Les Quatre Cents Coups aka The 400 Blows by
Francois Truffaut
This is one of the best motion
pictures of all time, included on both The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies
Ever Made and the All-TIME 100 Movies lists, which you can find here:
Furthermore, audiences have
appreciated this film, which is also included on the Top Rated Movies list at
number 202, to which we can add the nomination for an Academy Award for Best
Foreign Film, BAFTA in the same category and Best Film from any Source and the
Cannes Film Festival prize for Best Director.
The hero is a fourteen year old boy,
Antoine Doinel portrayed with incredible, phenomenal talent by Jean-Pierre
Leaud, who gets into a series of trouble, for which he takes often undeserved punishment-
anyway exce4ssive and inappropriate, given the background.
He runs away from school, but that is
what so many teenagers, pupils do and considering the violence, the abuse and
use of corporal disciplining applied by professors it can seem only natural, to
try and find an escape from such exploitation.
At one point, when his father,
Julien Doinel, talks to a policeman, the latter encourages more “traditional”
means of education, when the parent complains that he could not make his son
behave and by old means, the commissioner understands beatings.
Besides, one day, when he is absent
from school and walking the streets with his friend, Rene, Antoine comes across
his mother, Gilberte Doinel, who is kissing another man and therefore offers an
example of libertinism, contempt for rules, lack of discipline, breaking of
barriers, offence to morality which she cannot later reproach in her son, who is
after all much younger and much more prone to mistakes than an adult, who does
not do what he or she preaches.
This immoral attitude of the mother
surely explains in part the excuse used by the naughty Julien when he is interrogated
on the reasons why he is so frequently missing from school by a teacher who,
when hearing that the boy’s mother is dead, becomes compassionate.
However, this false pretense is soon
exposed, the parents come to school and in their fury, they ask the teachers
and the principal to impose serious consequences upon the insensitive boy, who is
not only running from school, but also lying and saying his parent has departed
forever…
Since coming home has never been a
happy experience, with his parents fighting, the knowledge of his mother’s
infidelities and their absurd demands on the child, especially in light of
their own serious shortcomings and flaws, Antoine decides to run away from home
and find a job eventually.
On the first night, he finds some
refuge in a printing shop, amid all the disorder and the very loud noises made
by the printing presses, but he makes a temporary armistice with his mother,
who promises to give him a one thousand francs prize –probably about $ 30- if
at the next test he will be among the best five students.
The hero reads from La Recherche de
L’Absolu by Honore de Balzac, he would include the ending- Eureka, and the
sentences about death- in his own paper regarding the death of his grandfather,
a theme selected when the teacher asked them to write about an important event
in their lives.
The morbid predilection for the
excuse when he was absent and then as a subject for his test emphasizes the
depression, disabuse, lack of affection, need for attention and acceptance
experienced by the teenage boy, who is again banished from class, because of
the accusation of plagiarism.
Furthermore, at home, while enthused,
exhilarated by the magnificent author, Julien lights a candle in what looks
like a small shrine dedicated to the deity- Honore de Balzac- and while he is eating
with his parents, the father smells smoke and the small altar is in flames.
After this incendiary incident, the
family is going to the motion pictures but it is alas a short-lived peace,
followed by another escape and this time, the protagonist finds temporary shelter
at the home of his friend, who also has family issues, his mother is a drunkard
and his father is strange.
There is a life size horse in this
house, evaluated by the father at about one million francs and even if the
boys, trying to find ways to get some money think about selling the horse, they
try with a typewriter and their effort to sell it in the black market, through
a crook fail.
Antoine’s mother and father give up
their obligations and take him to the authorities, stating that they have tried
everything and it does not work, so they just feel he should be educated in
other environments- even his mother makes a rather ridiculous, feeble attempt
to ask the judge to send him in a home near the sea…
The official replies that the State
Correction Facility is not a travel firm and it is not in the business of
providing pleasure and comfort for its clients and the hero has to face a
sentence for the attempted theft of the typewriter and the ten thousand francs
he had stolen from his grandmother, in spite or because of his explanation that
he knew where the money were and his old relative does not need it anyway- she
will die soon.
Antoine Doinel has some sessions
with an analyst, but it seems that the psychologist does not respect the
quintessential rule of keeping the discussions secret and he talks to the
police and probably the parents about what he learns from the discussions.
The 400 Blows is a historic,
memorable, mesmerizing chef d’oeuvre.
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