We excitedly countdown to the 72nd Festival de Cannes with a different prize winning film each day.
Les Quatre Cents Coups / The 400 Blows, 1959
Prix de la mise en scène – François Truffaut
OCIC Award
Cinema is always evolving. From its very beginnings, filmmakers have done everything in their reach to make this art-form one of the best to connect with humanity. All art-form does this already, but the particularity of cinema is that it combines the best of the other art-forms to create something very special.
Cinematography, for example, derives from the plastic arts (visual arts), especially from paintings and drawings. It not only takes the color aspects from them, but also the lightning, the use of shadows, and the framing. Acting, costumes, and art direction derive from theater, the narrative from writing, and the score from music.
Furthermore, film also has editing, something the other art-forms lack. The French New Wave is one of the most important (if not the most important) artistic movement in cinema history. It began in the late 1950s in France as a response to some of the conservative and traditional filmmaking of the day.
A group of film critics from a prestigious magazine, called Cahiers du cinéma, were the pioneers of the movement. Based upon what they learned from their boss, André Bazin, and the directors they often analyzed in their writings (Roberto Rossellini, Jean Renoir, Alfred Hitchcock, to name a few), they decided to create their own style of cinema, initiating the spark of the Wave.
“The critics that began La Nouvelle Vague, as it’s also referred, are some of the best directors France has ever offered.”
The critics that began La Nouvelle Vague, as it’s also referred, are some of the best directors France has ever offered: Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, and François Truffaut. The movement also includes great filmmakers such as Agnès Varda, Alain Resnais, Jacques Demy, and Louis Malle. Most of their filmography represent essentially what the French New Wave is all about, especially their earlier films.
1959 marked an important year for these filmmakers, since it was the year that three of the most influential films of the movement premiered: Godard’s Breathless, Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour, and Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Although the firsts two films are very important in cinema history, The 400 Blows is often considered the beginning of the Wave.
Truffaut made history by winning the Best Director award at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, a festival that opened with his film. Throughout the year the film kept receiving accolades from various festivals, the film industry, and the audience that went to see it. Today, it is still cited by various filmmakers and cinephiles as their favorite film – or one of their favorites. It makes me wonder, what makes this film so unique that everyone seems to love it?
The 400 Blows tells the story of Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a precocious and rebellious teenager, coming of age in a post-WWII France. Antoine gets in trouble every time he can, from lying to get good grades, to stealing a typewriter so he can sell it. To label him as a problematic child is to superficially evaluate a character so complex.
While watching the film we realized that Antoine is only a consequence of the actions of the adults that surround him. Every decision and action from them have shaped him to the person he is in the film. His mother and his teachers are the ones that negatively influence him the most.
“What’s beautiful about this story, is that you don’t have to be in the same shoes to understand Antoine.”
Antoine’s mother constantly makes sure he knows that she doesn’t really care about him. Something that’s made evidently clear near the end of the film. His teachers look like great academics, but don’t look as great humans in the sense that they act pessimistic towards the people that represent the future of their nation. Especially towards children like Antoine, who are “living a wild life” (the French translation of this phrase inspired the title of the film).
Besides that, Antoine is good at heart, and only reacts reciprocally to the way he has been treated. When your parents don’t even believe you when you’re telling the truth, is there anything else to do? We see a little of ourselves in Antoine, because everyone of us know the struggle of growing up.
Some of us might have done some things differently, but others would’ve done the same as Antoine, or even worse. Some of us have been lucky enough to have the correct guidance and adults in our life, but there are others that, like our protagonist, have had to fight alone to survive in this world.
What’s beautiful about this story, is that you don’t have to be in the same shoes to understand Antoine. Truffaut narrates this story in a way that makes you feel empathetic and compassionate towards our lead, no matter how you look at it.
The editing is responsible for some of the most memorable and emotional moments of the film. The famous interview scene near the end is not only an example of great acting and directing, it’s also an example of knowing when to cut a scene. The impact of Antoine’s answers is not the same if it weren’t for those abrupt jump cuts that instantly go from one response to the next question.
“The 400 Blows has its place in cinema, not only because of how iconic it is to the French New Wave, but also because it is one of the most humanistic films ever made.”
Editing is also put at work in more simple scenarios, like moving from one place to another. These simple cuts let us view the environment in which Antoine is growing up. The streets of Paris have never been more beautiful than when it’s watched from the point of view of someone raised up there.
François Truffaut was born with this film. A film that has so much of him, not only as an innate auteur, but also because this is his story. He chose Jean-Pierre Léaud to be his lead because he saw so much of him in the kid, and his decision made of him one of the most renowned actors in French Cinema history. Then again, this film is carried by Jean-Pierre as much as any veteran actor or actress would’ve done.
The 400 Blows has its place in cinema, not only because of how iconic it is to the French New Wave, but also because it is one of the most humanistic films ever made. Which is probably the main
reason people love it in the first place. If movies don’t evoke this feeling of empathy and question our decisions as the humans we are, aren’t we wasting our life watching and loving them?
Truffaut, as many others before and after him, made sure his talent wasn’t wasted, and elevated cinema to something more than entertainment. Even when the methods he and his contemporaries used weren’t the most conventional ones.
This film, like most of the French New Wave films, revolutionized how films were going to be made and the purpose of telling x or y story in this specific art-form. Cinema will always continue to evolve because there will always be stories to tell that only this art-form can reproduce, and the way it’s done might be as influential as The 400 Blows is to many of the filmmakers of today.
