The 400 Blows
Encyclopedia
The 400 Blows is a 1959
French film
directed by François Truffaut
. One of the defining films of the French New Wave
, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. 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 film had a total of 3,642,981 admissions in France, making it Truffaut's most successful film to date in his home country.
At home he acts as his mother's servant and maid, fetching her slippers and setting the table for supper. When she arrives home from work, she sends Antoine to the store for flour. On the way home he overhears a woman talking about her daughter’s difficult birth which makes him cringe. He catches up with his father on the way home who shows him a fog light he bought for the races he plans to attend that Saturday. Despite his cheery attitude, his mother appears cold and annoyed with his jokes and sense of optimism. When his mother tells his father she would prefer to stay at home on Sunday rather than go to the races he accuses her of having an affair. His mother sends Antoine to take out the trash and go to bed (which is a folding cot in the hallway with no bed-sheets, only his sleeping bag).
The next morning Antoine wakes up late for school and realizes that he didn’t do the extra assignment the teacher gave him for defacing the classroom walls. As he hurries to school, he runs into his best friend, Rene, who convinces him to skip school since it will be much easier than trying to sneak in. On their way back from the arcade, Antoine catches his mother kissing another man on a street corner. He doesn’t say a word and moves on, even though his mother saw him. After they collect their bags, Antoine realizes he’ll need a note tomorrow explaining his absence. Rene gives him an old note he never used for Antoine to copy in his mother’s handwriting. When he comes home, his father tells him his mother called to say her boss needed her for year-end inventory and wouldn’t be home until later. While cooking dinner he encourages Antoine to buy his mother a birthday present and tells him she doesn’t mean to be so hard on him and that she's just stressed working part-time and taking care of the house. Later that night, when he can’t find his Michelin Guide
, Antoine’s father snaps at him and accuses him of stealing it. After Antoine is in bed, his mother arrives home. Antoine overhears her explaining to her husband that her boss dropped her off, setting off more accusations of her affair and more fighting about his poor behavior.
The next morning after Antoine leaves for school one of his classmates who had seen him skipping school goes to Antoine’s apartment and asks his father if he is feeling better since he was absent from school the previous day. His father is shocked but his mother (who had, with her lover, seen him on the street while he was supposed to be in school) remains nonchalant saying, “Nothing that boy does surprises me.” Antoine meanwhile tries to come up with a good excuse for being late since he never copied Rene’s note. Out of panic, when confronted he tells his teacher his mother died. During class, Antoine’s parents arrive at the school and when they discover Antoine’s lie his father smacks him across the face and tells him they will deal with his punishment when he comes home. After school, Antoine decides he cannot go home and that he will be better off on his own. Rene takes him to Place Pigalle
(in an old printing plant) for a place to sleep. When Antoine hears voices coming closer to his hiding place, he wanders the empty streets and steals a bottle of milk.
The next day during class, Antoine’s mother arrives at the school looking for Antoine. The principal lets his mother take him home early and she spends the evening doting on him. Before tucking him into bed, she tells him she understands his stubbornness and opens up to him about her rowdy behavior as a young girl. She encourages him to talk about his problems at school and tells him that even though they teach a lot of useless things at school a few of them, like French, will always be useful to him.
He goes to school and is given an assignment to, “Describe a serious event you witnessed that involved you personally.” With Balzac’s A Sinister Affair in mind he writes an essay entitled, “My Grandfather’s Death”. When he gets home he sets up a small shrine to Balzac in a cupboard of his room. During dinner the box catches on fire from the candle inside, much to his father’s rage. His father yells and threatens him with the military academy but his mother tells him Antoine was only doing something for her and distracts them with a trip to the movies. The family go all together and have a great time. They buy him strawberry ice cream for the first time.
When the French essays are returned, it is revealed that in Antoine’s attempt to use Balzac’s story as reference he had copied down part of the story word for word. His teacher calls him a miserable plagiarist in front of the whole class and sends him to the principal’s office. Antoine manages to escape from the student escorting him to the office and Rene is thrown out in his attempt to stand up for Antoine. Antoine is suspended until after Christmas and he again worries about having to confront his parents at home, so Rene lets Antoine stay with him provided his parents don’t find out. Since both his parents are off at the country club the boys are left alone for a good portion of the night.
The boys spend the coming days scheming on how to make enough money to start up their own business, away from their parents. They ultimately decide that if Antoine can steal a typewriter from his father’s office it will provide them with enough money to start. They attempt to hawk it but the man they try to sell it to tries to cheat them. When they threaten to tell the police, he gives them the typewriter back. Feeling guilty, Antoine decides to return the typewriter to the office where he is caught by a guard who recognizes him and calls his father. His father brings him to the police station and tells the chief about the typewriter incident, saying that he is fed up with Antoine’s behavior. The chief tells the father he can place Antoine in the Observation Center, a place where he can learn a trade, provided he and his wife transfer their parental rights to the juvenile justice system. After getting his statement, Antoine spends the night in jail, sharing a cell with prostitutes and thieves. In an interview with the judge, Antoine’s mother confesses that Antoine’s father is not his biological father.
Antoine is placed in an observation center for troubled youth near the shore (as per his mother's wishes to the judge). Despite this change, he is still reprimanded for minor misbehaviors. In an interview with the psychologist Antoine says that his mother had him before she was married and that she had wanted to have an abortion but Antoine’s grandmother convinced her not to. Antoine explained he lived with a wet nurse and then later with his grandmother until he was 8 but had to live with his mother when his grandmother had become too old to care for him. Antoine’s mother comes to visit one day and informs him that she was considering letting him come home until his father received Antoine’s letter informing him of her affair. They are still together but have now decided to wash their hands of him completely, telling him he is only good for reform school or a work camp. His friend Rene had come to see him the same day but was not allowed in, so the boys could only wave to each other sadly from a distance.
One day, while playing football with the rest of the boys, Antoine escapes under the fence and runs away to the ocean, a place he has wanted to visit his entire life. He reaches the shoreline of the sea, runs into it, then turns back to the land. The film concludes with the camera zooming in and then freezing on Antoine's face, looking directly into the camera.
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 Awards
. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 32nd Academy Awards
. The film currently holds a very rare 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews.
The film is among the top ten of the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
'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 shot.
Besides being a character study, the film is an exposé of the injustices of the treatment of juvenile offenders in France at the time.
, 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 Bed and Board
, but the couple have separated in Love on the Run
.
Filmmakers Akira Kurosawa
, Luis Buñuel
, Satyajit Ray
, Jean Cocteau
, Carl Theodor Dreyer
, Richard Lester
and Norman Jewison
have cited The 400 Blows as one of their favorite movies. Kurosawa called it "one of the most beautiful films that I have ever seen"
Ranked #29 in Empire
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Childish Gambino references The 400 Blows and Truffaut in the song That Power on his debut album Camp.
1959 in film
The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
French film
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
directed by François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
. One of the defining films of the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. The story revolves around Antoine Doinel
Antoine Doinel
Antoine Doinel is a fictional character created by French film director François Truffaut. Doinel is to a great extent an alter ego for Truffaut, sharing many of the same childhood experiences, looking somewhat alike and even being mistaken for one another on the street.Although Truffaut did not...
, an ordinary adolescent in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, who is thought by his parents and teachers to be a trouble maker. The film had a total of 3,642,981 admissions in France, making it Truffaut's most successful film to date in his home country.
Title
The English title is a straight translation of the French but misses its meaning, as the French title refers to the expression "faire les quatre cents coups", which means "to raise hell". On the first American prints, subtitler and dubber Noelle Gilmore gave the film the title Wild Oats, but the distributor did not like that title and reverted it to The 400 Blows, which led some to think the film covered the topic of corporal punishment.Plot
Antoine Doinel is a boy growing up in France during the early 1950s. The movie opens to a group of Antoine’s classmates passing around a picture of a half-naked woman while writing their papers. When the picture comes to Antoine he defaces it and attempts to pass it forward when he is caught by his teacher who makes him stand in a corner the rest of the lesson and deprives him of recess. While alone he writes an angry poem about his teacher (whom he calls Sourpuss) on one of the classroom walls. One of the children tells and the teacher yells at him to clean up his mess only to yell at him later when it is not clean enough.At home he acts as his mother's servant and maid, fetching her slippers and setting the table for supper. When she arrives home from work, she sends Antoine to the store for flour. On the way home he overhears a woman talking about her daughter’s difficult birth which makes him cringe. He catches up with his father on the way home who shows him a fog light he bought for the races he plans to attend that Saturday. Despite his cheery attitude, his mother appears cold and annoyed with his jokes and sense of optimism. When his mother tells his father she would prefer to stay at home on Sunday rather than go to the races he accuses her of having an affair. His mother sends Antoine to take out the trash and go to bed (which is a folding cot in the hallway with no bed-sheets, only his sleeping bag).
The next morning Antoine wakes up late for school and realizes that he didn’t do the extra assignment the teacher gave him for defacing the classroom walls. As he hurries to school, he runs into his best friend, Rene, who convinces him to skip school since it will be much easier than trying to sneak in. On their way back from the arcade, Antoine catches his mother kissing another man on a street corner. He doesn’t say a word and moves on, even though his mother saw him. After they collect their bags, Antoine realizes he’ll need a note tomorrow explaining his absence. Rene gives him an old note he never used for Antoine to copy in his mother’s handwriting. When he comes home, his father tells him his mother called to say her boss needed her for year-end inventory and wouldn’t be home until later. While cooking dinner he encourages Antoine to buy his mother a birthday present and tells him she doesn’t mean to be so hard on him and that she's just stressed working part-time and taking care of the house. Later that night, when he can’t find his Michelin Guide
Michelin Guide
The Michelin Guide is a series of annual guide books published by Michelin for over a dozen countries. The term normally refers to the Michelin Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant guide, which awards the Michelin stars...
, Antoine’s father snaps at him and accuses him of stealing it. After Antoine is in bed, his mother arrives home. Antoine overhears her explaining to her husband that her boss dropped her off, setting off more accusations of her affair and more fighting about his poor behavior.
The next morning after Antoine leaves for school one of his classmates who had seen him skipping school goes to Antoine’s apartment and asks his father if he is feeling better since he was absent from school the previous day. His father is shocked but his mother (who had, with her lover, seen him on the street while he was supposed to be in school) remains nonchalant saying, “Nothing that boy does surprises me.” Antoine meanwhile tries to come up with a good excuse for being late since he never copied Rene’s note. Out of panic, when confronted he tells his teacher his mother died. During class, Antoine’s parents arrive at the school and when they discover Antoine’s lie his father smacks him across the face and tells him they will deal with his punishment when he comes home. After school, Antoine decides he cannot go home and that he will be better off on his own. Rene takes him to Place Pigalle
Place Pigalle
The Place Pigalle is a public square located in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, between the Boulevard de Clichy and the Boulevard de Rochechouart, near Sacré-Cœur, at the foot of the Montmartre hill...
(in an old printing plant) for a place to sleep. When Antoine hears voices coming closer to his hiding place, he wanders the empty streets and steals a bottle of milk.
The next day during class, Antoine’s mother arrives at the school looking for Antoine. The principal lets his mother take him home early and she spends the evening doting on him. Before tucking him into bed, she tells him she understands his stubbornness and opens up to him about her rowdy behavior as a young girl. She encourages him to talk about his problems at school and tells him that even though they teach a lot of useless things at school a few of them, like French, will always be useful to him.
He goes to school and is given an assignment to, “Describe a serious event you witnessed that involved you personally.” With Balzac’s A Sinister Affair in mind he writes an essay entitled, “My Grandfather’s Death”. When he gets home he sets up a small shrine to Balzac in a cupboard of his room. During dinner the box catches on fire from the candle inside, much to his father’s rage. His father yells and threatens him with the military academy but his mother tells him Antoine was only doing something for her and distracts them with a trip to the movies. The family go all together and have a great time. They buy him strawberry ice cream for the first time.
When the French essays are returned, it is revealed that in Antoine’s attempt to use Balzac’s story as reference he had copied down part of the story word for word. His teacher calls him a miserable plagiarist in front of the whole class and sends him to the principal’s office. Antoine manages to escape from the student escorting him to the office and Rene is thrown out in his attempt to stand up for Antoine. Antoine is suspended until after Christmas and he again worries about having to confront his parents at home, so Rene lets Antoine stay with him provided his parents don’t find out. Since both his parents are off at the country club the boys are left alone for a good portion of the night.
The boys spend the coming days scheming on how to make enough money to start up their own business, away from their parents. They ultimately decide that if Antoine can steal a typewriter from his father’s office it will provide them with enough money to start. They attempt to hawk it but the man they try to sell it to tries to cheat them. When they threaten to tell the police, he gives them the typewriter back. Feeling guilty, Antoine decides to return the typewriter to the office where he is caught by a guard who recognizes him and calls his father. His father brings him to the police station and tells the chief about the typewriter incident, saying that he is fed up with Antoine’s behavior. The chief tells the father he can place Antoine in the Observation Center, a place where he can learn a trade, provided he and his wife transfer their parental rights to the juvenile justice system. After getting his statement, Antoine spends the night in jail, sharing a cell with prostitutes and thieves. In an interview with the judge, Antoine’s mother confesses that Antoine’s father is not his biological father.
Antoine is placed in an observation center for troubled youth near the shore (as per his mother's wishes to the judge). Despite this change, he is still reprimanded for minor misbehaviors. In an interview with the psychologist Antoine says that his mother had him before she was married and that she had wanted to have an abortion but Antoine’s grandmother convinced her not to. Antoine explained he lived with a wet nurse and then later with his grandmother until he was 8 but had to live with his mother when his grandmother had become too old to care for him. Antoine’s mother comes to visit one day and informs him that she was considering letting him come home until his father received Antoine’s letter informing him of her affair. They are still together but have now decided to wash their hands of him completely, telling him he is only good for reform school or a work camp. His friend Rene had come to see him the same day but was not allowed in, so the boys could only wave to each other sadly from a distance.
One day, while playing football with the rest of the boys, Antoine escapes under the fence and runs away to the ocean, a place he has wanted to visit his entire life. He reaches the shoreline of the sea, runs into it, then turns back to the land. The film concludes with the camera zooming in and then freezing on Antoine's face, looking directly into the camera.
Cast
- Jean-Pierre LéaudJean-Pierre Léaud-Early years:Born in Paris, Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in The 400 Blows....
as Antoine Doinel - Claire Maurier as Gilberte Doinel, Antoine's mother
- Albert RémyAlbert RémyAlbert Rémy was a French actor best known for his supporting roles in François Truffaut's first two feature films. He played Antoine Doinel's father in The 400 Blows and Charlie Koller's brother in Shoot the Piano Player...
as Julien Doinel, Antoine's father - Guy Decomble as School teacher (Sourpuss)
- Patrick Auffay as René Bigey, Antoine's best friend
- Georges Flamant as Monsieur Bigey, René's father
- Pierre ReppPierre ReppPierre Repp was a French humorist and actor. His real name was Pierre Alphonse Léon Frédéric Bouclet. On 14 August 1930, he married Ferdinande Alice Andrée Bouclet in Lille.Famous for his unique stuttering talent...
as English Teacher - The Children: Daniel Couturier, François Nocher, Richard Kanayan, Renaud Fontanarosa, Michel Girard, Henry Moati, Bernard Abbou, Jean-François Bergouignan, Michel Lesignor;
- Luc Andrieux, Robert Beauvais, Bouchon, Christian Brocard, Yvonne Claudie, Marius Laurey, Claude Mansard, Jacques Monod, Henri Virlojeux.
Awards and nominations
The film was widely acclaimed, winning numerous awards, including the Best Director AwardBest Director Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Director Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946....
at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival
1959 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Marcel Achard *Antoni Bohdziewicz *Michael Cacoyannis *Carlos Cuenca *Pierre Daninos *Julien Duvivier *Max Favalelli *Gene Kelly *Carlo Ponti *Micheline Presle...
, the Critics Award of the 1959 New York Film Critics' Circle and the Best European Film Award at 1960's Bodil Awards
Bodil Awards
The Bodil Awards are the major Danish film awards given by Denmark's National Association of Film Critics . The awards are presented annually at a ceremony in the Imperial Cinema in Copenhagen. Established in 1948, it is one of the oldest film awards in Europe...
. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 32nd Academy Awards
32nd Academy Awards
The 32nd Academy Awards honored film achievements of 1959 on 4 April 1960.MGM's and director William Wyler's three and a half-hour long epic drama Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars in 1959, breaking the previous year's all-time record of nine...
. The film currently holds a very rare 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews.
The film is among the top ten of the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Themes
A semi-autobiographical film, reflecting events of Truffaut's and his friend's lives, its style amounts to Truffaut's personal history of French film—most notably a scene borrowed wholesale from Jean VigoJean Vigo
Jean Vigo was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:...
's Zéro de conduite
Zéro de Conduite
Zéro de conduite is a 1933 French film directed by Jean Vigo. It was first shown on 7 April 1933, and was subsequently banned in France until 15 February 1946....
. It is dedicated to the man who became his spiritual father, André Bazin
André Bazin
André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist.-Life:Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918...
, who died just as the film was about to be shot.
Besides being a character study, the film is an exposé of the injustices of the treatment of juvenile offenders in France at the time.
Legacy
Truffaut made four other films with Léaud depicting Antoine at later stages of his life. He meets his first love, Colette, in Antoine and ColetteAntoine and Colette
Antoine and Colette is the second film — a short — in François Truffaut's series about Antoine Doinel, the character he follows from boyhood to adulthood through five films...
, which was Truffaut's contribution to the 1962 anthology Love at Twenty. He falls in love with Christine Darbon (Claude Jade
Claude Jade
Claude Marcelle Jorré, better known as Claude Jade , was a French actress, known for starring as Christine in François Truffaut's three films Stolen Kisses , Bed and Board and Love on the Run . Jade acted in theatre, film and television...
) in Stolen Kisses
Stolen Kisses
Stolen Kisses is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut. It continues the story of the character Antoine Doinel, whom Truffaut had previously depicted in The 400 Blows and the short film Antoine and Colette...
. He marries Christine in Bed and Board
Bed and Board
Bed and board may refer to:* Bed and Board, 1970 French film Domicile Conjugal* Divorce from bed and board, a marital arrangement where spouses live apart but do not legally dissolve the marriage...
, but the couple have separated in Love on the Run
Love on the Run (1979 film)
Love on the Run is a 1979 French film directed by François Truffaut. It is Truffaut's fifth and final film about the character Antoine Doinel. A lot of the film is made of a "clip show" of the previous films in the series...
.
Filmmakers Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
, Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray was an Indian Bengali filmmaker. He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema. Ray was born in the city of Kolkata into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jr. was a Danish film director. He is regarded by many critics and filmmakers as one of the greatest directors in cinema.-Life:Dreyer was born illegitimate in Copenhagen, Denmark...
, Richard Lester
Richard Lester
Richard Lester is an American film director based in Britain. Lester is notable for his work with The Beatles in the 1960s and his work on the Superman film series in the 1980s.-Early years and television:...
and Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
have cited The 400 Blows as one of their favorite movies. Kurosawa called it "one of the most beautiful films that I have ever seen"
Ranked #29 in Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Childish Gambino references The 400 Blows and Truffaut in the song That Power on his debut album Camp.
External links
- Criterion Collection essay by Annette Insdorf
- Criterion Collection essay by Kent Jones for "Antoine and Colette"
- Review by Roger EbertRoger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
- Senses of Cinema essay
- The 400 Blows: Verisimilitude and the (Re)presentation of the City