movie review 400 blows

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the 400 blows.

Now streaming on:

-- Francois Truffaut

Francois Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" (1959) is one of the most intensely touching stories ever made about a young adolescent. Inspired by Truffaut's own early life, it shows a resourceful boy growing up in Paris and apparently dashing headlong into a life of crime. Adults see him as a troublemaker. We are allowed to share some of his private moments, as when he lights a candle before a little shrine to Balzac in his bedroom. The film's famous final shot, a zoom in to a freeze frame, shows him looking directly into the camera. He has just run away from a house of detention, and is on the beach, caught between land and water, between past and future. It is the first time he has seen the sea.

Antoine Doinel was played by Jean-Pierre Leaud , who has a kind of solemn detachment, as if his heart had suffered obscure wounds long before the film began. This was the first in a long collaboration between actor and director; they returned to the character in the short film "Antoine and Collette" (1962) and three more features: "Stolen Kisses" (1968), " Bed and Board " (1970) and "Love on the Run" (1979).

The later films have their own merits, and "Stolen Kisses" is one of Truffaut's best, but "The 400 Blows," with all its simplicity and feeling, is in a class by itself. It was Truffaut's first feature, and one of the founding films of the French New Wave. We sense that it was drawn directly out of Truffaut's heart. It is dedicated to Andre Bazin, the influential French film critic who took the fatherless Truffaut under his arm at a time when the young man seemed to stand between life as a filmmaker and life in trouble.

Little is done in the film for pure effect. Everything adds to the impact of the final shot. We meet Antoine when he is in his early teens, and living with his mother and stepfather in a crowded walkup where they always seem to be squeezing out of each other's way. The mother ( Claire Maurier ) is a blond who likes tight sweaters and is distracted by poverty, by her bothersome son, and by an affair with a man from work. The stepfather (Albert Remy) is a nice enough sort, easy-going, and treats the boy in a friendly fashion although he is not deeply attached to him. Both parents are away from home a lot, and neither has the patience to pay close attention to the boy: They judge him by appearances, and by the reports of others who misunderstand him.

At school, Antoine has been typecast by his teacher (Guy Decombie) as a troublemaker. His luck is not good. When a pinup calendar is being passed from hand to hand, his is the hand the teacher finds it in. Sent to stand in the corner, he makes faces for his classmates and writes a lament on the wall. The teacher orders him to decline his offending sentence, as punishment. His homework is interrupted. Rather than return to school without it, he skips. His excuse is that he was sick. After his next absence, he says his mother has died. When she turns up at his school, alive and furious, he is marked as a liar.

And yet we see him in the alcove that serves as his bedroom, deeply wrapped in the work of Balzac, whose chronicles of daily life helped to create France's idea of itself. He loves Balzac. He loves him so well, indeed, that when he's assigned to write an essay on an important event in his life, he describes "the death of my grandfather'' in a close paraphrase of Balzac, whose words have lodged in his memory. This is seen not as homage but as plagiarism, and leads to more trouble and eventually to a downward spiral: He and a friend steal a typewriter, he gets caught trying to return it and is sent to the juvenile detention home.

The film's most poignant moments show him set adrift by his parents and left to the mercy of social services. His parents discuss him sadly with authorities as a lost cause ("If he came home, he would only run away again''). And so he is booked in a police station, placed in a holding cell and put in a police wagon with prostitutes and thieves, to be driven through the dark streets of Paris, his face peering out through the bars like a young Dickensian hero. He has a similar expression at other times in the film, which is shot in black and white in Paris in a chill season; Antoine always has the collar of his jacket turned up against the wind.

Truffaut's film is not a dirge or entirely a tragedy. There are moments of fun and joy (the title is an idiom meaning "raising hell''). One priceless sequence, shot looking down from above the street, shows a physical education teacher leading the boys on a jog through Paris; two by two they peel off, until the teacher is at the head of a line of only two or three boys. The happiest moment in the film comes after one of Antoine's foolish mistakes. He lights a candle to Balzac, which sets the little cardboard shrine on fire. His parents put out the flames, but then for once their exasperation turns to forgiveness, and the whole family goes to the movies and laughs on the way home.

There is a lot of moviegoing in "The 400 Blows," with Antoine's solemn face turned up to the screen. We know that young Truffaut himself escaped to the movies whenever he could, and there is a shot here that he quotes later in his career. As Antoine and a friend emerge from a cinema, Antoine steals one of the lobby photos of a star. In " Day for Night " (1973), which stars Truffaut himself as a film director, there is a flashback memory to the character, as a boy, stealing down a dark street to snatch a still of " Citizen Kane " from in front of a theater.

The cinema saved Francois Truffaut's life, he said again and again. It took a delinquent student and gave him something to love, and with the encouragement of Bazin he became a critic and then made this film by his 27th birthday. If the New Wave marks the dividing point between classic and modern cinema (and many think it does), then Truffaut is likely the most beloved of modern directors -- the one whose films resonated with the deepest, richest love of moviemaking. He liked to resurrect old effects (the iris shots in " The Wild Child ," narration in many of his films) and pay tribute (" The Bride Wore Black " and "Mississippi Mermaid" owe much to his hero, Hitchcock).

Truffaut (1932-1984) died too young, of a brain tumor, at 52, but he left behind 21 films, not counting shorts and screenplays. His " Small Change " (1976) returns to the sharply remembered world of the classroom, to students younger than Doinel, and recalls the almost unbearable tension as the clock on the wall creeps toward the final bell. Even while directing a film a year, he found time to write about other films and directors, and did a classic book-length, film-by-film interview with Hitchcock.

One of his most curious, haunting films is "The Green Room" (1978), based on the Henry James story "The Altar of the Dead," about a man and a woman who share a passion for remembering their dead loved ones. Jonathan Rosenbaum, who thinks "The Green Room" may be Truffaut's best film, told me he thinks of it as the director's homage to the auteur theory. That theory, created by Bazin and his disciples (Truffaut, Godard, Resnais, Chabrol, Rohmer, Malle), declared that the director was the true author of a film -- not the studio, the screenwriter, the star, the genre. If the figures in the green room stand for the great directors of the past, perhaps there is a shrine there now to Truffaut. One likes to think of the ghost of Antoine Doinel lighting a candle before it.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

Matt Zoller Seitz

Sleeping Dogs

Brian tallerico.

Clint Worthington

Space: The Longest Goodbye

Marya e. gates.

The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem

Film credits.

The 400 Blows (1959)

Latest blog posts.

Man on the Moon Is Still the Cure for the Biopic Blues

Part of the Solution: Matthew Modine on Acting, Empathy, and Hard Miles

The Imperiled Women of Alex Garland’s Films

The Jinx – Part Two Continues One of the Most Fascinating True Crime Sagas of All Time

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Abigail Link to Abigail
• Civil War Link to Civil War
• Arcadian Link to Arcadian

New TV Tonight

• The Sympathizer: Season 1
• Conan O'Brien Must Go: Season 1
• Under the Bridge: Season 1
• The Spiderwick Chronicles: Season 1
• Our Living World: Season 1
• Orlando Bloom: To the Edge: Season 1
• The Circle: Season 6
• Dinner with the Parents: Season 1
• Jane: Season 2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Fallout: Season 1
• Baby Reindeer: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• Sugar: Season 1
• Parasyte: The Grey: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Under the Bridge Link to Under the Bridge
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

All Guy Ritchie Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

All A24 Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Renewed and Cancelled TV Shows 2024

Best Moments From The Migration Movie

• Trending on RT
• Rebel Moon: Part Two - The Scargiver
• The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
• Play Movie Trivia

The 400 Blows

Where to watch.

Watch The 400 Blows with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

A seminal French New Wave film that offers an honest, sympathetic, and wholly heartbreaking observation of adolescence without trite nostalgia.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

François Truffaut

Jean-Pierre Léaud

Antoine Doinel

Claire Maurier

Gilberte Doinel, the Mother

Albert Remy

Julien Doinel

Guy Decomble

'Petite Feuille', the French teacher

Patrick Auffray

Movies in Theaters

Movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Now revived, François Truffaut's semi-autobiographical 1959 debut is one of the French new wave's most accessible and best-loved films.

Jean-Pierre Léaud is Antoine, a tearaway kid perpetually in trouble both in school and at home: his troubled family circumstances are only revealed at the very end - a cool narrative coup. The film looks superb and Antoine's heartbreakingly open face is like Truffaut's monochrome Paris: beautiful, tough, innocent and yet worldly.

There are too many great moments to list in full: the "Wheel of Death" scene at the fair, like the contraption itself, abolishes gravity and becomes weightlessly joyous. The faces of the children are unforgettable. The overhead shot of the kids in single-file behind the gung-ho PE teacher jogging through the Paris streets, gradually sneaking away to bunk off, is inspired, and so is Antoine's plagiarism of Balzac - a demonstration of literary good taste lost on his dullard schoolmaster.

The end sequence, culminating in his arrival at a vast lonely shore, is mysterious. Antoine runs away from his correctional facility, and his escape seems to morph into something else; without an immediate pursuer, it becomes an intuition, or premonition, of the lonely long-distance run he has endured and will continue to endure.

• Francois Truffaut
• Crime films
• World cinema

Most viewed

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The 400 Blows (4K Remaster)

January 15, 2022 by Chris Connor

The 400 Blows , 1959.

Directed by Francois Truffaut. Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier, Patrick Auffay.

A young boy, left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

Alongside the likes of Jean Luc Godard, Jaques Demy and Jean Pierre-Melville, François Truffaut was one of the pioneers of the French New Wave of the 1960s and 70s which produced some of the finest and most innovative films of the era. The filmmakers who owe a debt of gratitude to the era include Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola.  Truffaut’s career is getting a thorough retrospective courtesy of the BFI in January and February and his debut film The 400 Blows remains one of his defining works.

The semi-autobiographical film tells the story of Antoine Doinel, a troubled adolescent who is constantly up to mischief.  Doinel would become a reoccurring feature in Truffaut’s filmography with a further three feature length films depicting his story, culminating in 1979’s Love on the Run (there was also a short film featuring Doinel called Antoine and Colette ).

Jean-Pierre Léaud’s performance is spellbinding and it remarkable to think he was just 15 when the film was released. He excels at selling the nuances of Doinel’s character, and his dissatisfaction at home which leads him to cause trouble for himself.  So much of the film’s potency relies on Léaud and he manages to capture the joys and difficulties of growing up. Doinel is an alter-ego for Truffaut himself and clearly harks back to the director’s own troubled youth, here we can see glimpses at what led to Truffaut’s own love of cinema with the big screen proving escapist entertainment for Antoine.

As with many of the French New Wave classics, The 400 Blows captures the hustle and bustle of Paris as well as its beauty and mystery.  The film’s cinematography is both visually arresting yet murky capturing the post war city and also a lingering sense of gloom. Henri Decaë was one of France’s most celebrated cinematographers and ensures the film looks the part with many standout sequences including the Wheel of Death sequence and the iconic beach set closing scene.  At just over the 90 minute mark Truffaut managed to capture a clear sense of the character of Parisian youth in the late 1950s.

For a movie released over 60 years ago The 400 Blows remains strikingly current and many coming of age films in the decades since clearly owe it a debt of gratitude.  Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast feels heavily indebted to the film, though this is no slur against Belfast itself, such is the clear reverence held for this classic. The film has lost none of its potency, is full of imagination and emotion and superbly acted. It’s all the more remarkable considering it was Truffaut’s debut film and perhaps he could never quite escape its shadow; although later works like Jules and Jim , and Day for Night are also loved in circles, nothing Truffaut released subsequently had quite the same impact.

The 400 Blows still retains much of its prestige, transcending the time from which it came to stand out as one of the finest French films of its era. Jean-Pierre Léaud remains a transfixing presence giving one of the finest child performances of all time and leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of French Cinema.  It can only be recommended to witness this classic on the big screen where it is currently available alongside many of Truffaut’s other best works and we can only hope this introduces many new audiences to the work of one of France’s finest directors.

Flickering Myth Rating : Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Chris Connor

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

The Most Disturbing Horror Movies of the 1980s

An Exploration of Bro Camp: The Best of Campy Guy Movies

Hellboy: Guillermo del Toro’s Occult Superhero Fantasy at 20

10 Essential Films From 1984

15 Great Feel-Good Sing-a-Long Movies

Eli Roth: Ranking the Films of the Horror Icon

The Pink Panther at 60: The Timeless Comedy Caper Revisited

The Film Feud of the 90s: Steven Seagal vs Jean-Claude Van Damme

The Essential One Man Army Action Movies

The Contemporary Queens of Action Cinema

• Comic Books
• Video Games
• Toys & Collectibles
• Articles and Opinions
• About Flickering Myth
• Write for Flickering Myth
• Advertise on Flickering Myth
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

The 400 Blows Review

04 May 1959

400 Blows, The

Along with Godard's Bout De Souffle (also made in 1959), François Truffaut's debut spearheaded the cinematic revolution of the French New Wave.

Antoine Doinel, superbly played by a young Jean-Pierre Lèaud, is unhappy in school and at home, being misunderstood by both the teachers and his parents, and so resolves to leave home and see life for himself.

Now considered to be one of the classic coming-of-age films, this portrait of Lèaud's troubled Parisian adolescence is still vibrant, visually exciting and emotionally resonant.

Buy now on Amazon.

The 400 Blows

• Blu-ray edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
• April 19 2009

See more details, packaging, or compare

François Truffaut’s first feature is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut’s cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows sensitively re-creates the trials of Truffaut’s own childhood, unsentimentally portraying aloof parents, oppressive teachers, and petty crime. The film marked Truffaut’s passage from leading critic to trailblazing auteur of the French New Wave.

Picture 8/10

Extras 8/10

You Might Like

The 400 Blows (DVD)

Day for Night (Blu-ray)

Céline and Julie Go Boating (Blu-ray)

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

The 400 blows, common sense media reviewers.

Landmark French drama of restless, troubled boyhood.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Though strong-willed and independent, Antoine is n

Antoine is slapped once.

A husband playfully grabs his wife's (fully cl

"S--t" and "a--hole" appear in

References made to mid-century French films, books

Much smoking in young Antoine's family, and th

Parents need to know that the 12-year-old boy at the center of this French-language drama is a budding juvenile delinquent who lies, steals, smokes, swears (in subtitles), and repeatedly runs away from home. The plain, unsentimental filmmaking style neither condemns nor glorifies his misdeeds, and there are no easy…

Positive Messages

Though strong-willed and independent, Antoine is neither a "good" nor a "bad" boy, and definitely does things that are not to be imitated, like stealing and running away from home. While he seldom intentionally hurts people, he seems to be missing a sense of right and wrong in pursuit of his own goals -- when Antoine copies a paper in his homework to get a much-desired good grade, he does it so flagrantly that you wonder if he even has any awareness that he's cheating. Mothers, fathers, teachers, and authority figures are generally shown as impatient, distracted, and ill-equipped for guidance. Only other boys in the peer-group seem to exhibit loyalty and true friendship with each other.

Violence & Scariness

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A husband playfully grabs his wife's (fully clothed) breasts. The boy hero is asked by a psychologist if he's had sex (he replies frankly no, but some friends of his have). Mention of out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"S--t" and "a--hole" appear in some subtitled translations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

References made to mid-century French films, books, and diversions, likely to be lost on modern audiences.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Much smoking in young Antoine's family, and the boy himself surreptitiously rolls his own handmade cigarettes. Underage drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that the 12-year-old boy at the center of this French-language drama is a budding juvenile delinquent who lies, steals, smokes, swears (in subtitles), and repeatedly runs away from home. The plain, unsentimental filmmaking style neither condemns nor glorifies his misdeeds, and there are no easy solutions offered, with an especially big question mark at the end. The parents in the film are depicted as ineffective, and Antoine's mother in particular is an adulterous, immature type. A psychological interrogation briefly brings up topics of sex and abortion. Viewers dying to know what happens to Antoine after the final scene can track the same character's young adulthood in several subsequent Francois Truffaut movies. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (5)
• Kids say (4)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Calm, slow and super powerful!

3 stars by today's standards, what's the story.

THE 400 BLOWS is considered a classic in portraying a pained and turbulent male adolescence. Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is a trouble-prone 12-year-old Paris schoolboy, often left unsupervised while both his mother and his stepfather work at separate jobs. While his stepdad seems okay, his pretty mother (who, Antoine realizes, is having an affair with her boss) is less than maternal. Antoine doesn't seem much worse-behaved than his schoolmates, but he's always the one getting caught at wrongdoing, and his defiance spirals into skipping school, thieving, and running away from home. Finally, after trying both loving and strict approaches, the parents give up on Antoine and send him to a camp for juvenile delinquents. In a dialogue with a state psychologist, Antoine reveals, matter-of-factly, that his mother never even wanted him -- that she nearly sought an abortion until being talked out of it by Antoine's grandmother.

Is It Any Good?

This movie's excellent, though a bit heavy for younger kids. In his memoir The Film Club , writer David Gilmour tells how he tried to make his own teen son sit through The 400 Blows ; the boy would only do it if he got to watch the softcore "erotic thriller" Basic Instinct as a reward -- practically an Antoine Doinel moment right there. The Francois Truffaut classic (the illustrious filmmaker's first feature, drawing upon events from his own early life) is revered by older critics like Gilmour even though its virtues might be harder to appreciate for 21st-century kids, who have seen their alienation, school violence, and family dysfunction dramatized much more graphically than did audiences of 1959 (Truffaut doesn't even use that easy symbol of rebellion, rock-and-roll music).

Still, there is quiet power in the stoic way Antoine confronts life's challenges and never sheds a tear despite his seemingly disastrous choices. While not self-pitying, Antoine seems sensitized to the idea that he's all on his own -- that lot of inexperienced parents have kids when they shouldn't, and he is one of the casualties. Returning to collaborate with actor Jean-Pierre Leaud over the years, Truffaut made series of movies, both short subjects and features, following Doinel through manhood and his own bittersweet, failed marriage. These are also on DVD, though not as easy to find as The 400 Blows .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether Antoine Doinel is really a "good" boy or an incorrigible "delinquent." Could have made better choices in life, given his environment and upbringing? Ask kids what they might have done in Antoine's place, or if they know anyone like him. Generations of critics have called this one of the best and most insightful films ever made about boyhood. Agree? Disagree? Students of the French language and culture could take home some lessons from the settings, dialogues, and literary references (such as Balzac).

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 16, 1959
• On DVD or streaming : May 9, 2006
• Cast : Albert Remy , Guy Decomble , Jean-Pierre Leaud
• Director : Francois Truffaut
• Studio : Criterion Collection
• Genre : Classic
• Run time : 93 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : October 8, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

My Life as a Dog

The Bicycle Thief

The Red Balloon

Best classic comedy films, classic books for kids.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Screen Rant

The 400 blows ending & sequels explained.

The 400 Blows is a partially autobiographical masterpiece from French New Wave director François Truffaut, but what does its famous ending mean?

• The 400 Blows ' ambiguous ending leaves viewers without clear answers, mirroring Antoine's uncertain future and Truffaut's artistic journey without his mentor.
• The iconic freeze-frame ending signifies that Antoine's story is just a chapter in his life.
• Viewers wondering what happened to Antoine after The 400 Blows can follow his story in sequels and anthology movies, where he navigates various relationships and experiences.

While François Truffaut's The 400 Blows is a famous addition to the French New Wave, its ambiguous ending leaves viewers without any clear answers. Truffaut was one of the leading voices of the French New Wave movement, and the director helped shape the aesthetic of independent cinema with movies like Jules et Jim , Shoot the Piano Player , and Fahrenheit 451 . However, before any of those projects made him an icon, Truffaut made a name for himself with his 1959 feature directorial debut, the coming-of-age drama The 400 Blows . While The 400 Blows features some of the experimental techniques that Truffaut made famous, the movie is mostly a straightforward Bildungsroman.

Until the film's final shot breaks the fourth wall , The 400 Blow s tells the simple story of Antoine Doinel. A troubled youth with distant parents, he frequently skips school and claims his mother recently died in an attempt to get away with this. Later, he tries to leave home by stealing a typewriter and reselling it but fails when he can’t find a buyer. After getting caught, Antoine spends a night in prison before he's sent to a youth detention center. There, psychologists hear his frustrations but offer no solutions until, eventually, Antoine runs away to a nearby beach. It is there that The 400 Blows ' iconic ending takes place.

Why Is The 400 Blows’ Final Shot A Freeze Frame?

The 400 Blows is famous for its final shot, a freeze-frame that zooms in on Antoine as he stands by the sea and looks back at the camera. The movie spawned four sequels made across decades with actor Jean-Pierre Léaud returning as Antoine Doinel, and this explains why the final shot of The 400 Blows is a sudden freeze-frame, as it signifies that this story is just a chapter in Antoine’s life. The scene mirrors the moment when his mugshot photo was taken earlier, a shot that also includes a zoom into a freeze-frame of Antoine looking uncertain.

The final shot of The 400 Blows is intentionally ambiguous and haunting. Antoine finally sees the sea as he always wanted to, but his expression is unreadable. He could be disappointed that the experience didn’t provide the freedom he yearned for, or he might be worried since he has finally been caught by the youth detention center’s guards. Even if he has escaped the center for good, his puzzled visage might imply that he doesn’t know where to go next. While Truffaut went on to become an essential French New Wave director, he was an unproven young talent when he shot Antoine’s ambiguous ending.

What Happens To Antoine Doinel After The 400 Blows' Ending

While it may take a while to get accustomed to the ambiguous ending of The 400 Blows , viewers wondering what happened to Antoine need not fret. In the 1962 anthology movie Love at Twenty , the character pursues a music student during the segment titled "Antoine and Colette." In 1968’s Stolen Kisses , an older Antoine is discharged from the military and starts a relationship with Christine before later beginning an affair with his boss’s wife. In 1970’s Bed and Board , Antoine has married Christine but is now enamored with another young woman. Finally, in 1979’s Love on the Run , Christine and Antoine divorce as he pursues a record seller, Sabine.

How Much Of The 400 Blows Was Based On Truffaut's Life

A lot of The 400 Blows was lifted directly from François Truffaut’s real life. According to an essay on the Criterion Collection website, the filmmaker really did run away from home at the age of 11, and he falsely claimed that a terrible fate had befallen a parent to get out of trouble for truancy. In reality, though, the lie was not about his mother having died. Truffaut claimed that his father had been arrested by the Germans when, in reality, he'd never met his biological father. Truffaut was also turned over to the police for numerous petty thefts, but unlike Antoine, he had a friend to help him out.

What Does The 400 Blows’ Title Mean?

The title The 400 Blows is not, as is frequently misinterpreted, a reference to the many trials faced by the hero. Instead, according to The Guardian , The 400 Blows is a literal translation of a French idiom similar to “raising hell." In this context, the title refers to Antoine’s search for meaning in rebellion. There is an argument to be made that Truffaut himself reached for meaning in rebellion in his subsequent movies, as the likes of Jules et Jim and Shoot the Piano Player daringly ignored the conventions of traditional cinema in favor of something more innovative and original.

Who Was André Bazin & Why Was The 400 Blows Dedicated To Him?

André Bazin was an influential film critic who helped shape the French New Wave through his theories of realism and personalism, which expounded at length in the magazine Cahiers du Cinema . The 400 Blows is dedicated to him since Bazin, who'd just died in November 1958, was a father figure to Truffaut, unlike the director’s distant adoptive father and unknown biological father. Bazin was also an early proponent of auteur theory, the idea that directors have a signature style that defines their work.

The Real Meaning Of The 400 Blows' Ending

Like many great French New Wave movies , The 400 Blows is more interested in the emotions of its hero than in conforming to traditional narrative forms. Antoine’s story feels unfinished on purpose since Truffaut was using the character as an autobiographical stand-in. Around the time the filmmaker shot his debut movie, his mentor and surrogate father Andre Bazin had just passed away. This gave Truffaut creative freedom while also depriving him of a sense of safety and a reliable source of help.

As Antoine stares out at the ocean in freeze-frame, he's as unsure of his future as the director was of his own artistic journey. Truffaut went on to become a confident filmmaker with an instantly recognizable style that marked him as a generational talent. However, at this point in his career, he was effectively a young rebel disregarding the rules of the establishment and trying to forge a path of his own. The ending of The 400 Blows sees both director and hero wonder what is next for them as Antoine looks toward the world of adult life while Truffaut considers what his directorial style will be without Bazin’s guidance.

The 400 Blows review – François Truffaut’s sad and spirited ode to childhood

The autobiographical 1959 French New Wave classic about a young boy with nowhere to turn has lost none of its poignant charm

07 Jan 2022

The legendary French New Wave director François Truffaut arguably left his biggest mark on cinema with this autobiographical grappling with his own adolescence:  The 400 Blows is a sad and scrappy story of a wayward childhood, beautifully photographed on the streets of 1950s Paris, and now back on the big screen to coincidence with the BFI's new season dedicated to the influential French filmmaker.

That odd title has always been the subject of confusion. What are the blows, exactly? I had always assumed they referred to a metaphorical assault, the film's hero as a punching bag for a bitter older generation. In fact, it's the result of a translation of a French idiom that was lost in translation – the film's original French title meant something closer to “raising hell.” That's one way to describe the renegade spirit of its hero, Antoine Doinel, the Truffaut surrogate unforgettably played by Jean-Pierre Léaud (and who would inhabit the role again across a short and four more features). His Antoine is a tearaway, but he's also intelligent, sweet, and misun derstood, not to mention perpetually at war with his selfish, adulterous mother.

This is a film that is constantly in search of itself, much in the vein of its frustrated protagonist. True to the New Wave, it mostly unravels as a scattered collection of scenes and moments before it ditches its spontaneousness for a darker story about institutionalisation in the final reel. There are touching scenes between Antoine and his naive, playful father in their cramped, cold apartment, where Antoine sleeps curled in a sleeping bag in a hallway and listens to his parents as they bicker in the next room. But he is liberated, like us, whenever he takes to the streets of Paris, captured here in gorgeous monochrome by the cinematographer Henri Decaë. Eventually, Antoine steals a typewriter and is packed off to an institution for juvenile delinquents, before he liberates himself and flees for the coast, his lengthy flight caught in an extended long take that has come to exemplify the spirit of the French New Wave in modern day homages – only the circumstances here are far less happy.

Léaud gives such a relaxed, unselfconscious performance – sympathetic without any of the mugging to camera we tend to associate with child actors. At times, observing him feels like watching footage from a documentary, a French edition of Michael Apted's Up ! series. And the last shot is haunting – not so different to the final moment in the harrowing Russian war film Come and See , where the innocence of youth has been stripped away to reveal something lost and broken in the eyes of its hero. We don't realise until it happens that the film has been building towards this stark moment of desperation, a freeze-frame and a face that asks the audience: “What now?” In the end, it was the cinema that saved Truffaut, but things work out quite differently for Antoine.

The 400 Blows is now showing in select UK cinemas.

More Reviews...

The Innocent review – 60s-inspired heist movie with an existential twist

In his fourth feature film, writer-director Louis Garrel explores with wit and tenderness the risk and worth of second chances

Baato review – Nepal’s past and future collide in an immersive, fraught documentary

A mountain trek intertwines with a road-building project, granting incisive, if underpowered, insight into a much underseen world

The Beanie Bubble review – a grim new low for the “corporate biopic” genre

With none of the saving graces of Tetris, Air, or Barbie, this ambition-free look at the Beanie Baby craze is pure mediocrity

Everybody Loves Jeanne review – thoroughly modern fable of grief, romantic confusion, and climate anxiety

Celine Deveaux's French-Portuguese debut can be too quirky for its own good, but a fantastically written lead character keeps it afloat

Repertory Rundown: What to Watch in London This Week, From Little Women to Sergio Leone

From classics to cult favourites, our team highlight some of the best one-off screenings and re-releases showing this week in the capital

Repertory Rundown: What to Watch in London This Week, From Coppola to Cross of Iron

20 Best Films of 2023 (So Far)

With the year at the halfway point, our writers choose their favourite films, from daring documentaries to box office bombs

Repertory Rundown: What to Watch in London This Week, From Mistress America to The Man Who Wasn’t There

The Definitives

Critical essays, histories, and appreciations of great films

The 400 Blows

Essay by brian eggert february 6, 2012.

François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows is a landmark of the French New Wave movement and, in broader terms, and perhaps more importantly, the emergence of auteur filmmaking. Truffaut’s film was among the first, and easily the most well received, to implement ideals outlined by a group of upstart film critics writing in the film journal Cahiers du cinéma , most of which would become New Wave filmmakers. Along with Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol, Truffaut’s harsh criticism demanded new styles and themes for the artistically dwindling French “Tradition of Quality” in cinema, which had become mired in polished, yet stodgy historical dramas and dull literary adaptations maintained by an older generation of directors. With his 1959 full-length debut, Truffaut practiced what he had so ardently preached in New Wave avowals. Through his autobiographical construct, the enduring character Antoine Doinel, a young outcast played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, Truffaut would explore his own childhood in a deeply tender demonstration of how the film director is also the film author.

Today, Truffaut’s film may seem rather common, being a coming-of-age tale in which a youth, propelled by his distain for his parents and the general misery of being a teenager, sets out to run amuck, gets himself into serious trouble, and resolves to run away. Indeed, the title in French, Les Quatre cents coups , comes from an expression meaning to “raise hell”. To fully appreciate the dynamism of Truffaut’s film, however, one must place themselves in the mid-1950s in France, where the complacency of the film industry led to ruthless attacks from the writers in Cahiers du cinéma . By 1958 and even more so in the subsequent year, the first films by New Wave directors, many of them critics-turned-filmmakers, had begun to appear. Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (1958) and Les Cousins (1959), Louis Malle’s The Lovers (1958), Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour (1959), and Godard’s Breathless (1960) showed the first signs that a change to the French film industry had arrived. The New Wave would come to represent the dividing movement between classical and modern filmmaking.

In doing this, Cahiers du cinéma authors noted how their own national cinema had become bogged down by the old ways. But this was not an awareness exclusive to the film industry; a series of economic, societal, and technological factors aligned to spawn a new creative consciousness that found its most profound result in the cinematic art form. France had experienced a cultural resurgence in the years following World War II, with a national effort to rebuild, most noticeably in the automobile and television industries. All things “old” soon signified the non-newness that France’s youth culture rebelled against. During this uprising of sorts, with growing markets all around, the film industry experienced what Pierre Billard, the editor for the magazine Cinéma ,called “the depletion of inspiration, sterilization of subject matter, and static aesthetic conditions”. With a few rare exceptions including the works of Jacques Tati, Robert Bresson, and Jacques Becker, tragically, cinema, the highest of modern art forms, had become a most apparent symptom of a cultural downturn. As a reaction to this, the Cahiers du cinéma authors called for less labored, less industry standard film-making. And when the industry failed to listen, the unruly critics became filmmakers themselves.

Their method would contrast what had become commonplace in the industry, drawing heavily from filmic sources inside Hollywood, Italian Neorealism, and 1930s French filmmakers like Renoir. Instead of heavy polish and high production values, New Wave directors would shoot fast and cheap at real-life locations; their subjects would move outside of the typical norms and often involve lower middle-class youth (it was, after all, a movement driven by lower middle-class youths). The booming industry would only help their cause, as suddenly minor producers could invest in a cheap film that would, in turn, produce a modest profit and favorable critical response; although, it helped that many of the critics in French film journals were or would soon be fellow filmmakers in full support of the New Wave movement. By 1959, as their movement surfaced and The 400 Blows was selected to represent France at the Cannes Film Festival, Godard, ever the iconoclast, rallied against his elder generation of directors in an issue of the journal Arts . He wrote, “Your camera movements are ugly because your subjects are bad, your casts act badly because your dialogue is worthless; in a word, you don’t know how to create cinema because you no longer even know what it is.” How appropriate then that, in spearheading a movement determined to raise so much hell, Truffaut’s aptly titled film mined the critic-turned-director’s own childhood experiences and delivered an affecting portrait of youth. In The 400 Blows , Truffaut’s camera movements are dynamic because his subject is impassioned, his cast acts wonderfully because the dialogue is either written by or acted by artists who have experienced the material; in a word, who better to create great cinema than someone who has lived and breathed it since his childhood?

Truffaut originally intended to make only a short film about an autobiographical character named Antoine Doinel, the name an ode to both Jean Renoir’s assistant Ginette Doynel and also Cahiers du cinéma co-founder Doniol-Valcroze. But after the success of his short films, his wife Madeline’s father agreed to fund Truffaut’s first feature in the spirit of familial prosperity, and production commenced with a budget of around $75,000 (the average budget for a French film at the time was $250,000). Truffaut hired screenwriter and novelist Marcel Moussy to flesh out the dialogue and narrative, as he wanted his film to be about more than “the life of François Truffaut”. As it turns out, it would be as much about actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. Out of upwards of sixty young actors who auditioned, Truffaut chose Léaud because he shared so much in common with the main character and therefore Truffaut himself. Both were anti-social outsiders who caused trouble and loved the cinema; Antoine Doinel would become a composite persona of both Truffaut and Léaud. Throughout shooting, Truffaut encouraged Léaud to improvise dialogue and put as much of himself into the role as possible, the result bringing a veracity to the performance and emotional consequence to the story. The production filmed on Parisian streets, in real apartment buildings, and in a school during Christmas vacation, avoiding the studio gloss Truffaut had so often censured. Tragically, Bazin died of his long suffered affliction with tuberculosis on the first day of shooting. Truffaut dedicated the film to his memory.

Drawn from events in his own life, Truffaut’s film finds Antoine living in a cramped apartment with his parents. His impatient mother (Claire Maurier) cannot be bothered with her troublesome teenager, and his moody stepfather (Albert Remy) goes from childish antics one moment to angrily demanding to know where his Michelin Guide disappeared to the next. As they argue with each other in front of Antoine about suspecting each other’s infidelity, it becomes clear neither adult is fit for parenting. Yet, they are complicated characters both: she selfish yet full of guilt; he silly, suspicious, yet a decent enough man to marry a woman with an illegitimate son. At school, Antoine’s teacher (Guy Decombie) singles the boy out in class and assigns punishments designed to humiliate. And though it may seem like Antoine’s circumstances are utterly tragic, he is not without culpability. After all, he lies about not taking his stepfather’s Michelin Guide. When he fails to complete his homework one evening, the next day, he and his friend René (Patrick Auffay), a character named after Truffaut’s brother who died two months after being born, resolve to skip class for a day at the movies and the carnival.

It may be that Antoine’s behavior results from his lack of a fatherly presence, but Truffaut also depicts the world as an unfair place for the boy, who is punished as much for getting things right as he is for his misbehavior. When he turns in an essay, the teacher accuses him of plagiarism, although Antoine completed the assignment from memory in an inspired homage to Honoré de Balzac’s novel La Recherche de l’Absolu ; he even keeps a shrine to Balzac in his room. Later, when his shrine catches fire, a family argument fires up too only to be quelled by a trip to the movies. Even so, getting in trouble for loving Balzac is the last straw. He runs away from home and finds refuge with René, whose parents are also non-present. The two boys drink and smoke and scrape-it-up on the city streets, and for a time enjoy their freedom, until they decide to steal and hawk Antoine’s stepfather’s typewriter from his office. When their attempt to sell the typewriter fails, Antoine is caught trying to return it. His parents have given up; they want him placed in a detention center for troubled youths, and in turn sign over their parental rights. Antoine spends the night in a cell surrounded by hoodlums and prostitutes, and then rides through the dark Paris streets in a paddy wagon that delivers him to a reform school where he will learn a trade. A 17-year-old Truffaut had experienced similar events in his life when his stepfather had him imprisoned due to several outstanding debts from starting a film club. Truffaut was left in prison for two nights (by French law, a father could imprison a disobedient son for up to six months), and afterward, he was interned in a juvenile detention center for a three-month stay. In his own prison, Antoine is interviewed by an anonymous psychologist who remains offscreen. Léaud improvised much of the dialogue in this sequence, which consists of one shot that uses lap dissolves to connect his responses. Here he admits knowing that, like Truffaut, he was supposed to be aborted, but also confesses to stealing money from the grandmother who defended his life. Antoine is not perfect.

That the ending resists a commentary on the film’s events defines it not as a progression narrative; rather, Truffaut offers a “slice of life” from Antoine’s perspective and emphasizes the director’s fascination with Italian Neorealism. But just as much as Truffaut strives for a realistic depiction of a lower class youth by shooting on location and with a certain dramatic dirge, he finds moments of joy in Antoine’s exploits with René, and appropriately shoots them with enlivened formal techniques. Consider the sequence that follows from a bird’s eye view as Antoine’s gym teacher leads a train of students on a jog through Paris; as the train hops along, students scamper off the line, and before long the gym teacher is leading only a few lingering students. Or consider the sequence where Antoine and René take the day off; Truffaut loses himself in filmic trickery just as Antoine loses himself in their escapades. The camerawork becomes elegant and fluid, the editing forms a loose relation between shots to evoke the day’s joyful chaos; and, at one point, Truffaut’s mobile camera takes us inside a spinning carnival ride for a zoetrope effect that becomes even more dizzying when the image turns upside-down. Such playful flourishes burst into the film’s most enjoyable and expressive sequence, only to be suddenly cut down when Antoine sees his mother kissing another man, a revelation neither Antoine nor the audience sees coming.

Each of the sequels has its virtues, but something about the open-endedness of The 400 Blows makes one wish Truffaut had allowed it to be a singular work, as the possibility contained within the film’s final shot remains one of the most compellingly equivocal yet moving images in all of cinema. Nevertheless, the film stands on its own, as does Truffaut and his monumentally important writings at the launch of the greater French New Wave. Along with Breathless , Truffaut’s debut is the work most often associated with the movement; his subsequent films Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and Jules and Jim (1962) would also become highlights of the New Wave. With a conspicuously assured hand, he realizes the kind of film that he and his fellow writers at Cahiers du cinéma had demanded for years. But more than any other film to emerge from within the New Wave, Truffaut’s enduring masterpiece transcends its specific cultural motivations and associations within the movement to become a film that pierces a widespread audience as much today as ever, accessing emotions from our adolescence that continue to feel universal and modern.

Bibliography:

Nupert, Richard. A History of the French New Wave. Second Edition. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007.

Truffaut, François. The Films of My Life . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975.

Truffaut, François. “A certain tendency of the French cinema.” In: Movies and Methods . Edited by Bill Nichols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

Truffaut by Truffaut . Texts and documents compiled by Dominique Rabourdin; translated from the French by Robert Erich Wolf. New York: Abrams, 1987.

Related Titles

• In Theaters

Recent Reviews

• Patreon Exclusive: Sasquatch Sunset 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Abigail 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Challengers 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Civil War 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• LaRoy, Texas 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Blackout 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Monkey Man 3 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Short Take: Baghead 2 Stars ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: The Public Eye 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆
• Wicked Little Letters 3.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• The Animal Kingdom 4 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• Patreon Exclusive: Immaculate 1.5 Stars ☆ ☆
• Late Night with the Devil 2.5 Stars ☆ ☆ ☆

Recent Articles

• MSPIFF 2024 - Dispatch 2
• MSPIFF 2024 – Dispatch 1
• MSPIFF 2024
• The Definitives: Ocean's Eleven
• Reader's Choice: Ocean's Twelve
• Reader's Choice: Ocean's Thirteen
• The Definitives: The Abyss
• The Definitives: The Gleaners and I
• Guest Appearance: KARE 11 - Oscar Picks and Predictions
• The Definitives: Cléo from 5 to 7

400 Blows, The (France, 1959)

Calling The 400 Blows a "coming-of-age story" seems somehow inadequate. The label, while accurate, does not indicate either the uniqueness or the cinematic importance of this motion picture. These days, the average coming-of-age story tends to be a lightweight affair, often tinged with nostalgia and rarely perceptive. Such is not the case with The 400 Blows , which takes an uncompromising, non-judgmental look at several key events in the life of a teenage boy. With all of the melodrama leeched out, we are able to view and understand the factors that shape his present and the direction of his future.

The title, Les quatre cent coups is literally translated as The 400 Blows ; however, since it's an idiom, a direct translation is imperfect. The phrase loosely means "Raising Hell", and, while that's not an English interpretation, it's a reasonable approximation. The 400 Blows sounds like a movie about violence and abuse, or (if you're thinking in sexual terms) something salacious. When the film opened in the late '50s, more than a few viewers were treated to an entirely different experience from what they expected. (A widely circulated, possibly apocryphal story says that the Weinstein brothers attended this movie expecting a sex flick. They were so astounded by what they saw that their entire perspective on cinema changed, eventually leading them to found Miramax.)

The 400 Blows is the debut outing for celebrated French director François Truffaut, who arrived in the filmmaking arena after taking a detour through film criticism. (During the years when he wrote for André Bazin's "Cahiers du Cinéma," Truffaut developed a reputation as being an acerbic, unforgiving critic.) Along with Godard, Rohmer, Malle, Vadim, and Chabrol (amongst others), Truffaut was one of the founding auteurs of the French "New Wave" cinema - a philosophy that sought to enliven the Gaelic motion picture industry by taking bold chances and telling personal stories. The 400 Blows became one of the first and most influential of the French New Wave films (it was released around the same time as Godard's Breathless ), and, as such, was at the vanguard of a movement that had a worldwide impact on movie-making for more than a decade.

The 400 Blows is the first of five time Truffaut brings us a chapter in the life of his cinematic alter-ego, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud). Doinel (recurrently played by Léaud) would return four more times: in the 1962 short film "Antoine and Collette", then in the features Stolen Kisses (in 1968), Bed and Board (in 1970), and Love on the Run (1979). Love on the Run seems to close the Doinel cycle, but, because Truffaut died in 1984, there's no way to tell whether he might have again returned to this character. It's interesting to note that, while the Doinel of The 400 Blows bore a striking resemblance to Truffaut at 14, by the time of Love on the Run , the gulf between the character's life and his creator's had widened considerably.

Antoine is not so much of a troublemaker as he is unlucky. His exploits, at least early in the film, are no different from those of his school classmates - except he's the one who gets caught and punished. For example, when a pin-up is being passed around, the teacher notices it when it's on Antoine's desk. Once Antoine has earned his teacher's disapproval, he has placed himself in a bad position - one that is exacerbated when he fails to do his homework, then tells a foolhardy lie that is easily disproven. Still, many of Antoine's school infractions are minor. It's just that the authority figures see them in the worst possible light. Even when Antoine tries to do something right, it turns out wrong. On one occasion, he writes an essay inspired by and in the style of Balzac. His teacher accuses him of plagiarism.

Antoine's home life isn't much better. His mother (Claire Maurier), who gave birth to Antoine after an unwanted pregnancy, spends as much time away from home as she can. When she's with her son, she has difficulty controlling her impatience with him. His stepfather (Albert Rémy) is sometimes friendly and companionable, but, on other occasions, he's short-tempered and grumpy. Neither parent seems to care much about what happens to Antoine. To them, he's an inconvenience who cannot be ignored. When something goes wrong at school, they immediately adopt the teachers' position without listening to Antoine's perspective. One day when he gets in trouble, he deduces that it would be better to run away than go home.

By the end of The 400 Blows , Antoine is a juvenile delinquent. He has stolen a typewriter from his father's office (he is caught not when he steals it but when he foolishly tries to return it), been arrested by the police, and escaped from reform school. Antoine's life could have taken a turn for the better at any time had someone shown an interest in him - his mother, his father, or a teacher. But he is a victim of his circumstances, which are framed by neglect. Antoine gains no respite at home or in school. In fact, the only time he seems to be at peace is when he's in a movie theater, free to escape to another world for a finite period of time.

The 400 Blows is a portrait of innocence lost, as Truffaut is careful to point out. One scene in particular highlights this. We are treated to an extended series of shots of dozens of children gleefully watching a puppet show. Many of their faces are alight with innocent excitement. But Antoine has no interest in such childish things. While the others around him laugh and enjoy the show, he and his friend plot how to get more money. He has moved into the seedy side of the adult world: petty crime and its associated punishment - being locked in a cage. When he is in jail, he is treated as coldly as a hardened criminal.

Stylistically, The 400 Blows takes a number of intriguing chances. For the most part, Truffaut and cinematographer Henri Decaë go for a simple (but never simplistic) approach, but there are some radical innovations and adaptations. In the first place, The 400 Blows was the first French film to be shot in widescreen (aspect ratio 2.35:1), and this required much planning on Truffaut's part. The scene where Antoine speaks to the psychologist heightens the pseudo-documentary feel that shadows the entire production. Because we never see the questioner, it's as if Antoine is speaking directly into the camera, explaining his life and the reasons he is in his current predicament. Finally, there's the film's closing image: an optical zoom on a freeze-frame. This often-copied effect was not pioneered by Truffaut (it was, in fact, an homage to something similar in Ingmar Bergman's Monika ), but this is the film that "popularized" it.

For all of Truffaut's mastery of the behind-the-camera aspects of The 400 Blows , an equal share of the credit must go to lead actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. One of the reasons Truffaut chose Léaud for this role is that he shared some characteristics in common with Antoine, such as his disdain for school and his tendency to be a troublemaker. In this role, Léaud is fantastic. There's never a sense that he is acting - every movement, word, and thought comes across as natural, not forced. He is not on-screen for every moment of the film (there are three "interludes" where Antoine is largely or completely absent - the classroom scene after he has been sent out, the defection from the gym teacher's jog through Paris, and the puppet show), but, when he is present, he compels the viewer's attention. Léaud's standout scene is probably the interview with the psychologist, where Antoine's fidgety reactions are perfect.

There's no question that The 400 Blows stands out when compared to other coming-of-age dramas. Even though more than forty years have elapsed since the film's release, its effect has neither faded nor been duplicated. By eschewing manipulation and sentimentality, Truffaut does not invite false emotions and insincere pity. Instead, his clear-eyed approach presents Antoine to us with all of his faults and foibles on display. He is not "sanitized" to shade our response. Yet, because Truffaut's style is so honest, we develop a deeper connection with Antoine that we would have in a traditional melodrama. And, when that final shot occurs, leaving Antoine suspended in time, with his future uncertain, our reaction is unforced. Of course we can now do what viewers could not in 1959 - look through other windows on different phases of Antoine's life and see how far he comes from the bored, uncertain boy presented here. The 400 Blows remains a remarkable film. As with all of the great classics, the passage of time only causes us to appreciate it more.

Comments Add Comment

• Cider House Rules, The (1999)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• War Zone, The (1999)
• Hole in My Heart, A (2005)
• Neon Demon, The (2016)
• Showgirls (1995)
• (There are no more better movies of Jean-Pierre Léaud)
• (There are no more worst movies of Jean-Pierre Léaud)
• Un Air de Famille (1969)
• (There are no more better movies of Claire Maurier)
• (There are no more worst movies of Claire Maurier)
• (There are no more better movies of Albert Rémy)
• (There are no more worst movies of Albert Rémy)

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Screen: 'The 400 Blows'; A Small Masterpiece From France Opens

By Bosley Crowther

• Nov. 17, 1959

LET it be noted without contention that the crest of the flow of recent films from the "new wave" of young French directors hit these shores yesterday with the arrival at the Fine Arts Theatre of "The 400 Blows" ("Les Quatre Cents Coups") of Françcois Truffaut.Not since the 1952 arrival of René Clement's "Forbidden Games," with which this extraordinary little picture of M. Truffaut most interestingly compares, have we had from France a cinema that so brilliantly and strikingly reveals the explosion of a fresh creative talent in the directorial field.Amazingly, this vigorous effort is the first feature film of M. Truffaut, who had previously been (of all things!) the movie critic for a French magazine. (A short film of his, "The Mischief Makers," was shown here at the Little Carnegie some months back.) But, for all his professional inexperience and his youthfulness (27 years), M. Truffaut has here turned out a picture that might be termed a small masterpiece.The striking distinctions of it are the clarity and honesty with which it presents a moving story of the troubles of a 12-year-old boy. Where previous films on similar subjects have been fatted and fictionalized with all sorts of adult misconceptions and sentimentalities, this is a smashingly convincing demonstration on the level of the boy—cool, firm and realistic, without a false note or a trace of goo.And yet, in its frank examination of the life of this tough Parisian kid as he moves through the lonely stages of disintegration at home and at school, it offers an overwhelming insight into the emotional confusion of the lad and a truly heartbreaking awareness of his unspoken agonies.It is said that this film, which M. Truffaut has written, directed and produced, is autobiographical. That may well explain the feeling of intimate occurrence that is packed into all its candid scenes. From the introductory sequence, which takes the viewer in an automobile through middle-class quarters of Paris in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, while a curiously rollicking yet plaintive musical score is played, one gets a profound impression of being personally involved—a hard-by observer, if not participant, in the small joys and sorrows of the boy.Because of the stunningly literal and factual camera style of M. Truffaut, as well as his clear and sympathetic understanding of the matter he explores, one feels close enough to the parents to cry out to them their cruel mistakes or to shake an obtuse and dull schoolteacher into an awareness of the wrong he does bright boys.Eagerness makes us want to tell you of countless charming things in this film, little bits of unpushed communication that spin a fine web of sympathy—little things that tell you volumes about the tough, courageous nature of the boy, his rugged, sometimes ruthless, self-possession and his poignant naïveté. They are subtle, often droll. Also we would like to note a lot about the pathos of the parents and the social incompetence of the kind of school that is here represented and is obviously hated and condemned by M. Truffaut.But space prohibits expansion, other than to say that the compound is not only moving but also tremendously meaningful. When the lad finally says of his parents, "They didn't always tell the truth," there is spoken the most profound summation of the problem of the wayward child today.Words cannot state simply how fine is Jean-Pierre Leaud in the role of the boy—how implacably deadpanned yet expressive, how apparently relaxed yet tense, how beautifully positive in his movement, like a pint-sized Jean Gabin. Out of this brand new youngster, M. Truffaut has elicited a performance that will live as a delightful, provoking and heartbreaking monument to a boy.Playing beside him, Patrick Auffay is equally solid as a pal, companion in juvenile deceptions and truant escapades.Not to be sneezed at, either, is the excellent performance that Claire Maurier gives as the shallow, deceitful mother, or the fine acting of Albert Remy, as the soft, confused and futile father, or the performance of Guy Decomble, as a stupid and uninspired schoolteacher.The musical score of Jean Constantin is superb, and very good English subtitles translate the tough French dialogue.Here is a picture that encourages an exciting refreshment of faith in films.

The CastTHE 400 BLOWS (Les Quatre Cents Coups), screen play by Francois Truffaut and Marcel Moussy; directed and produced by M. Truffaut; produced by Les Films du Carosse and Sedif and presented by Zenith International Film Corporation. At the Fine Arts. Fifty-eighth Street west of Lexington Avenue. Running time: ninety-eight minutes.Antoine Doinel . . . . . Jean-Pierre LeaudRene . . . . . Patrick AuffayMme. Doinel . . . . . Claire MaurierM. Doinel . . . . . Albert RemyThe Teacher . . . . . Guy Decomble

• Entertainment
• Celebrities
• Ticket Sales
• Promoted: What to Watch on Prime Video

Recommended

Johnny Oleksinski

‘the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare’ review: guy ritchie blows up history.

• View Author Archive
• Get author RSS feed

Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission.

THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE

Running time: 120 minutes. Rated R (strong violence throughout and some language). In theaters.

When the words “based on a true story” flash before a Guy Ritchie movie, you can’t help but laugh.

Because for this director, that’s short for “Yeah, the names are real, but barely any of what you’re about to see actually happened.”

I’m fine with that. In the case of Ritchie’s dudely diversion “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” flipping history books the bird is the right call.

For our amusement, he chooses fun over facts. 

The 82-year-old event the “ Wrath of Man ” director is mangling is Operation Postmaster — a British World War II effort in which a group of rogues were secretly sent to the coast of Africa to steal a Nazi supply ship.

Without that precious cargo, German submarines couldn’t function, thus allowing American forces to cross the Atlantic and join the war effort.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the op’s Wikipedia page is a lot duller than this hugely entertaining movie of badass shootouts, explosions and typically eccentric humor.

“An unsanctioned, unauthorized and unofficial mission,” says “M” (Cary Elwes) of the risky plan endorsed by Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear). A young Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox) is involved in the plot, too. Much of the eventual James Bond author’s inspiration came from his time working for Naval Intelligence.

To do their dirty work, they recruit Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill), a gruff and unorthodox commando with a talent for killing. 

He is to discreetly — ha! — sail to the Spanish-controlled neutral colony Fernando Po and nab the big boat, along with Anders “The Danish Hammer” Lassen (Alan Ritchson), unfazed Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), diver and explosives expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding) and young Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin).

You could make a drinking game out of all these Henrys.

Once near the island, they liaison with spies Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie (Eiza González), a Jewish femme fatale who wants to take revenge on the Germans. 

And, in a scene that 100% never happened, she seductively sings a rendition of “Mack the Knife” at a Nazi soiree. 

Ritchie is tops when it comes to getting a group of guys (and, occasionally, gal) together to complete a bloody, belligerent task. And this is as taut an ensemble of his as ever.

Cavill is, for a change, an unkempt and unruly good time in a role that doesn’t demand he be remotely super. (His last film, the heinous “Argylle,” had him play a boring spy.) His hair is wild and curly, and his mustache should get its own IMDb page.

And how refreshing it is to see Golding — Mr. Debonair since starring in “Crazy Rich Asians” — playing a grungy non-billionaire.

Other than the offbeat performances, however, there are no surprises of shocks in this story. It’s a Point A to Point B journey that comes down to wisecracking blokes shooting Nazis. Only Guy Ritchie can turn such a setup into a pleasure cruise.

Share this article:

Advertisement