Day 5: The 400 Blows (1959)

“The 400 Blows” by François Truffaut is a deeply rich coming of age tale delivered with heavy autobiographical undertones. Much like Fellini’s “Amarcord” (Day 4 of the Criterion Summer), Truffaut gives us a snapshot of youth, outlining how those few years of transformation between adolescence and adulthood can shape who we become and what our future holds.

A defining film in the French New Wave movement, “The 400 Blows” represents a very specific type of youth journey. While lost in its English translation, the film’s French title refers to the phrase, “faire les quatre cents coups”, meaning “to raise hell”- something Antoine, our protagonist, and his closest companion, Rene, do in excess as they traipse around inner city Paris, playing hooky from school and hocking anything they can get their hands on.

But this misbehavior isn’t superficial. Both Antoine and Rene stem from dysfunctional families. While Rene’s parents  gamble and drink, Antoine’s stepfather constantly accuses his mother of infidelity, which is something Antoine secretly knows to be true. It is because of this dysfunctional nature that the boys act out and, while both families fail to understand the cries for attention, it is Antoine’s parents who discipline the harshest- at one point almost shunning their son.

Truffaut’s own connection to the film’s story is very personal and, in many ways, heartbreaking. Like Antoine, Truffaut grew up in a home that wanted little to do with him, allowing the local cinemas and libraries to babysit. He was born to a seventeen year-old mother, having no connection with his real father till much later in life, and though his stepfather took him as his own, their relationship was as tense as the one in the film, culminating with his guardian turning him in to the police for robbery.  But not all of the connections between Truffaut and his film are depressing.  During his childhood he did have his own Rene in Robert Lachenay, a life long friend, who eventually worked as an assistant on “The 400 Blows.”

As mentioned before, comparisons between Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” can’t be helped- something I’m sure Criterion had in mind when releasing both side by side.  Though each contain aspects of the director’s youths, it’s the representation of those aspects that contrasts the two great works. While Fellini’s brings joy and reflection, brought on by memories of small town living, Truffaut holds up a mirror to his city life, showing the ugly truth of delinquency and the punishments, fair or unfair, that come with it. In “The 400 Blows” there is no absurd distortion of the past, as in “Amarcord,” only the cold hard facts of reality.

François Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” is a heartbreaking yet beautiful film and the story of Antoine doesn’t end here. Truffaut went on to make three films and one short spanning twenty years of the character’s life as the child actor himself grew up to be a man. What occurs to Antoine after “The 400 Blows” I have yet to find out but, with Truffaut at the helm, ever dropping moments of his own life into the character, I’m sure I’m in for a treat.

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