The 400 Blows
By April 08, 2003
François Truffaut’s first feature, The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups), was more than a semi-autobiographical film; it was also an elaboration of what the French New Wave directors would embrace . . . Read more »
- France
- 1959
- 99 minutes
- 2.35:1
- French
- Spine #5
SYNOPSIS: François Truffaut’s first feature, The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups), is also his most personal. Told through the eyes of Truffaut’s life-long cinematic counterpart, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), The 400 Blows sensitively re-creates the trials of Truffaut’s own difficult childhood, unsentimentally portraying aloof parents, oppressive teachers, petty crime, and a friendship that would last a lifetime. The film marks Truffaut’s passage from leading critic of the French New Wave to his emergence as one of Europe’s most brilliant auteurs.
Cast & CreditsOpen
Cast
| Antoine Doinel | Jean-Pierre Léaud |
| Madame Doinel | Claire Maurier |
| Monsieur Doinel | Albert Remy |
| Teacher (“Little Quiz”) | Guy Decomble |
| Monsieur Bigey | Georges Flamant |
| René Bigey | Patrick Auffay |
Credits
| Director | François Truffaut |
| Screenplay | Marcel Moussy and François Truffaut |
| Cinematography | Henri Decaë |
| Producer | François Truffaut and Georges Charlot |
| Music | Jean Constantine |
| Editing | Marie Josèphe Yoyotte, Cécile Decugis and Michèle de Possel |
Disc Features
- New digital transfer of The 400 Blows, enhanced for widescreen televisions
- New digital transfer of Antoine and Colette (BOX-SET VERSION ONLY)
- Two audio commentaries: one by cinema professor Brian Stonehill and another by François Truffaut’s lifelong friend Robert Lachenay
- Rare audition footage of Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay, and Richard Kanayan
- Newsreel footage of Jean-Pierre Léaud in Cannes for the showing of The 400 Blows
- Excerpt from a French TV program with Truffaut discussing his youth, critical writings, and the origins of Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows and Antoine and Colette
- Television interview with Truffaut about the global reception of The 400 Blows and his own critical impression of the film
- Theatrical trailer for The 400 Blows
- New and improved English subtitle translations
From the CurrentView the Current »
Film Essays
Features
“The Face of the French Cinema Has Changed”
By April 21, 2009
Fifty years ago today . . . Godard wrote this New Wave battle cry for the April 22, 1959, issue of the French journal Arts, on the news of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows being selected to represent . . . Read more »
Interviews
Into the Archives: A Conversation with Emmanuel Laurent
May 19, 2010
Plenty of ink has been expended over the years on the turbulent friendship between Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, which helped define the French New Wave in the 1960s. Now those stories . . . Read more »
Dispatches
Bazin Season
By December 21, 2008
André Bazin has a curious status in intellectual life. He is everywhere admitted as the founding father of film criticism and theory in general. The magazine he created in the 1950s, Cahiers du cinéma . . . Read more »
Clippings
Truffaut: A Look Back
August 18, 2010
UPDATE 14OCT2010: It seems that we at Criterion, or at least our subtitles, have gotten caught up in a bit of a controversy with regard to the article that we linked to here. Some sharp readers noticed . . . Read more »
Off the Shelf
May 06, 2010
For its June issue, Sight & Sound has conducted a poll of fifty-one leading critics and writers, asking them to select the best, “most inspirational” books about film ever written. The resulting . . . Read more »
Beaucoup de Truffaut
April 07, 2010
The smart folks at the niftily designed film website Not Coming to a Theater Near You are in the midst of a monthlong feature titled Love on the Run: The Films of François Truffaut. One essay and . . . Read more »
SIGHT & SOUND RIDES THE WAVE
April 26, 2009
The British film magazine Sight & Sound dedicates its May issue to the fiftieth anniversary of the French New Wave, which it dates to the first screening of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows . . . Read more »
