Film Lit Review aka EXTRA CREDIT

The Book Movie

The movie The 400 Blows easily won me over because I love French: French culture, French literature, French fashion, the French language, French food. I have a passion for it all. The 400 Blows was a bit odd, but is easily a general crowd pleaser. Director François Truffaut wonderfully combined literary, dramatic and cinematic aspects to create a classic film that will easily continue to be viewed by generations to come.
The alarmingly troubled life of Antoine Doinel, an unwanted eleven-year-old boy is seen through the eyes of a third party who seems to be following him through his rare ups and frequent downs. The supporting characters, Antoine’s mother Gilberte, best friend René, stepfather and teacher all have very strong personalities that oblige the viewer to feel black or white about them. Gilberte never fails to demonstrate that Antoine’s birth was a mistake, and she is not interested in her husband for the love (which is shown later when Antoine sees her kissing another man). René is the only ray of happiness in Antoine’s dark and loveless world. René is the boy who gets on a bike that looks much to large for him, and bikes to the detention center where Antoine is serving time to visit his friend. Although René is a very likeable character, he is also the one who supplies Antoine with cigarettes and alcohol. The stepfather undoubtedly gets an A for effort considering the circumstances he is in. He acquired this poorly behaved boy through marriage to an unfaithful woman who has no money and no support from her child’s father. He tries to be friendly with Antoine, and it only slightly pays off, when Antoine lies to his teacher about his absence from school with the excuse of his mother dying.
As for dramatic aspects, the most prominent in The 400 Blows is the use of lighting. The brighter a scene, the brighter Antoine’s mood seemed to be. The apartment where he resides with his distant mother and inexperienced stepfather is dark and shadowy. For Antoine, the apartment is sorrowful, because he doesn’t feel like he belongs. He doesn’t even have his own bed and his clothing appears to have been worn for a long time. Another dark place is school because of the harshly structured environment his teacher runs. On the contrary, the city of Paris is always much more of a cheerful illumination because it represents freedom in the form of no adult constraints on Antoine. Lighting can also take on a double meaning, for example, when Antoine is with René, the lack of light is not because he doesn’t enjoy the company of his best friend, but perhaps because he is doing things he shouldn’t, such as using tobacco and alcohol. Claire Maurier played the character of Gilberte flawlessly. Maurier had me fooled that she was only acting by the way she didn’t hesitate to yell at her troubled son, and the expression in her eyes often showed how she was really feeling. The French teacher also seemed to take on his role naturally with disciplining everything that was the slightest bit out of line. I’m sure that the actor, Guy Decomble, was a very kind man, but his steel like appearance is likely a large factor got him the part. René was love at first sight. His cute and innocent appearance fooled the viewer just long enough to believe that he would be the best influence for Antoine. The sweet looking Patrick Auffay was the perfect René. If I had read the book before watching the movie, this is exactly how I would have pictured him.
I often left the Language Arts room with the same little tune playing through my mind. The music seemed very similar, just at different tempos and dynamics. Very much like the lighting, the music varied in synch with the tone of how Antoine felt about his environment and how little control he had over it. Happy, more briskly paced, music box sounding music played most often in Paris. At his family’s Paris apartment there was little music played at all. He is very sad and unhappy at home which is most likely the explanation for Truffaut’s lack of background music. The camera was Antoine’s shadow. There was rarely a scene without Antoine in it; however, he never seems to notice it is there. Antoine only makes eye contact with the camera at the very end when he appears to be looking back, almost reflecting for a second on his life.
Both Antoine and Richard have very troubled childhoods trying to find their place in the world. There is a higher power: for Richard it is the white people, for Antoine the adults. Under the heat of the constraints of their superiors, they are very rebellious and make poor decisions because of their need to challenge the authority. On the contrary, what is very different is their parents. Although Richard’s mother is very strict, she loves him and wants what is best for him. Antoine’s mother wishes that he had never been taken back from the wet nurse. He is only a burden to her life.
Overall, I would recommend this film. The characters are very dynamic and actors merge flawlessly into their roles. Truffaut combined the important literary, dramatic and cinematic aspects tastefully into an easily enjoyable movie. The French culture that backs this movie made it all the more rich. It would be uncommon to find this film sold out at Blockbuster on a Friday night, but it is a classic, designed to captivate current and future generations