Truffaut's 400 Blows

Michael George

10/09/2010

400 Blows

Total Running Time: 01:39:00

Language: French

Director: Francis Truffaut

Awards: "Best Director Award," 1959 Cannes Film Festival, "Best Original Screenplay," 32nd Academy Awards

     400 Blows is a French film from 1959 that chronicles the events of a young boy, Antoine Doinel, as he seemingly digs himself deeper and deeper into a life of lies, robbery, and loneliness. This film is noted as being one of the defining films of the French New Wave, which was a new style of film making that rejected the normal cinematic form that movies were currently being made in. However, I feel that 400 Blows speaks to several different models of film theory. First of all, it fits into the realist theory as the movie didn't turn out all happy and bright like most films are made out to. In reality, there are juveniles at a really young age who have no hope of living a normal life because they simple don't care. The realist theory portrays cinema as it would appear in real life, and Antoine's situation is an example of real life portrayed in film.

     Secondly, 400 Blows falls into the auterist theory. 400 Blows is based somewhat on experiences that Truffaut had as a child. In this theory, the vision of the film belongs more to the author or artist behind the camera instead of the normal processes of film making. Finally, this film falls into the ideology theory. The ideologist theory is a set of beliefs about society and the world. 400 Blows is an obvious example of this theory as, while researching the film to prepare this blog, I read that it was made by Truffaut as a way to show the injustices towards juvenile delinquents in France during the late 1950s.

    Two sources that I used for this blog can be found here and here. The first article brings up again how this film was almost autobiographical film because it portrayed certain aspects of his life. Almost as a journal, the film is credited as a camera-to-pen style and cites "cinema in the first person singular." The article also touches on his homelife as a child, where his parents wanted little to do with him, he had to break into movie theatres so he could find solice by being wrapped up in films. He even told his teacher that his father was captured by the Germans as an excuse to get out of skipping class.We know this to be different from the film, as he told the teacher his mother was dead. It also gives a lot of credit to the last freeze frame. My second article is done by Roger Ebert who is probably one of the most recognized critiquers of films. His review provides even more insight into Truffaut's life as a child. He says that the film is dedicated to Andrew Bazin, a film critic, who took Truffaut under his wing when he was either going to turn down a darker path or turn his life around. Roger Ebert says that another important theme of 400 Blows is paternity. Maybe if his parents invested time in his childhood, he wouldn't have had the early troubles in adolescence that he did.



   When we first watched this film, I really thought it was a film about nothing and the ending made me look around the room and think, "really?" I just felt like it was a huge waste of time. But, that was looking at it as a viewer instead of dissecting it in terms of film theories. Once I did that, and looked up articles, I came to the conclusion that the film was very well made and important based on the time period it was created in. I was able to see and understand a lot more plot points and film devices than when I first saw it in class. It was a relatable film back then, and is still relevant today. It may not be a film that most are used to seeing, which was my initial problem, but its appeal to the ideolistic film theory proves that sometimes there are more underlying layers to a film than people realize. 3 out of 5 stars.

SOURCES:
"The 400 Blows." Annette Insdorf. 8 April 2003. http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/528
"The 400 Blows." Roger Ebert. 8 August 1999. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990808/REVIEWS08/908080301/1023