This page is to obtain access to the Sands Films Cinema Club presentation ONLINE
To attend in person, please CLICK HERE
*
Les 400 Coups
François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows has drawn a measure of affection perhaps equalled only by The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, King Vidor, 1939) and La strada (Federico Fellini, 1954). Some rainy days the head says Bresson but we pop The 400 Blows into the DVD player instead. Some of us grew up with this film and don’t know where Antoine Doinel ends and ourselves begin.
Antoine, Truffaut’s alter ego, is, of course, the world’s most famous schoolboy. Priceless scenes take place in the classroom, reveling in the lively pupils’ dear, quirky behavior. Truffaut once said the only reason to make films with children is to express your love for children. Few films are so full of love as Les quatre cents coups—this, despite the fact that it perfectly blends objective realism and personal commitment.
Here, Paris, the City of Lights, the City of Love, is also the City of Adolescence, rendered in gorgeous black and white by cinematographer Henri Decaë. A liberated use of camera is one of the hallmarks of the nouvelle vague. Like Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (1933), Truffaut’s film is an anthem of freedom.
Antoine’s troubled home life leads to his delinquency. His mother and stepfather have him put into a reformatory. Antoine’s escape is unforgettable: the stirring, aching tracking shot of his flight through the countryside, resolved in the single most celebrated shot in all of cinema: at shore, a startling freeze frame of the boy, who, with no place to run, blindly faces us—we (frozen, too) who cannot reach him to comfort him.
Fourteen-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud’s monumental, heart-piercing performance as Antoine, is, along with Chaplin’s in City Lights (1931), perhaps cinema’s most cherished. And dear Jean-Pierre is still acting, confounding late ’80s reports he had passed on.
Dennis Grunes
The 400 Blows
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
- Year:
- 1959
- Runtime:
- 99 minutes
- Language:
- English, French
- Director:
- François Truffaut
- Screenwriter:
- François Truffaut
- Producer:
- François Truffaut
- Cast:
- Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy
- Cinematographer:
- Henri Decaë
- Editor:
- Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte
- Composer:
- Jean Constantin
This page is to obtain access to the Sands Films Cinema Club presentation ONLINE
To attend in person, please CLICK HERE
*
Les 400 Coups
François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows has drawn a measure of affection perhaps equalled only by The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, King Vidor, 1939) and La strada (Federico Fellini, 1954). Some rainy days the head says Bresson but we pop The 400 Blows into the DVD player instead. Some of us grew up with this film and don’t know where Antoine Doinel ends and ourselves begin.
Antoine, Truffaut’s alter ego, is, of course, the world’s most famous schoolboy. Priceless scenes take place in the classroom, reveling in the lively pupils’ dear, quirky behavior. Truffaut once said the only reason to make films with children is to express your love for children. Few films are so full of love as Les quatre cents coups—this, despite the fact that it perfectly blends objective realism and personal commitment.
Here, Paris, the City of Lights, the City of Love, is also the City of Adolescence, rendered in gorgeous black and white by cinematographer Henri Decaë. A liberated use of camera is one of the hallmarks of the nouvelle vague. Like Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite (1933), Truffaut’s film is an anthem of freedom.
Antoine’s troubled home life leads to his delinquency. His mother and stepfather have him put into a reformatory. Antoine’s escape is unforgettable: the stirring, aching tracking shot of his flight through the countryside, resolved in the single most celebrated shot in all of cinema: at shore, a startling freeze frame of the boy, who, with no place to run, blindly faces us—we (frozen, too) who cannot reach him to comfort him.
Fourteen-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud’s monumental, heart-piercing performance as Antoine, is, along with Chaplin’s in City Lights (1931), perhaps cinema’s most cherished. And dear Jean-Pierre is still acting, confounding late ’80s reports he had passed on.
Dennis Grunes
The 400 Blows
For young Parisian boy Antoine Doinel, life is one difficult situation after another. Surrounded by inconsiderate adults, including his neglectful parents, Antoine spends his days with his best friend, Rene, trying to plan for a better life. When one of their schemes goes awry, Antoine ends up in trouble with the law, leading to even more conflicts with unsympathetic authority figures.
- Year:
- 1959
- Runtime:
- 99 minutes
- Language:
- English, French
- Director:
- François Truffaut
- Screenwriter:
- François Truffaut
- Producer:
- François Truffaut
- Cast:
- Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy
- Cinematographer:
- Henri Decaë
- Editor:
- Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte
- Composer:
- Jean Constantin