Truffaut's Masterpiece

When I taught film appreciation at the high school level, one of my goals was to get my students to enjoy foreign film. I didn't want them to have an instant negative reaction the first frame an English subtitle appeared on the screen. So I used The 400 Blows, figuring that my students could relate to Truffaut's semi-autobiographical film. I was right -- after all, they had had clueless teachers and had ditched classes before, for starters.

The film opens with a visual tour of Paris accompanied by strings until we settle into a French classroom and see Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) immediately get into trouble as soon as he receives the pinup girl that has been passed around the class. It won't be the last time he gets into trouble.

Antoine can't help but become the scapegoat at school. When he is kept in at recess, he turns poet and writes on the wall: "Here suffers poor Antoine Doinel, unjustly punished for a pinup that fell from heaven." This ticks off the teacher, who assigns Antoine to write an essay as punishment, but gets distracted from doing it. He then skips school, and makes up the phony excuse that his mother has died in order to gain the teacher's sympathy. This works fine until Antoine's stepfather (Albert Remy) and mother (Claire Maurier) show up at the classroom. Things deteriorate from there on. Eventually Antoine is expelled from school for plagiarizing Balzac, and he is turned in to the police by his stepfather when he attempts to return a stolen typewriter.

Antoine's parents aren't drawn as completely in the film, yet we do get to see them as struggling Parisians who are attempting to scratch out an existence. The father is a pleasant man with a good sense of humor until he catches his son in lies. The mother has her own issues to deal with, including having an affair with an office worker-Antoine knows about this and witnesses his mother lie out of the situation. Neither parent is a consistent force in Antoine's life.

We see everything through Antoine's eyes. Thus, we see the family dysfunction and know the cause. Note the scene where his parents argue when Antoine is in bed-the same day that Antoine has seen his mother with the office worker. Later we see his parents get upset when Antoine's Balzac shrine nearly sets the apartment on fire, but for "punishment" his mother convinces her husband to take them out for ice cream and a movie. It is the most pleasant night of young Antoine's life.

There are a number of great moments in this film that are captured perfectly under Truffaut's direction. Truffaut was greatly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock and wrote an extensive interview that he had done with the master. This shows in Truffaut's camera work. Like Hitchcock's best work, The 400 Blows is very visual. Subtitles are not necessary for communication in numerous scenes. Among them:

1. The tracking shots (a Truffaut trademark) of the P.E. teacher taking the class on a jog through the Paris streets, as the students split off from the group. My students especially loved this scene.
2. The scene where the police are transferring Antoine to another jail. We hear the familiar violins playing as we pass through the same Parisian streets, but with a touch of melancholy this time with the night lights shining. The camera shows a close-up of Antoine's face. The 14-year-old is attempting to act tough… yet, we see a tear stream down his right cheek.
3. The classic freeze frame at the end. The puzzled look in Antoine's face communicates everything. I still flash back to this one scene each time I remember Truffaut's film.

Truffaut continues his semi-autobiographical series with the same young actor with Antoine and Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979).

But it is Truffaut's The 400 Blows that will long be remembered as his definitive work. Don't rent this if you're looking for a mindless action flick, or looking for a film that's filled with deep philosophical meaning. This is Truffaut's introduction to New Wave cinema, and is an intimate portrait of a remarkable young adolescent. I witnessed several high school students appreciate Truffaut's film, so I recommend that others give it a shot.