"One Day We'll Discuss All That Has Happened": A Sequence Analysis of "The 400 Blows"
One of the most critical sequences in Francois Truffaut’s, Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) (1959) occurs when Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) and René (Patrick Auffay) decide to skip school for the day. The focus of the film revolves around the adolescent development of Antoine, and this particular sequence provides multiple layers of truth concerning his character and the relationships that surround him. On a surface level, it establishes a certain friendship that Antoine and René share. It marks the first of a series of juvenile escapades that the two embark on throughout the streets of Paris. The sequence also reveals an inner side of Antoine. The freedom he experiences in a day, exploring the ‘openness’ of the city, awakens him to the possibility of creating the type of life he wants to lead. But as the sequence sheds light on René’s true nature, it becomes evident that Antoine is not leading, he is following. The consequences that ensue from this sequence unconsciously propel Antoine towards his wish for individual freedom. This sequence indirectly starts him on the journey that will carry him to his final conclusion: that he alone must be free to manifest his own destiny for no one else but himself.All the scenes that make up the entire film are seamlessly connected, revealing the flow of life. This element of realism requires that the context in which Antoine exists before entering the sequence becomes clear. We have just seen him at home, set up by his mother to accept an old sleeping bag instead of new sheets. He innocently agrees, only to be dismissed from the apartment by his father’s “Are you still here?”. Moments later, already late for school, René stops Antoine outside his house and convinces him that sneaking into school will only get him into more trouble. Antoine willingly agrees. This sets up a continual dynamic between the two boys with René as the leader and Antoine one step behind, unthinkingly following his directions. Antoine is used to being told what to do. As the adventure begins, the viewer becomes aware that this is Antoine’s day, crafted by René’s influence. Regardless of whether or not anything seemingly ‘good’ will come of it, there is an anticipatory feeling that this day will teach him something. As Antoine feels a new connection with the outside world, a new quality of René is revealed. The moment the audience isolates Antoine’s persona from René’s, it is clear that the two boys are completely different characters. Although René has a boyish quality, he is more like the manipulative adult figures who surround Antoine.
As the sequence begins, Antoine asks, “What are you up to?”, telegraphing that René is the active agent in the relationship. In the first shot, the two boys are simply walking down the street towards a static camera. Silently, under the musical score, Antoine is talking enthusiastically with hand gestures while René just listens. Without responding to anything Antoine says, René directs, “Put your bag behind the door.”, assuring Antoine that their book bags will be safe: “I leave mine here all time”. As they continue walking, Antoine’s trusting enthusiasm seems to die; he looks confused, while René exudes a confident sense that he leads this free life all the time. René seems to steal Antoine’s energy. It amounts to only a brief moment in the shot but it foreshadows a polarity in their continuing relations.
This dichotomy of personas reaches its highest point at the Rotor Ride. Antoine enters the ride alone with three other adults (Truffaut is one of them). Laughing in excitement, he glances up and the reverse shot reveals René standing among the crowd of adult spectators looking down – much like a father waiting for his son to finish a ride. What becomes even more unusual is the fact that René is dressed in exactly the same type of clothes as the other adults are: pea coat, dress shirt, tie, even the book bag he left behind is a briefcase. Once the ride begins, Antoine’s choice of behavior definitely distinguishes him as the only kid on this ride. For an increase in thrill, he resists the centrifugal force to explore turning himself upside down, breaking the conventional stance of maintaining a vertical position on the Rotor. As he looks up towards René, the camera exposes a spinning, smeared point-of-view shot that blurs the distinction between adult and child as if the whole world is streaming by him. This is a curious metaphor that Truffaut paints, with René on the side lines as if desensitized from having seen it all before while Antoine is hungry for stimulus and freedom from his habitually cramped life. He flips his world upside down (literally) in order to fully experience this day, squeezing the last ounce of exhilaration as if such an opportunity may never come again.
The end of the sequence affirms René’s sly manner. After picking up their bags, the two boys stop to evaluate their day. René looks at Antoine with a facial expression that seems to demand gratitude but Antoine immediately brings up that fact that he will need a note for missing school. René confidently responds, “I have an old one I never used. I’ll just cut off the date. Here, you can copy it tonight”. Despite Antoine’s discomfort with this suggestion, René again reassures him that everything will be fine. He has an answer for every one of Antoine’s concerns. René’s character in this sequence illustrates just how alone Antoine really is. René is the Artful Dodger, in the end just another manipulative, negative influence on Antoine’s impressionable nature. This sequence establishes René as this Svengali figure, deftly executing his plans, creating scenarios for Antoine to undergo and inevitably to suffer the consequences while René gets off scot-free.
There is another scene that I have not mentioned yet because it does not play on this dual relation between Antoine and René, although it still works to reveal the contradictions behind Antoine’s closest relationships. The boys are walking returning to pick up their bags, having just left the fair grounds. A long shot pans across the street, following the boys as they approach a busy street corner. As they begin to cross the street, Antoine catches sight of his mother kissing a strange man. This is the first time in the sequence that we witness a quick succession of shots, though spatially the shots do not relate. As Richard Neupert comments, “the continuity is disrupted…with Antoine’s mother facing different directions in some shots, which further signifies everyone’s confusion.” (186) This encounter helps to personify the two-faced nature that every character around Antoine possesses. The inner temptation to misbehave no longer exists exclusively in the child. While Antoine’s mother patronizes him for “lying through his teeth”, here she is living out a lie herself, embodied by her lips.
Truffaut’s form and technical approach towards this sequence is unbiased – a documentary reportage of the ‘now’, with no manipulation beyond capturing what is. It simply follows the boys’ choices throughout the day. The sequence is entirely shot on location using a wide-angle lens to capture as much of the surrounding urban environment as possible. The shots are made up of basic techniques: static shots, panning shots and long shots inform the sequence, along with a couple of tilts and tracks. I would agree with Neupert that the sequence “displays Truffaut’s versatility” (185) but on the whole, the sequence is conveyed largely by its subject matter. As Truffaut himself says,
…the people who were disappointed by Les Quatre Cents Coups were the cinephiles. Over and above what a film expresses, they feel the need to find a form which arouses them like a stimulant. Well, the film had no such form, it was neutral; the direction was purely moral, self-effacing…the required effects were often very simple ones and it’s a film which makes me feel very nostalgic. I get the feeling I’ll never again find such a direct subject. (Graham, 196)
It is the content, the circumstance, the moment that is so authentic, so special that the camera need not intrude. It is this choice to craft everything, including the technical apparatus, subordinate to the exploration, which creates a free flowing picture of childhood curiosity and wonder. The camera, accompanied by a snappy jazz score, depicts Antoine happy without guilt for the first time. This early taste of freedom creates a love affair, in both the boy and the audience, with the wide open outer world and all its possibilities. We feel the same unpredictable, unscripted future that beckons to Antoine. The boys don’t know; we don’t know. We explore Paris with them as if for the first time. By refraining from an intricate form Truffaut is able to honestly capture this genuine depiction of a boy’s free spirited nature.
The implications in this sequence, which flows in an understated documentary fashion, will go on to build on themselves throughout the rest of the film. This is the fulcrum point. Up until now we have seen Antoine in the straitjacket between home and school. He is dismissed, misunderstood and falsely accused. Initially the ‘day out’ feels like freedom but as the sequence ends with the knowing confidence of René handing over his ‘sick note’, we too have an uneasy feeling that things will not unfold without pain. The form of the sequence allows this frisson to drop into our consciousness just as it seems to shake Antoine back to reality. In frustration he wonders how it all began; it feels to him like, “…a pinup that fell from the sky”. After this sequence of busting out, everything becomes harder. The faith Antoine puts in his push for freedom backfires. His escapade, essential to a boy’s development, becomes just another ill- fated trait, condemning him to further punishment. His sorrow increases – his facial expression seems to ask, ‘why can’t joy continue, why can’t freedom belong to me?’. Right afterwards, the bachelor dinner with his father ends in acrimony over the Michelin Guide with Antoine snapping back to fear in his responses. In experiencing the proliferating consequences of following René, Antoine learns the hard way. Paris is taken from him. He is shipped out to the Observation Centre for juvenile delinquents. Lying in the jail, smoking a newspaper-rolled cigarette, it is as if he realizes that his first taste of adult freedom never really belonged to him. It wasn’t created by him. The masked motives of others become clear to him only after the fact. His life cannot belong to him as long as others imprint their will. He has to put his faith in himself. The reality of the film is that up until now he didn’t know. None of us do at that age. We have to bust out. It is the pattern of adolescent awakening, the necessary life cycle to maturity. Only then will the truth become accessible. For a moment ‘life’ will freeze frame in its simplicity, as it does for Antoine at the end. He has run the race and arrived at his destined source, the ocean of possibility that still lies before him. From his fearful eyes darting all around him throughout the film, responding blindly to the expectations of others, he suddenly turns and looks straight down the barrel of the camera eye at whatever else is to come. He will face it, having just endured the 400 blows.
Works Cited
Graham, Peter, and Ginette Vincendeau, eds. The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.
Neupert, Richard. A History of the French New Wave Cinema, 2nd ed. Madison: Wisconsin UP, 2007. Print.
