Barnes & Noble

One of the films that put the French new wave on the international map, The 400 Blows also marked the transformation of François Truffaut from influential critic (at the Cahiers du Cinema) to influential director. The semiautobiographical movie about the adolescent Antoine Doinel, seemingly embarking on a life of crime, eschews sentimentality and easy extremes -- Antoine is no monster; his crimes are hardly outrageous -- to paint a sympathetic, if unblinking, portrait of the boy and his milieu (parents, school, pals, Paris). Jean-Pierre Leaud, in the first of his many portrayals of Truffaut's alter ego, is utterly believable as Antoine, the hard-luck kid with a taste for Balzac and cinema who is on the brink of adulthood in a slipshod world. Truffaut, one of the most beloved of all movie directors, started his career with a masterpiece: With its honesty, charm, humor, psychological acuity, and freewheeling visual language, The 400 Blows embodies all the virtues of the French New Wave. Rachel Saltz

Barnes & Noble

Perhaps the lodestar of the French New Wave, François Truffaut's first film, The 400 Blows, is a visually compelling story of ill-fated youth in 1950s Paris that juxtaposes the free-spirited abandon of adolescence against the claustrophobic background of a dysfunctional family. Antoine Doinel, a stand-in for Truffaut in his own youth (Jean-Pierre Léaud), is the worst student in his rambunctious class, and his parents are constantly called upon to drag him from school for his various misadventures. All of the adults in his life, from his mother and father (Claire Maurier and Albert Rémy) to his teacher (Guy Decomble), shrink from taking responsibility for his upbringing. Doinel is soon out on the streets with his friend René (Patrick Auffray), sleeping anywhere but home, and eventually stealing a typewriter from his father's office. The consequences are swift and severe, and Doinel is soon a juvenile delinquent in the hands of the state. In addition to celebrating the gritty beauty of postwar Paris, Truffaut employs artistic and spiritual whimsy in the story, setting a tone that was to become familiar in the films of the director's New Wave contemporaries, such as Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer. Above all, though, The 400 Blows reverberates with the exuberance of children in a world made for grown-ups, crying out for their freedom in a world that suffocates dreams. Matthew Johnson

All Movie Guide

For his feature-film debut, critic-turned-director François Truffaut drew inspiration from his own troubled childhood. The 400 Blows stars {|Jean-Pierre Léaud|} as Antoine Doinel, Truffaut's preteen alter ego. Misunderstood at home by his parents and tormented in school by his insensitive teacher (Guy Decomble), Antoine frequently runs away from both places. The boy finally quits school after being accused of plagiarism by his teacher. He steals a typewriter from his father (Albert Remy) to finance his plans to leave home. The father angrily turns Antoine over to the police, who lock the boy up with hardened criminals. A psychiatrist at a delinquency center probes Antoine's unhappiness, which he reveals in a fragmented series of monologues. Originally intended as a 20-minute short, The 400 Blows was expanded into a feature when Truffaut decided to elaborate on his self-analysis. For the benefit of Truffaut's fellow film buffs, The 400 Blows is full of brief references to favorite directors, notably Truffaut's then-idol Jean Vigo. The film won the 1959 Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival, even though Truffaut had been declared persona non grata the year before for his inflammatory comments about the festival's commercialism. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 715515017527
• Source: CRITERION
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: B&W, Wide Screen
• Editions: Subtitled
• Time: 1:39:00
• Sales Rank: 427

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• The Adventures of Antoine Doinel
• Essential Art House, Vol. 2

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