400 Blows Film Review

Annabel
Mrs. Burgess
Enriched English 10
15 October 2007

The 400 Blows Movie Review

Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows told the story of a young boy growing up in hardship. But this memoir was more about mental and emotional struggles than physical challenges. Overall, I thought the film was good. It gave a descriptive perspective through someone else’s eyes on how the protagonist, Antoine, was feeling. This memoir was effective in portraying all of Antoine’s emotions, whether misery, or a sense of adventure. Literary aspects, dramatic aspects, and cinematic aspects were used throughout the film to direct the viewer’s understanding of the film, the characters, and how they were feeling.

In the film, literary aspects such as plot, setting, characters, and thought provoking themes helped develop the film. The plot began with a young, adventurous boy, Antoine living in the city of Paris with his unappreciative mother and a strict step father. After being passed on from family to family, Antoine began to not recognize his parents’ and teachers’ authority over him. As Antoine got into trouble, he ran away several times and this eventually led up to him being sent to an observation center from which he also fled. The film ended abruptly as he reached the ocean. As the plot unfolded, the characters began to also. Settings were consistent throughout the film, including the apartment, school, and the observatory. The settings reflected the mood of the characters. For example, when Antoine rushed into the ocean, there was a sense of freedom and happiness, because Antoine earlier in the movie had wished he could go to the ocean. Lastly, there were a lot of themes in the film. One theme was that friends can bring a lot of joy and good things to you, but also can bring many bad things, too. This is shown when Rene gave Antoine wine, which Antoine liked, but eventually it could hurt him. This is also true when Rene helps him steal the typewriter, with the hope that they can sell it for getting money. But when they can’t sell the typewriter, they bring it back, and are caught for stealing it. Antoine is sent to an observation center for his crime, but Rene is not, even though it was partly Rene’s fault. These literary aspects are elements films like this one share with novels, while dramatic aspects are shared with live drama such as plays. This movie used dramatic aspects as effectively as it used literary aspects.

Some important dramatic aspects of the film included the specific actors, the costumes and the make-up. For costumes Antoine and his step-father seemed to have old ragged clothes, while Antoine’s mother seemed to have expensive nice clothing. I think this represents that she feels she is superior to them and that she only cares about herself. Three of the important actors in the film were Antoine, played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, the Mother, Gilberte Doinel, played by Claire Maurier, and the step-father, Julian Doinel, played by Albert Remy. I thought that the actor chosen for Antoine was right because he played the part well by portraying a shy, but mischievous young boy. Antoine’s shyness was demonstrated by the actor because he never made direct contact with the camera until the end. The actor actually seemed camera shy. Also, Antoine showed little facial emotion, though he had several reasons to be sad, happy or mad. While this could be a flaw in the acting ability of the actor, it might also be strength, as it showed Antoine’s introverted personality. Second, the mother was a very uncaring, mean person, but unexpectedly “changes” in the middle of the film. The actor did a good job of conveying that she is attempting to be nice to Antoine, but also was not genuine about it. Lastly, the step father was portrayed as a wavering character that seemed to be strict about the rules of the household, but also was willing to give into Antoine and his mother’s pleas, even if it was against the rules. The film used these dramatic aspects to show the inner thinking of the characters in a way that was similar to what you would expect from a live play. But the cinematic aspects, which apply only in film, really worked.

Throughout the film, the photography, duration of the shots, and sound were similar. The photography consisted of long shots, with one angle, rarely switching. This looked natural, because when people look at the world around them, they do it that way. When the camera did switch, it switched between people talking, which I thought was appropriate because it helped the viewer be focused on that person. However, it would also have been interesting to see how the listening character was reacting to the speaker. Also, the focus was on Antoine, with most of the shots being on him. This helps identify him as the protagonist, and tells the viewer this is his story. A very important scene involving photography was the one where all the boys were running from the group. This was a bird’s eye view shot and was important because it showed you all the action, and told you that the boys were reacting in the same way at that moment. In this scene is music, basically the same music played throughout the film. In the story, the music seemed to show freedom and happiness, which the boys obviously are as they ran off.

Running away is one way to deal with problems, and Antoine dealt with his problems by running off, forgetting about all his worries. In the book Black Boy, the author and main character Richard Wright also ran away from his problems by quitting his job, which is similar to what Antoine did. Also, both of the boys resulted to stealing: Richard stole money and food, while Antoine stole his dad’s typewriter and book. Comparing the two, it seems like Richard had better reasons for stealing than Antoine, because Richard stole to survive, while Antoine had a home to return to, he just chose not to. However, unlike Antoine, Richard didn’t always run away, he also fought and showed his feelings. Richard was more open and showed his feelings like when he fought the boys at school when they made fun of his hat. He stood up to other kids and told them off when he felt he needed to. In contrast, Antoine tried to avoid the confrontation by running away or ignoring issues, like when he never talked to his parents.

Overall I would recommend this film. I was interested in the action and plots and now realize that the use of the different elements of film like literary aspects, dramatic aspects, and cinematic aspects helped to develop the story and its characters and kept me interested. The different elements were effective in convincing me that this was realistic, and it was weird to think that this actually happened to someone; that this was truly how Antoine responded to all these negative things that happened to him. Many people may not like this movie because it was black and white, and an old film. But I thought that it was cool to see how they filmed back then, and how even without the use of color the meanings and story could be told by using the different aspects and elements of film.