PSYCHIATRIST: Your parents say you're always lying.
ANTOINE: Oh, I lie now and then, I suppose. Sometimes I'd tell them the truth and they still wouldn't believe me, so I prefer to lie. [1]
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's post about the movie Les Quatres Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) by François Truffaut. I was quite prejudiced about the movie because of its production year (something I'm trying to work on), but Truffaut has such an amazing storytelling ability that eventually proved me wrong. It was a very emotional yet satirical movie, and I'm so excited to talk about it. Thank you so much for being here and I hope you enjoy reading the post!
Les Quatre Cents Coups is Truffaut's first feature, and it was a very successful one as it received many awards including the Best Director Award at Cannes Film Festival. The reason behind its success is the film's intimacy. It follows a 14-years-old boy who is left without attention and care from his parents, and he engages in several "crimes" throughout the movie. Antoine, our main character, represents none other than Truffaut's childhood in the film. Even the tiniest detail (like stealing a typewriter from an office) in the scenes is identical to Truffaut's childhood, which made me watch the movie in a different context.
Truffaut is also one of the biggest representatives of the French New Wave, a revolutionary movement brought to mainstream filmmaking in 1950s. Truffaut wanted his films to be like novels, so he never avoided showing his characters' inner worlds in his works. Just like in this film, we follow Antoine go through unjust situations and feel his frustration as if we are with him in there, which is why I love cinema in the first place.
Let's talk about a few characters. I'd like to start with Antoine, as mentioned above, our main character in this film. Antoine is often a misunderstood boy that is labeled as a thief, liar, and troublemaker. Even in the first ten minutes of the film, he gets punished by his teacher because when a pinup calendar is being passed from hand to hand in the classroom, the teacher finds it in his hand and blames him for it. There are lots of scenes where Antoine gets punished for doing innocent things as a normal child would do, and it makes the audience feel uncomfortable and frustrated. One of the most effective details to me was the fact that Antoine eventually got caught because he was returning the typewriter he stole, and no matter how many times he explains it to the police officers, they just see him as a criminal. The reason behind Antoine's behaviors is his family's background. As he's born into a loveless family as well as poverty, neither his parents nor he wants to stay in the house and that leads him to seek freedom throughout the movie.
I'd like to emphasize this part as it was the most meaningful detail to me in the film: as Antoine wanders through the streets and seeks acceptance, the only place we see him truly happy is in the cinema. This is where the audience almost makes sure that this film is made by Truffaut because the love our protagonist feels for the movies is very prominent. As Truffaut once said: "It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that cinema saved my life.", we can say the same thing for Antoine.
Let's move forward to Antoine's mother, Gilberte. Gilberte is depicted as a careless mother who doesn't want to take responsibility for a child. From the beginning of the film, we see her shouting commands to Antoine and insulting him whenever he forgets something. It's important to mention that she didn't want to give birth to Antoine in the first place. When we finally hear that Antoine was born under his grandma's wish at the end of the film, Gilberte's attitude makes more sense to the audience. There was only one scene where Gilberte shows maternal affection to Antoine, but soon after we realize that she was just fooling him to not tell that she was cheating on his stepfather.
As the viewer questions Antoine's behaviors, wherever they look at the source of the problem, it often points to his mother and father. As I was browsing the critics' writings about this movie, I encountered one idea that captured my attention. The critic believed that considering the aftermath of World War II in France, the attention given to children is minimum in every part of daily life, be it in family, school, or a police office. It makes sense (not that it's morally right) as we think of it, because during World War only a lucky few children could get enough attention from their parents, and that surely must affect those children's behavior later in their lives. Truffaut wanted to capture this trancelike situation of society, and it sure was a truly successful execution.
Last, but not least (!!), I'd like to talk briskly about Antoine's friend, René. René goes through the same hardships as Antoine, he too has careless parents but he’s at least lucky that his financial situation is far better than Antoine. Their friendship is depicted as so pure and enjoyable, so much so that my favorite parts of the film were always the ones with Antoine and René in it. Another difference between them is René’s laid-back attitude when it comes to breaking laws. Unlike Antoine, he’s not afraid of his actions’ consequences because his parents simply ignore his existence all the time. With his mom being an alcoholic and his father a gambler, he always spends time alone and seeks freedom just like Antoine. I loved his generous attitude to his friend throughout the movie, be it opening his house to him or sharing his dinner with him, René is easily my favorite character in this film.
Reaching the end of this post, I'm giving this movie a well-deserved 9 out of 10. It truly is an essential movie that shows the children's nature and interactions beautifully. Before finishing, I'm surprised that I haven't mentioned the spectacular performances so far in this movie. Specifically Antoine and the whole cast portrayed the characters very successfully that made me speechless at times. The camerawork was also spectacular as it captured the dreamy streets of Paris in such a period.
Thank you so much for reading this far, and I invite you to follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr, all with the same nickname moviesatdawn. You are also encouraged to leave a comment below or send me an email at: moviesatdawn@gmail.com! Again, thank you for joining me this week and see you later in another post!
François Truffaut: "I still ask myself the question that has tormented me since I was thirty years old: Is cinema more important than life?" [2]
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