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The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups)

(1959)

100 min. Kino International. Director: Francois Truffaut. Cast: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Patrick Auffay, Claire Maurier, Albert Remy, Guy Decomble.

In an astonishing coup de cinema, François Truffaut's first feature proved to be an enduring masterpiece. Few films have captured with such authenticity the restlessness of childhood, and its desires, only rarely or partially fulfilled. The film also represents a poignant continuity of surrogate parenthood: from film critic and Cahiers du Cinema co-founder André Bazin to Truffaut to his archetypally precocious fourteen-year-old star, Jean-Pierre Léaud. Truffaut saw in the emotionally hungry Léaud a reflection of the director's own childhood, a restive negotiation with his cold mother and adoptive father (Truffaut never knew his biological father). Truffaut dedicated the film not to his parents, but to Bazin, his mentor.

The expression that lends the film its title—"faire les quatre cents coups"—means "to raise hell," an apt description of the young life of Antoine Doinel (Léaud). "Poor France will be in sorry shape in ten years!" laments his irritable English teacher (Guy Decomble). "Maybe it's something in his glands." Playing hooky, smoking, lying, (and doing the wooden boy one better by stealing), Antoine is a Pinocchio in reverse: a real boy who loses his innocence and has to leave his boyhood behind. Truffaut's autobiographical fiction shows an admirable equanimity by depicting the highs and lows of boyhood. The film is full of life, an impression which peaks during a "lost day" spent partially at the whirling amusement park ride "The Rotor" (watch for Truffaut alongside his j.d. hero). Soon, the safety of a ride that sees a predictable end gives way to a universe spiraling out of control—with no end in sight.

In exploring the phenomenon of the "juvenile identity crisis"—defined by puberty, distancing from parents, desire for independence, and an inferiority complex—Truffaut cultivates an emotional but never melodramatic reality populated with always credible details of character and situation. Antoine chafes at the arbitrary cruelties and general boredom of school, with its tinpot tyrants in positions of authority over him, and yet, when he's at home, the boy lights a candle for Balzac. Times are tight, putting an added strain on the too-common tentativeness of the family unit, but the parents' fighting and distraction can turn without warning to attentive affection and joie de vivre. When he's had enough of the emotional "Rotor," Antoine lights out, leaving a note reading "I'll prove I can become a man." When his parents have had enough, they make him one by sending him to a reform camp.

The supporting performances are indelible: Claire Maurier as Antoine's philandering mother, Albert Rémy as his mercurial adoptive father, and Patrick Auffay as Antoine's loyal best friend René. As a boy of unexpected depths, a city boy who longs to the sea, Léaud owns the film. It's the sincerity of his extraordinary, spontaneous juvenile performance—as much as Truffaut's—that makes the film unforgettable. Truffaut's command of cinema helped to define the French New Wave with its innovative photography and montage (credit also goes to Jean Constantin for his lovely, evocative musical themes). The ending of The 400 Blows has a soul-arresting impact, from a long take of Antoine running to a final shot culminating in an inventive freeze frame-zoom. Many over the years have seen themselves or their children in Truffaut's Joycean portrait of the artist as a young man.

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