The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups)

Released: May 4, 1959

Studio: Les Films du Carrosse

Genre: foreign

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: -- Worldwide: 0.17

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: François Truffaut

Screenwriting: François Truffaut, Marcel Moussy

Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Albert Rémy, Claire Maurier

Review:

This was the first feature film from director François Truffaut. It was also the first of his autobiographical Antoine Doinel series, which also included Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). Along with Breathless, The 400 Blows “marked the arrival of the French New Wave and its fresh, streetwise style.” ^PM

The movie was “shot on location in Paris with a casually vivid eye that is almost documentary.” ^T95 It is “one of the cinema’s most perceptive forays into childhood” ^T95 with “an amazing freshness in its (quasi-autobiographical) account” ^T95 of Antoine Doinel (Léaud), a Parisian youth.

400 Blows is “more than a sentimental coming-of-age story.” ^PM It is “a harsh, often sad tale” ^PM about “downtrodden, neglected and rebellious adolescence that is intensely moving but never mawkish.” ^T95 The movie unveils “Doinel’s bleak odyssey” ^T95 in which he’s always running away and ends up turning to a “life of small-time crime as a reaction to derelict parents.” ^LM