The 400 Blows

Francois Truffaut’s much acclaimed and semi-autobiographical ‘coming-of-age’ drama THE 400 BLOWS also marked his directorial debut and not only garnered him a ‘Best Director’ award at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival but scored numerous other awards. Now the BFI has released this French New Wave classic in a brand-new 4K restoration available as Blu-ray and via digital platforms.

12-year old Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a young Parisian lad who not only feels misunderstood by his parents, as neither of them ever seems to have much time for him. His stepfather Julien (Albert Rémy) earns a meagre living working in an office and at the weekend usually attends the races. Mum Gilberte (Claire Maurier) works part-time when not busy with housework though it doesn’t stop her investing a lot of time on her good looks. The parents usually bicker over finances (or the lack of it, rather) - in addition, Gilberte never misses any opportunity to blame her husband for his apparent lack of ambition when not feeling irritated by her son. No wonder Antoine prefers to spend his time outside this troubled domestic environment but things don’t fare much better at school. A daydreamer and compulsive liar by nature he doesn’t see eye to eye with his stern teacher (Guy Decomble) who the pupils refer to as ‘Sourpuss’. Together with his best friend René Bigey (Patrick Auffay) Antoine more often than not skips class and indulges in petty theft while the two of them wander the streets of Paris trying hard to come up with some excuses as to why they didn’t attend class (yet again). During one incident Antoine almost manages to earn teacher Sourpuss’ sympathy when he pretends that his poor mother died years ago as a result of which he often feels morbid and absentminded during class. Unfortunately for the troubled teenager, both his stepdad and his mum turn up at the school a couple of days later when a worried classmate of Antoine’s had enquired about his apparent illness after he’d failed to turn up for class. Seeing how his mother is in fact very much alive and realising that the boy continually lies the minute he opens his mouth some harsh disciplinary action is suggested though Julien blames his stressed-out wife for being too harsh with her son, thus pushing him away.

For a short while things seem to improve until both boys skip school again and stroll along the streets in a carefree manner when Antoine spots his mum standing on a corner passionately kissing a man… who isn’t his stepdad! Mon dieu! Likewise, Gilberte spots her son and is perplexed that he isn’t in school when he should be – however, for obvious reasons the incident isn’t mentioned by either during dinner. After a long talk with his mum she promises to nurture his creative side if he promises to attend school regularly from now on. The ‘deal’ seems to work (at least for a while) and Antoine, who adores French novelist Honoré de Balzac, builds a makeshift-shrine in his bedroom which is nothing more than a little cabinet with photos of Balzac and pages from some of his works. One evening Antoine lights a candle next to Balzac’s photo – a folly which almost burns the flat down! His incensed father want to punish him for his irresponsible behaviour though mum, anxious to maintain the domestic peace, suggests they should all go to the pictures instead. When teacher Sourpuss asks his pupils to write an essay, Antoine has no qualms about quoting entire sentences from some of Balzac’s works. Unfortunately Monsieur ‘Sourpuss’ is only too familiar with the great man’s work and accuses Antoine of shamelessly plagiarizing the great French novelist. After another spat in the classroom Antoine decides enough is enough and runs away for the umpteenth time – swearing never ever to return. After various petty thefts Antoine manages to enter his stepdad’s workplace and steal his typewriter with the intention of selling it. Too bad that it’s an extremely heavy model and neither he nor René have much luck flogging it any time soon, in fact, both boys get fed up schlepping the heavy object around. Therefore Antoine decides it’s best to return it to his stepdad’s workplace but no prices for guessing he gets caught. No more pardons this time – his stepdad has finally had enough and drags Antoine to the local police station to report his stepson for theft and vagrancy. The parents are at their wits end and when Gilberte confesses to the police inspector that Julien is not Antoine’s biological father, a fact which makes the entire situation even more complicated, the inspector suggests that Antoine should be placed in an observation centre for juvenile delinquents to see whether it will improve his character. Suffice to say it’s only a matter of time before Antoine manages to escape and – free as the wind – runs to the nearby seashore as this is a spot he had always wanted to visit.

Anyone who ever read about director Truffaut’s childhood will observe the similarities between the fictional Antoine Doinel and his own troubled upbringing what with him being born out of wedlock (just like Antoine) and being passed from nanny to nanny and finally to his grandmother before his biological mother and his stepfather took him in when he was eight years old. Just like the character Antoine, Truffaut hated school and authority and had a lifelong best friend in Robert Lacheney (who later on would become a film critic) and served as the inspiration for Antoine’s best friend René Bigey. Although the character of Antoine Doinel is fictional (though based on Truffaut), he would re-appear in some later films in what the director referred to as his ‘Antoine Doinel Cycle’.

Gloriously restored in 4K, THE 400 BLOWS (LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS) offers the following Special Features:
Commentary by Robert Lachenay; screen test footage from 1957 with Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay and Richard Kanayan; Truffaut’s 1957 short film ‘Les Mistons’ about a bunch of mischievous school friends on summer holiday; archive footage of Paris from 1901 – 1914; Film academic C. Wheatley’s presentation on Truffaut, Bazin and Renoir; Trailers; Image gallery and Illustrated booklet (first pressing only).