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Essential Art House: The 400 Blows [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

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Essential Art House: The 400 Blows Blu-ray
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Essential Art House: The 400 Blows [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray] on Blu-ray


For his feature-film debut, critic-turned-director Francois Truffaut drew inspiration from his own troubled childhood. The 400 Blows stars Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine Doinel, Truffaut's preteen alter ego. Misunderstood at home by his parents and tormented in school by his insensitive teacher (Guy Decomble), Antoine frequently runs away from both places. The boy finally quits school after being accused of plagiarism by his teacher. He steals a typewriter from his father (Albert Remy) to finance his plans to leave home. The father angrily turns Antoine over to the police, who lock the boy up with hardened criminals. A psychiatrist at a delinquency center probes Antoine's unhappiness, which he reveals in a fragmented series of monologues. Originally intended as a 20-minute short, The 400 Blows was expanded into a feature when Truffaut decided to elaborate on his self-analysis. For the benefit of Truffaut's fellow film buffs, The 400 Blows is full of brief references to favorite directors, notably Truffaut's then-idol Jean Vigo. The film won the 1959 Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival, even though Truffaut had been declared persona non grata the year before for his inflammatory comments about the festival's commercialism. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
  • Sound By: MONO
  • Released By: Criterion
Two Audio Commentaries, one by Cinema Professor Brian Stonehill and another by Francois Truffaut's lifelong friend Robert Lachenay

Rare audition footage of Jean-Pierre Leaud, Patrick Auffay, and Richard Kanayan

Newsreel footage of Leaud in Cannes for the showing of The 400 Blows

Excerpt from a TV program in which Truffaut discusses his youth, his critical writings, and the origins of Antoine

TV Interview with Truffaut about the global reception of The 400 Blows and his own critical impression of the film

Theatrical Trailer
Plus: An essay by film scholar Annette Insdorf

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  • Essential Art House: The 400 Blows Blu-ray
Essential Art House: The 400 Blows Blu-ray

Editorial Reviews

Dedicating the film to his mentor Andre Bazin, 27-year-old critic-turned-director Francois Truffaut put his critical views into practice in his debut feature, The 400 Blows (1959). Unlike the French "Tradition of Quality" literary adaptations that he reviled, Truffaut looked to his own childhood for the source of Antoine Doinel's delinquent exploits in The 400 Blows, evoking Jean Vigo's Zero for Conduct (1933). Inspired by the stylistics of favorites like Orson Welles and Jean Renoir, Truffaut's moving camera and long takes, combined with location shooting and natural sound, lent Antoine's tribulations a fresh, fluid immediacy that caught critics' and audiences' attention. His innovative final freeze-frame suspending Antoine in an indeterminate future spawned numerous imitations. The Cannes Film Festival gave The 400 Blows the Best Director prize one year after banning Truffaut for his critical harshness; the New York Film Critics' Circle awarded it Best Foreign Film. Released the same year as Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, The 400 Blows' international success helped put Truffaut at the forefront of the nascent French New Wave. He would continue Antoine Doinel's story in three more features, Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), Love on the Run (1979), and one short, Antoine and Colette (1962). ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi