Tuesday, January 1, 2013

The 400 Blows (1959)

Director: François Truffaut                         Writers: François Truffaut & Marcel Moussy
Film Score: Jean Constantin                      Cinematography: Henri Decaë
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier & Guy Decomble

The title, The 400 Blows, is a French idiom about delinquency and, as such, the direct translation makes little sense in English in the same way the phrase “raising hell” wouldn’t make much sense directly translated to French. But there’s something in the direct translation that is inherently apt. It was the first film as a director for the film critic François Truffaut, and it was a stunning debut. From the opening credits when the camera travels through Paris, it’s focus steadily on the Eifel Tower, it is also the opening of what would become the New Wave in cinema, an emphasis on realism and almost documentary style that never really caught on in America but was profoundly influential in Europe.

The story, an apparently autobiographical one, concerns young Antoine who seems to have trouble in nearly every aspect of his life no matter how hard he tries. He can’t get along with his pedantic teacher in school, or with his overbearing mother and cuckold step-father, and eventually winds up stealing a typewriter, with consequences that entirely change his life. What could have been a depressing descent into the life of a misunderstood child, nevertheless retains an element of hopefulness due in large part to the characterization of Antoine by the intense Jean-Pierre Léaud in the lead role. Truffaut’s camera simply follows him around from one minor adventure to another, most of which find Antoine on the receiving end of adult disapproval. Another part of what keeps out dramatic lethargy is the music by Jean Constantin, which maintains a lightness throughout.

Though the camera angles are well thought out, there is a naturalness to them that is part of what makes the New Wave so appealing. Unlike more obvious “cinematic” manipulation used up until that time, especially in Hollywood, the camera simply observes, lingering in one spot for long takes. And when it does move it becomes a natural part of the environment, even when the shots are painstakingly set up. It’s sometimes difficult to see what was so revolutionary about this new style of de facto amateur filmmaking from a distance of over fifty years, especially with the use of hand-held cameras and the abundance of cinema verite, even in television. But if one studies the other films of the day, it’s easy to see what a breath of fresh air this must have seemed.

The review in The A List is by the late Peter Brunette who was, in addition to being a film critic and an expert on Italian cinema, the director of film studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He does a nice job of briefly encapsulating how Truffaut and his contemporaries came to make their own films, and sees The 400 Blows as not only the first, but the finest example of the style. He also singles out the main thematic element, the seemingly unconscious harsh treatment of children in a culture that revolved entirely around adulthood. Like the film, Brunette’s review is informative, insightful, and does its job to perfection.

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