoine’s mom? The bell rings and the children come out; Antoine passes right next to the woman we’ve been watching without even noticing she’s there. In a few seconds our perspective changes and Truffaut lets us know that this film will not be seen through the eyes of adults, but exclusively through Antoine’s.

But unlike Tom Sawyer or Dennis the Menace, Antoine’s actions have repercussions that go beyond the grasp of his comprehension and that at some point even mark him as a criminal. Therefore the way he acts will come off looking as either understandable and heartbreaking or just plain irritating. Because of this The 400 Blows is a film that can be experienced differently at various ages. Those keen to revisit it at different stages in their lives will discover things they wouldn’t have noticed years before.

“I was your age once too” says Gilberte to her son after he reveals he feels misunderstood. “Kids always forget that…” she adds. She stares at him with an obligated sort of affection, he looks back at her mystified and careless. In a way, Truffaut separates the worlds of childhood and adulthood completely and the inequality in each of them becomes a theme throughout the film. What we can have as children we can’t have as adults and it’s the same the other way around. What’s fascinating is how the director doesn’t even try to bring them together by force.

From the performances and love he gets from his child actors it might even be easy to say that he sides a bit with the kids, which makes sense to those who are familiar with how fascinated the filmmaker was with children and film. In scenes of special emotional relevance Antoine is shot through something else. When he runs away from home, the camera follows him from inside a store and we see him through the glass. Perhaps as a reminder that he’s on the outside looking in when it comes to his familiar situation. Inversely when his parents send him to jail, one moment is composed to make us see that the world he knows has become enough of a cell for Antoine. He is imprisoned even before the guard takes him to his cell. This inadequacy and ache are brought to life majestically by Léaud who had never acted before but creates one of the most memorable screen characters of all time.

The film’s most famous scene has Antoine talking with a psychologist (who remains offscreen). The scene is said to be entirely improvised, Truffaut told Jean-Pierre to prepare months in advance. The naturality of the actor, who comes up with some brilliant lines and funny stories, is remarkable. And seen in contrast with the technical dissection provided by the psychologist add more to this mode of separation.

Remarkably, Truffaut never turns his film into a morality tale (even if part of his intention was to reveal the injustices given to juvenile delinquents in correctional centers). And he doesn’t specifically try to turn this into a technical film meant to break boundaries (like Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless).

In the film’s most haunting scene Antoine and René go to a puppet show filled with little children. As the wide eyed kids marvel at an interpretation of “Little Red Riding Hood”, Antoine and René, visibly older than the rest sit in the back plotting their next adventure, without taking their eyes away from the puppets. They know that they have outgrown puppets and that they aren’t old enough to be bosses of their own lives; they inhabit limbo.

One might argue Truffaut was going through something similar. He had begun work as a film critic for the legendary “Cahiers du Cinema” and this film was a gamble in artistic and economic terms, as well as a decisive point that would mark his entire life. If the film failed would he have stopped making movies and concentrated on the theoretical? We will never know, because The 400 Blows was a huge success and is regarded as the film that started the French New Wave (a movement that included other critics from “Cahiers” like Jean Luc Godard and Erich Rohmer). It must be funny for people to realize that one of the most important turns in cinema history began with a kid being expelled from school.

A trailer of this masterpiece: