Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) poster & wallpaper

Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Remy, Claire Maurier

Intensley touching story of a misunderstood young adolescent who left without attention, delves into a life of petty crime.

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95% liked it

29,615 ratings

Unrated, 94 min.

Directed by: François Truffaut

Release Date: November 16, 1959

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DVD Release Date: March 24, 1998

Stats: 1,749 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (1,749)

  • SirPant
    September 30, 2009
    SirPant
    The birth of 'New-wave', Truffaut's masterpiece still stands today as one of the most important films ever made. The story of a misunderstood adolescent and the end of the 50's still feels contemporary even now, 50 years after it was made!
  • her69eyes
    April 7, 2009
    her69eyes
    Francois Truffaut, the great French director, laid the foundation for the French New Wave along with Jean-Luc Godard - a filmmaking philosophy that tossed aside old conventions in favor of more personal and inventive motion pictures. The movement marked what is perhaps the defini...( read more)tive transition between "classic" and "modern" film. While Jean-Luc Godard had audiences salivating with the unforgettable and colorful performances by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in "Breathless", Truffaut's splash was equally significant with a semi-autobiographical picture loosely translated to "The 400 Blows" (a more accurate translation is "Raising Hell"). The picture is a dark "coming-of-age" tale about a kid who never had a chance, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, a long time collaborator with Truffaut, and even known as Truffaut's alter ego.

    Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is a 13-year-old student not remarkably different from his classmates. Unfortunately, however, after a series of misunderstandings, he is mistaken by his teacher (Guy Decomble) to be an unsalvageable liar and trouble-maker. It all starts when his fellow students begin to pass around a picture of a scantily-clad woman in a magazine. Antoine is caught with it, and is sent to the corner. Later on, he writes an essay using a heavy influence from his idol, Balzac. He is mistaken as a plagiarizer. One mistake after the other - from claiming his mother has passed away as an excuse to miss school, to starting an accidental fire because of the candles in his Balzac shrine, Antoine eventually finds himself at a juvenile detention center. We see Antoine, at 13, already behinds bars and perhaps condemned forever to the life of a criminal.

    These extremes could've been prevented if only his parents had paid more attention to him, but as an unplanned child he is treated as an unfortunate necessity rather than a cherished loved one. His mother (Claire Maurier) is incredibly impatient with him, and she only gets off his case when Antoine discovers she's having an affair. His father (Albert Remy) seems to a loving dad at moments, and at other times he's a raving lunatic. And so, of course, Antoine never had a path to diverge from where he's headed - a harsh reality that becomes ever apparent when he's met face to face with a body of water following his escape from the detention center.

    What makes the film work so well is the performance of Jean-Pierre Leaud. He feels completely legitimate, from his body language to his scarce dialogue. Not once do you sense that he is an actor playing a part. The supporting cast hold their own and the cinematography is excellent - but Jean-Pierre Leaud is certainly what takes the project from being a great film to being simply unforgettable.
  • mariosundar
    March 8, 2009
    mariosundar
    Great films, are simple stories told with a measure of honesty that most films lack. And, by that measure "400 Blows" is a masterpiece. One can see why this movie bowled over critics at Cannes when it was released. Watch the criterion edition, where you can see the audition tapes...( read more) (and understand why Leaud was cast as the lead), 3 interviews with Truffaut that explains the autobiographical nature of the film, etc. Must-see movie for cinephiles.
  • shortcartoonist
    June 29, 2008
    shortcartoonist
    Truaffaut's command over the proceedings of 'The 400 Blows' is an inspiring aspect of a commendable film. The notions of the modern day "wolf story" are infused into the life of an impoverished youth, and through the boy's seeming struggles the screenplay asks - and wants - the a...( read more)udience to connect with the child and to feel a sorrowness for him. Unfortunately - we don't. The character hones his shovel well as his pit is dug further as the film progresses. Regardless though, it is Truffaut's command and the general aesthetic and pleasing moments of the film that win it over.
  • EarthlyAlien
    June 1, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    Psychiatrist: "Your parents say you're always lying.
    Antoine Doinel: Oh, I lie now and then, I suppose. Sometimes I'd tell them the truth and they still wouldn't believe me, so I prefer to lie."

    ...( read more)iew¤t=400blowsfence.jpg" target="_blank">Photobucket

    In The 400 Blows, the first chapter in François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, we meet our hero (Jean-Pierre Léaud) as a disobedient 12-year-old Parisian. A child of whom his parents seem to care little, he has a penchant for dishonesty that gets him in constant trouble both at home and at school, so he decides to run away, promising to return when he has become a man. After he steals a typewriter, he's sent to military school, where he escapes through a hole in a fence and heads for the sea.

    Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series is a landmark of cinema, as it marks a rare instance of an actor originating a character as a child then continuing to play that character in five films over the course of twenty years, but more importantly because it serves as a backbone of the French New Wave. The series as a whole is a fascinating look at how a young man such as Antoine grows up, matures (well, to an extent), and essentially adapts to life. All five chapters are good, but there's no question in my mind that The 400 Blows is the crown jewel. Partly because he is a child and children tend to not see potential complications, this is the most focus we see from Antoine in terms of his goals and desires. He knows simply that he does not like home or school and that he'd rather be elsewhere, whereas in later segments we quite often see Antoine torn between multiple options.

    And why shouldn't he? Truffaut essentially tells us as much in the famous final shot - a shot that probably has influenced more filmmakers than any other - of The 400 Blows where Antoine, having successfully run away, reaches the ocean for the first time in his life. He takes a few steps into the surf, then turns back, but he is unsure where to go. He has achieved his goal of running away to the shore and now hasn't a clue what to do next, so he just stands there. At the height of his dilemma, Truffaut freezes the shot and zooms in on that face full of indecision. He is stuck, completely unsure what to do next, and that is the theme Truffaut continues to explore throughout the series.

    As this is one of the first films of the Nouvelle Vague, he appears to be placing the art form as a whole on that beach with Antoine. The New Wave, many have said, birthed the modern film era, taking it out of the classic period with its tendency to follow formula and essentially breathed new life into it. Truffaut, Godard, and their cohorts showed a complete disregard for the conventions of cinema and made their films by any means necessary. This often included filming in the streets of Paris without permits, employing friends as actors, and working with little to no budget. But, necessity being the mother of invention, they found ways to create techniques, methods and images that would resonate world-wide. It could be argued that there isn't an American film from the last five years that isn't at least indirectly influenced by the New Wave. So Truffaut is asking the film medium what it wants to do. Does it want to go back to the military school and continue making the same films over and over again, or does it keep running into the unknown. The answer, of course, is the latter.

    The 400 Blows is, at least to me, a deceptively simple film. At no singular point does it seem as if you're watching a great film. That is, there isn't that particular point where a single moment blows you away, but the sum total of the film does exactly that - it tears you apart. This is Truffaut's first film, finished at the age of 26, and it's easy to see the effect of that innocence on the screen. This is the look of a filmmaker who doesn't yet "know" what he can and cannot do, so he just does what he thinks will be the most effective. And he's pretty much correct every single time. The film, largely based on his own childhood as a rebellious child prone to skip school and go to the cinema, seems to understand children better than most, and it understands Antoine Doinel most of all. But it refuses to fully condone his actions, instead sympathizing with him in a way that makes them understandable, even if they are wrong.

    He also bring a bit of whimsy to the film as he shows how the children as a group respond to authority. In a clever scene, the children are on a physical education run through the streets of Paris, trailing behind a gym teacher and his incessant whistle-blowing. Truffaut puts the camera on a roof and follows the class as the students peel away from the group and head for freedom until finally there are only two students following him. They are either the least clever of the students or the most obedient or a combination of the two. Regardless, they are tied to the status quo while their classmates are off living their lives in the Parisian streets. Morally, Antoine Doinel and his like may be classically wrong, but they are choosing to do things by their own rules, and when you live by your own rules, it's hard to judge those actions by classical morality.

    What is hard to describe is how a film that takes in all of this can be beautiful and thrilling, how something that sounds like a run-of-the-mill drama can be a masterpiece. Maybe that's ultimately a sign of true cinematic mastery, its essence can't be captured on a page (or a keyboard), you have to watch it. The 400 Blows is one of those films whose importance and legacy goes way beyond those of a simple film. It changed filmmaking and helped to inspire a new generation of filmmakers with more attention to the smaller details of film production. Without Truffaut's story of a young boy adventuring out on his own, we might not have The Goonies or Home Alone, but without Antoine Doinel, cinema in general would be a far different and less multi-faceted art form than it is today.
  • Liesebieke
    November 18, 2009
    Liesebieke
    Can someone, preferably a native French speaker, explain the title to me? I haven't understood the reference to the movie.
    Anyway, this was a very sad movie with an open end (I don't like open ends!) It was well-done, I can see why it received nominations. Maybe I need some extr...( read more)a emotions to rate it four stars. I was bored somewhere in the middle. A classic but not a recommendation.
  • lesleyanorton
    October 30, 2009
    lesleyanorton
    B&W French classic about a 13 year old boy going off the rails with the help of inadequate parents, old-school schooling and the failure of any adult he comes across to engage with him on any level. Great acting from all the main characters, but the boy himself is the most fantas...( read more)tic of all. .
  • kunam88
    October 27, 2009
    kunam88
    poignant.very very poignant..probably the closest CATCHER IN THE RYE adaptation i could get...
  • alexroy69
    October 26, 2009
    alexroy69
    Revisionnement d'un de mes films préférés. C'est fou comme c'est limpide et efficace. L'histoire est simple, mais on se reconnaît tous un peu dans le personnage d'Antoine qui a le diable au corps et ne fait qu'enchaîner les coups pendables. Moi, du moins, ça m'a rappelé ma jeunes...( read more)se. Jean-Pierre Léaud fait preuve d'un naturel qu'il abandonnera de manière assez drastique dans le reste de sa carrière. À nul instant avons-nous l'impression qu'il s'agit d'un acteur.

    Sa performance est à la fois drôle et touchante, et surtout toujours crédible. Il est Antoine Doinel. Truffaut affectionne les longs plans sans coupures et manie la caméra avec génie. La dernière séquence en particulier est vraiment époustouflante. On voit qu'il a l'oeil aiguisé, qu'il excelle dans l'art de déterminer ce qui sortira bien à l'écran, ce qui fait des 400 Coups un film d'une exquise beauté.
  • ElCochran90
    October 16, 2009
    ElCochran90
    "I'm an unstable psychotic individual with perverted tendencies."

    LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959)


    Director: François Truffaut
    Country: France
    Genre: Drama
    Length: 99 minutes

    ...( read more)ket.com/albums/ww125/ElCochran90/Decorated%20images/?action=view¤t=b6.jpg" target="_blank">Photobucket

    François Truffaut's first feature is perhaps his most famous one. You may attribute this fact to its very characteristic melodrama, a similarity it shared with several worldwide movies of the same year. However, Les Quatre Cents Coups is arguably the director's best film, a gorgeous piece of art that combined the devastating proportions of the Italian neorealism and the innovative features of the French New Wave. This time, the element used to contrast the humankind's original state of purity with the adulthood's moral corruption is an adolescent, a little young man whose perspective towards a brighter world is not compatible with the present reality. The result is a heartbreaking drama as honest and sincere as it can get. Complexity, once more, is originated from simplicity. The nature of the film has been numerously referenced even nowadays, but its sheer power and realistic depiction of the consequences of an abandoned soul since its youth is what gives Les Quatre Cents Coups the great honor of belonging to a list where the best films of all time can be found.

    Antoine Doinel is a 14-year-old Parisian boy who constantly lacks the proper attention and love of his parents; consequently, he keeps skipping school so he can go to the city?s fair and to the movie theater with his friends. However, he soon discovers that her mother has been having an affair. Under so much pressure and lack of comprehension, he decides to steal a typewriter and is suspended from school. This particular chain of events will have a very important meaning in the life of Antoine, a meaning he will understand sooner or later. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen, losing it against Pillow Talk (1959). François Truffaut was nominated for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival of 1959, losing it against Marcel Camus for his film Orfeu Negro (1959). However, Truffaut won the OCIC Award and a prize for Best Director.

    The streets of Paris are represented from a dramatic perspective. A full French society ? its capital city ? is represented so its degrading characteristics and the already-decaying innocence of Antoine can be utterly contrasted. An immediate comparison with Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959) may inevitably arise because of its Dostoyevskyan approach to the topic considering his novel "Crime and Punishment". On a personal note, it is a very interesting analysis since both films have as its main character a person who decides to take the criminal, yet seemingly easiest path with the sole purpose of fitting in their surrounding environment. Nonetheless, whereas Michel makes a living out of it, Antoine has not the proper age for becoming an independent person yet. His main problem is his family, the relevant nucleus of the society that hides him some truths and treats him unfairly without any significant love. A very accurate psychological reaction the youth have under these circumstances is to gain attention through any means possible. That is why the final decision of Antoine is plot wise justified, despite being a universally rejected action under determined moral standards.

    Unlike neorealism, Paris is not represented as a city in chaos. It may mirror the depiction of the village Bresson decided to film in a more recent movie: Mouchette (1966). French drama as a genre always showed a conflict through a very cathartic symbol, which would be either a boy or a child. They are put in very peculiar situations that are out of their reach for controlling the upcoming consequential events. In the case of Antoine, he consciously kept making decisions: to skip school, to go to the movies, to steal. On the other hand, he never decided when and where to be born. He wasn't given the choice of deciding his biological family. None of us can. Because of the treatment and humiliation he receives, the parental figures lose any sign of authority and positive influence over him. Such events are not easy to show on a film, but Truffaut was very aware of the fact that a character study implicates several varying factors that directly depends on the individual's unrepeated personality. He is emotionally forced to perform actions he may not have wanted to perform in the first place. A movie theater cannot fill the emptiness inside him. Mechanical games and the fun of having friends will never compensate the absence of happiness his parents stand for, since they are the most important human relationship he will be able to have in his life.

    Because of this intense cause-and-consequence relationship portrayal, the film presents its conclusion with one of the most surprisingly beautiful and arguably devastating endings ever put to film, a long shot that does not have to show any single frame more. The ending may symbolize the search of hope and freedom that material means never allowed him to obtain. Whether a worse fate still waits for him or he manages to acquire independent liberty, it is an irrelevant fact. The religion that heavily plays its implicit role may also be a factor the viewer will want to take into consideration. The purpose of the poetical cinematography is to reflect either the ugliness or the visual beauty of the landscapes and the filming locations, not to mention the strong tension of the atmospheric family dinner scenes. The modesty of the screenplay, a modesty that hides a great amount of literary talent, enlightens the weakness and the corruptibleness of the human condition. A fully-developed character is offered to the film thanks to an extraordinary performance by the young actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, a performance which talent and effect where relied on believable and natural reactions and facial expressions rather than screams, tears and endless monologues. The technical aspects did not precisely ask for an exaggerated perfection. It is the Italian feeling the plot itself provided to the film the one that makes Les Quatre Cents Coups to shine.

    François Truffaut managed to construct a grand drama masterpiece in his first attempt. Cinema could not have offered him a better welcome to the fantastic world of moviemaking. The Parisian streets weep and the sound of the waves run along Antoine in Les Quatre Cents Coups, perhaps his most successful, popular and groundbreaking feature film. The people have the least interest in surrounding Antoine, but the film surrounds him. It protects him. It understands him. This experience may also provide a strong cathartic epiphany throughout its running length; it is one of the main risks the viewer will be subject to. Even so, it is not a negative aspect. Les Quatre Cents Coups makes the French New Wave to show its sentimental side, and it ends up being an adorable film, an easy-to-treasure European gem. 1959 is one of the best years cinema has ever experienced, and this is just one more solid proof.

    100/100

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  • antoinedoniel
    November 29, 2006
    antoinedoniel
    I think that this movie is the best film that Truffaut has made. Nobody could ever did something so sensitive and sincere like this movie. im happy to say that this is one of my favorite movies. I learn a lot from this movie
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