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.