Rich Man’s Rebel Without A Cause: I love both of these movies, and they’re both 5 stars in my book. But Francois Truffaut’s 400 Blows seems to have aged better, so I’m giving the gold to 400 and James Dean will have to be content with silver.
★★★★★
Like The Outsiders or Rebel Without A Cause, Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is a poignant look at a sympathetic young man who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Antoine Doinel, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, has been labeled by every adult in his life as a troublemaker and a bother. When we first meet Antoine, he is caught with a pin-up calendar that was passed around the whole class. Antoine’s luck is no good. The people who should know him best, his parents, don’t seem to know him at all. His mother thinks he is a bother ruining their peace and quiet. She works late and is distracted by her affairs and their abject poverty. His step-father tries to make friends, but when the going gets rough and actual parenting is required, he would rather not get involved. His parents do not know him and rather judge him based on his appearances, as does every other adult in the film.
Unlike some other movies with heavy plotlines, The 400 Blows is not a marathon of sadness until the screen goes black. Like any childhood, there are moments of sadness and moments of joy. In one particularly touching scene, Antoine lights a candle for his cherished author Balzac and accidentally starts a fire in the small apartment. After being rebuked and threatened by his father, all is forgiven and the family spends the night at a movie. They leave the theater hand-in-hand, laughing. Sadly, this will be one of the last happy moments for Antoine. After getting in even more trouble, his parents give up on him and he is brought to jail. In one of the saddest moments of the movie, Antoine rides in the back of a paddy wagon, surrounded by thieves and prostitutes. With his coat collar is pulled tightly against his neck, he tearfully watches Paris roll by through the bars of the car.
Like most foreign films, it took me a while to get used to the subtitles, but this is my only gripe against what was otherwise a fantastic movie. The 400 Blows is tragic, sweet, funny, and dreadfully sad all at the same time. It is Francois Truffaut’s first feature film, and while some of his inexperience can be seen in the editing, the film’s message and characters shine through. Like The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut Are You Experienced?, you can see gaps that a more practiced filmmaker would have caught, but there is beauty in the raw talent and power of artist that doesn’t know what the rules are. It’s no wonder this film is one of the defining films of the French New Wave.
The 400 Blows is currently streaming on Hulu, along with a lot of the criterion collection. Check ‘em out.
Next week Josh is watching No Country For Old Men. It’s a fucking travesty that Josh hasn’t seen this movie. Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Tommy Lee Jones killed it in this fantastically quiet piece of cinema.
cinemateur 