Film Comment: The 400 Blows

Director Francois Truffaut (1932-1984) said that his classic 1959 film, The 400 Blows, was autobiographical.  He says he was saved by film.  He was fatherless, drifting with no real purpose or meaning in his life until film critic Andre Bazin became his mentor and inspiration.  Truffaut escaped into the world of films.

The 400 Blows is the first in a series of films about the life of "Antoine Doinel," Truffaut's "everyman" character portrayed in all five Doinel films by Jean-Pierre Leaud.  The French title of the film, Les quatre cents coups,  is an idiomatic phrase which, in English, roughly equals the phrase "raising Hell."  It is the story of a twelve-year old schoolboy living in a family in which his parents are unable to make any sort of meaningful connection with the boy.  They have their own concerns (adultery, for one) to contend with.

Antoine has all the markings of a severely troubled adolescent: emotional detachment, alienation from authority figures, trouble at school, behavior problems, lying, petty crime, stealing, and, as is often the case, strong intellectual stirrings.   He experiences the society around him as insensitive, cruel, and uncaring.

The film ends with Antoine having escaped from juvenile detention and finally having reached his goal, the seashore.  The ocean could be interpreted to be the formless vastness of adult life, which Antoine sees as beautiful, but utterly overwhelming.  He is lost, with no idea what to do next.

Book Comment: How to Be a Vampire

This book is obviously trying to cash in on the current pop culture interest in vampires caused by the popularity of the Twilight series of books and films by Stephanie Meyer.   The series takes the romantic/tragic vampires of author Anne Rice and raises them to a new level of romantic fantasy.  Many hardcore horror fans think that the Twilight vampire stories are strictly gothic romance. 

How to Be a Vampire is clearly just a commercial venture, pointed out by the fact that it discusses television series bloodsuckers along with all the varieties of the Undead from folklore throughout history.  The cover of the book features a smiling vampiress with blood-tipped fangs.  Where the book actually becomes dangerous is that it also presents itself as a guide about how to become a vampire and asks, "Are you food or a companion?"

For impressionable, lonely young people this fantasy can become an all-encompassing lifestyle and even become, for some, a religion. (See tomorrow's post.)

"A world of power and beauty awaits.   Fearsome and irresistible, the vampire's realm entices. ... to assume the mantle of a deity ... beyond the mundane triviality of their fragile human brethren ..."

The book tells its readers where to look for vampires, the signs of their presence, and how to act once a vampire is found.  The chapters include: How to Be Turned; Finding the Perfect Sire; Powers: What You Can do; The Hunt Is On: How to Feed; Alternative Foods; Vampire Trackers: The Mortals; Supernatural Foes; How to Form Your Own Coven; Living the Undead Lifestyle; Vampire Etiquette; and Should You Date a Mortal? 

This book is a cynical cashing in on a fad.  The author might claim that it is "tongue-in-cheek."  The danger is that some young people may take it seriously.

Gray, Amy, How to be a Vampire (Somerville, Mass: Candlewick Press, 2009)