THE 400 BLOWS / LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959)

Claude Chabrol may have been first out of the gate (with LE BEAU SERGE/’58), but it was François Truffaut, contentious critic turned preternaturally fluid filmmaker, who kick-started cinema’s Nouvelle Vague revolution with his debut feature, a film even more autobiographical than generally thought.*  Proceeded only by LES MISTONS/’57, a charming 2-reel warmup, Truffaut got cinematographer Henri Decaë to shoot b&w ‘Scope (the only New Waver to debut in WideScreen?) for this epically intimate story of an unruly, misfit 14-yr-old dead set on turning delinquent.  Barely tolerated at home or school, Truffaut alter-ego Jean-Pierre Léaud is unable to hold off his worst instincts: playing hooky with a best pal; lying his way into more trouble when he’s caught; stealing spare change and hardware (which he’s unable to fence); he’s on a one-way road to Juvie Jail.  Tough, mordant & consistently hilarious, with indelible moments of stolen childhood bliss before the inevitable self-inflicted payback, Léaud’s Antoine Doinel remains a cursed yet unstoppable life force, a heroic screwup with a future.  Hence the legendary end shot.   While the unsung hero of the film (other than that little kid who destroys an entire Composition Book in two minutes flat) is probably co-writer Marcel Moussy who organized a solid structure from Truffaut’s stockpile of auto-biographical wrong turns and bold-relief memories.  The film still something of a miracle.

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  *Truffaut biographers Antoine de Baecque and Serge Toubiana lay it all out in their denser than dense 1996 bio.  (Published Stateside 1999.)

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *LES MISTONS immediately before and the mid-career SMALL CHANGE/’76 are the Truffaut films closest to BLOWS (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/11/les-mistons-1957.html;  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/small-change-1976.html) while Jean Vigo’s ZERO DE CONDUITE/’33 something of a lodestar.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/05/complete-jean-vigo-1930-34.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Our Japanese poster (above), with Léaud half-hidden by his turtleneck was Truffaut’s preferred poster.  Here’s the oddly triumphant one made for France.