Quatre cents coups, Les (1959)

Director:

François Truffaut

Writers:

François Truffaut (scenario)
Marcel Moussy (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

16 November 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Angel faces hell-bent for violence.

Plot:

Intensley touching story of a misunderstood young adolescent who left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

Plot Keywords:

Nouvelle Vague | Family Relationships | Semi Autobiographical | Reform School | Sea

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 5 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Jean-Pierre Léaud	...	Antoine Doinel
Claire Maurier	...	Gilberte Doinel, the Mother
Albert Rémy	...	Julien Doinel
Guy Decomble	...	'Petite Feuille', the French teacher
Georges Flamant	...	Mr. Bigey
Patrick Auffay	...	René
Daniel Couturier	...	Les enfants
François Nocher	...	Les enfants
Richard Kanayan	...	Les enfants
Renaud Fontanarosa	...	Les enfants
Michel Girard	...	Les enfants
Henry Moati	...	Les enfants
Bernard Abbou	...	Les enfants
Jean-François Bergouignan	...	Les enfants
Michel Lesignor	...	Les enfants

Also Known As:

The Four Hundred Blows (Canada: English title) (UK) (USA)
400 coups, Les (France) (alternative spelling)
The 400 Blows (USA)

Runtime:

99 min | Spain:92 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

France:U | South Korea:All (2003) | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Finland:K-8 (1966) | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (re-rating) (2001) | UK:PG (video rating) (1993) | West Germany:16 | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Avenue Frochot, Paris, France

Company:

Les Films du Carrosse

Trivia:

When Antoine and Rene are suspended from school, they go gallivanting around the town. At one point they pass a wall of posters and flyers, and they pull off a picture of a woman. The woman is Harriet Andersson in a shot from Ingmar Bergman's Sommaren med Monika (1953), also about two young lovers who ran away from home to "live their own life."

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: At the end of the gravity wheel sequence, the camera pans up to look at the crowd showing the boom mike in the centre of the screen.

Quotes:

Julien Doinel: I have no socks left around these holes.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "The Simpsons: Any Given Sundance (#19.18)" (2008)

"N'Oublie Pas Les Ordures"

So here it is, the landmark film which ushered in the Nouvelle Vague, introduced Francois Truffaut and his screen persona Antoine Doinel to the world, and changed the direction of cinema for ever. And an impressive piece of work it is, too.

By 1959 the process of film-making had atrophied (artistically, at any rate). Stale and stagey artifice was the norm, and for the upcoming generation of film-makers and critics (Truffaut was both) a new way of conceiving cinematic art had to be found. In this, his feature film debut, Truffaut found it.

This is cinema verite at its freshest and best. The film looks like a documentary and absolutely drips with kitchen-sink candour. A handheld camera follows Antoine around his parents' flat and we get to peer in on the grimy, cramped and oh-so-ordinary minutiae of a humble little life. "Don't forget the garbage," Antoine is repeatedly told, and Truffaut certainly doesn't. He pulls off with resounding success the seemingly impossible feat of making the mundane seem entirely absorbing.

"C'est peut-etre un question de glandes," suggests a teacher as we see the adolescent Antoine go quietly off the rails. Paris (or more accurately, that part of Paris bounded by Montmartre and the Gare du Nord) is wintry and stark, the unlovely and prosaic environment in which Antoine functions - or fails to function. Truffaut wants, inter alia, to deflate the "April In Paris" myth so virulent in the 1950's. He succeeds mightily. Antoine is disaffected. Parents, home and school are all inhospitable and the sleety, foggy streets south of Pigalle convey Antoine's alienation admirably.

Deadpan humour is a powerful weapon in Truffaut's armoury. Antoine's inept note-forging, the outlandish excuse which he gives for his absence and his long-suffering look during his mother's reminiscences are all nicely done and raise a chuckle. The bird's-eye view of the P.T. class, shot with a rooftop camera, conveys wordlessly the comedy of the rapidly diminishing line of pupils.

A punch and judy show is filmed from inside the performance canopy, looking out onto the audience of small children. Their total lack of artifice is delightful to see, and underscores Truffaut's point - candour is beautiful, staginess is unacceptable. As Antoine's father frogmarches him along the street after the typewriter debacle, bemused passers-by stop to stare at the camera. Not only is this disarmingly honest, it is also profound. Cinema should exist, as it were, inside the camera, not in elaborate sets. Antoine rides in the spinning drum at the fairground, the camera fixed rigidly on him, allowing the onlookers to dissolve into an undistinguished blur. The camera IS Antoine's subjective self.

The performance of 15-year-old Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine is astonishingly good. He is natural and engaging, and his soliloquy (delivered to the psychologist) seems an incredible piece of work for so young an actor.

A long, long tracking shot accompanies Antoine as he runs away from it all, and is intended to convey, by the very rhythm of his breathing, the internal subjectivity of a child who has been let down by his parents and his society. The final freeze-frame, with no histrionic fireworks, no resounding words and no tidy denouement, closes the film on a note of immense emotional power. Antoine is alone.