Themes Of The 400 Blows

Screening Diary

1. The 400 Blows (France, Truffaut, 1959) – Themes

The film, The 400 Blows is known in France as Les Quatre Cents Coups. The film, a French drama, was directed by François Truffaut in 1959. The stars of this film are Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Manurier and Albert Rémy. Léaud, the main character, plays the semi-autobiographical character. The film is renowned to be among the best films of the French New Wave because it vividly portrays the movement and its characteristics. The film, written by Marcel and Truffaut, revolves around the life of Antoine Doinel. Doinel is brought out as an adolescent boy in Paris. The boy is misunderstood by his teachers and parents to be a troublesome boy. This film represents part of a five series

film being the first of all of them. This screening diary seeks to discuss the themes brought out in this film.
The themes of punishment and crime are vividly depicted in this movie, The 400 Blows.

The director, Truffaut, depicts the protagonist Antoine Doinel being served many different punishments of all forms throughout the film. The teacher makes him stand in a corner against his wishes, the teacher again makes him do more homework against his wish, and threatens to phone Doinel’s parents if he refuses to obey. The scene where the teacher administers the punishments at the beginning of the film. The punishments that the boy, faces become more pronounced and thorough as the film progresses. He is finally considered an offender and is placed in a home that hosts young offenders. This theme is brought out clearly ion the sense that the people in charge of Doinel’s upbringing consider his mistakes serious and punishable to that extent. The viewers might be sympathetic with him and feel that his mistakes do not warrant the nature and extent of punishments he is

served.
Antoine Doinel receives a punishment from his teacher when he looks at an inappropriate poster in class. He reacts to the punishment by writing a disgusting comment on the wall and declines to erase the comment off the wall. These minor mistakes and naughtiness of children are considered crimes by the teacher who punishes the young boy for every mistake he does. At one point in the film, Antoine decides not to show up at school. He lies to the teacher in an attempt to excuse himself. Doinel makes another mistake by honoring one of his Idols using a class assignment. These minor mistakes are brought out as juvenile crime that leads to him being punished. These mistakes seen in the film do not warrant such punishments, but he still gets severely punished. The theme of crime is depicted from the way the teacher and parents treat his transgressions. His father becomes angry at him because of his mistakes and slaps him. This makes him feel like not coming back home in fear of being beaten again by his father.
In the whole film, Antoine commits just one crime that can be considered worthy of being punished. He goes into his father’s office and steals a typewriter. Theft is considered a crime worth punishment and detention. This crime from the viewer’s perspective can be seen as a problem that the youths undergo. Children’s naughtiness should be controlled but not with the kind of punishments Antoine has to face. Antoine steals the typewriter and tries to sell it but does not know that it has a serial number and a receipt. Upon coming to realization that he cannot sell the typewriter, he decides to take it back to his father’s office risking being caught and being punished again. This move makes the crime look less punishable since he returns the stolen typewriter, but he is still punished like a real criminal. He, Antoine, is taken to a home for juvenile offenders and is detained in that home. This punishment is harsh for this punishment owing to the fact that he did not end up selling the stolen typewriter since he returned it back. Antoine is taken to the police station, moved from one cell to the other. The young boy is confined in a cell before he is eventually taken to the home for young offenders.
In conclusion, the themes of punishment and crime are brought out by the writer, François Truffaut. The transgressions of the young boy, Antoine Doinel, are punished as though they were big crimes. The kinds of crimes Antoine commit are seen to be minor, but the punishments served to him are not worth the crimes. He is even taken to the police and locked up in a cell. These institutions, the police and the juvenile offender’s home, support the themes portrayal. He escapes from the home but does not serve as a victory over the institutions of punishment and correction.

2.

The Bicycle Thieves (Italy, De Sica, 1948) – Social, Historical and Cultural Context.

The film, The Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica, has an original Italian title Ladri di Biciclette. The plurality of the word thief indicates that there exists more than one thief in the film. This plurality is significant, because the film is based on the social context of Italy during an economically devastated post-war regime, where thieves increase rapidly. The focus on the daily life hustles of normal citizens is of interest to Italian neo-realist directors. These neo-realists depict reality in a more faithful fashion than films from the studios that dominated at that time. Neo-realism is characterized by use of actors who are not professional and location shooting. The film, The Bicycle thieves, has had a recognizable impact internationally because of the Italian neo-realist movement directors. Directors from Spain, Russia and India, such as Satyajit Ray, employed neo-realist ideas in their creation. The great influence of neo-realism can be witnessed in Salaam Bombay! (1988) by Mira Nair and much of contemporary cinema from

Iran.
The story in this film is from the Italian’s lower social classes, almost populist: an occurrence in a worker’s daily life. However, the film does not involve unusual events like the ones that happened to the ill-fated workers in Gabin films. Crimes of passion are non-existent, unrealistic coincidences common in detective stories are also non-existent. The film involves an insignificant incident: a lowly worker spends a whole day in vain looking for a bicycle, which someone stole from him, in the streets of Rome. This stolen bicycle, is a trade resource to the worker, and if it is not found the worker will be jobless once again. After wandering in the streets in vain, he is attempts stealing a bicycle. Unfortunately, he gets arrested and then set free, and he remains as poor as he was before owning a bicycle. The worker, due to the arrest, feels the shame of having stooped too low to the level of a thief.