400 Blows [faire les quatre cents coups]

In the 1950s, after the victory over fascism, people all over the world fell into reflection, which resulted in left-leaning political thought. In the East, the movement represented by China was initiated by the government. In the West, represented by Western Europe, the Sturm und Drang was a proto-Romantic movement in German literature, and music was launched. Because of the different social systems, this movement was initiated by a group of young people, whose purpose was to get away from homes and find their jobs.

There have always been two major factions of confrontation between the world in films, namely the American submissive and the European resistance. In the era mentioned above, this situation was extremely prominent. Due to the rebellious spirit of young students in Western Europe, many excellent films were produced. These films are unconventional and reflect a very personal theme, which we consider to be representative of new wave art. Among them, the film with pioneering significance is "Four Hundred Blows" produced in France in 1959.

"Four Hundred Blows” was choreographed and directed by François Truffaut. Anyone who has been exposed to film history will know that Truffaut is a famous film theorist. After a traumatic boyhood, the young Truffaut followed the French film theorist André Bazin and filmed his first film "The Four Hundred Blows" in 1959. He dedicated this film to Andre Bazin, the forerunner of the New Wave movement and the man who brought Truffaut from his teenage predicament to the world of cinema. The language expresses a tribute to Bazin and the film.

"Four Hundred Blows" is a film about the flow of life. Without a complete story framework, only use the protagonist's next action as a clue to arouse the audience's interest. The film tells the story of a young man's living conditions in school, family, homelessness, and prison, showing the young man's rebellion. The happiest day of the protagonist is the three days of wandering, and the happiest moment for him is the moment he escapes from prison. He sees the sky and the endless ocean. Although he is confused, he feels free again after all. Looking back at the depressing school, the incompetent teachers, and the dilapidated family, it seems like a nightmare. Of course, it may also be hell, a narrow world that destroys human nature and annihilates creativity. On the contrary, the space of the protagonist is vast, and the sea and sky at the end of the film naturally do not need to be said, even in his life of being forced to wander for various reasons (forced to be just an excuse), he is full of joy, curiosity, self-confidence, etc. The emotion of creativity is always evident in the body, walking through the streets and running through the buildings is gratifying, and the mind is naturally open at this time.

The most prominent feature of "Four Hundred Blows" is the use of cinematography. The film uses a lot of long shots. At the beginning of the film, the camera sweeps through the streets of Paris. The function here is to suggest where the protagonist wanders or runs away from, and points out that the main plot of the film lies in the protagonist's wandering. At the end of the film, there is a famous long shot with the protagonist running for a few minutes. The audience will realize that there are many switching methods used in the shots of the character movement, but if we encounter such a long shot, the meaning of running is not only in the development of the narrative plot but also in expressing the ecstasy of the protagonist running towards freedom. Truffaut broke the audience's habit and forced the audience's thinking ability, so this shot is a classic shot that can go down in history. Another long shot is more interesting, and the audience often smiles knowingly. In this shot, the teacher leads the students to run on the streets of Paris, and the children quietly slip away in twos and threes. This shot has little to do with the plot of the protagonist and can be called a single shot, but it declares a state of life and has the effect of objectively reproducing the environment. The film's use of the lens seems to have reached the point of harshness. For example, when expressing the relationship between father and son, one picture is always used to include all the characters, while when expressing the relationship between mother and child, opposite shots are always used, and mother and child never appear in one picture. In this way, the emotional relationship between the characters is fully revealed. Many shots in a film have deep meanings about the plot, rather than simply seeking narrative. This is the true meaning of film art.

In short, the film "Four Hundred Blows" is a classic in terms of content and shooting methods. Even after years have passed, this film is still a very avant-garde work, which is enough to accompany the Truffaut's name goes down in history together.

The greatness of a movie is by no means because of its superiority, much less because of its obscurity. So, although the name "Four Hundred Blows" can be confusing, and the name "New Wave of French Cinema" is also prohibitive, maybe it is behind these artificial barriers that you miss a full movie that should not be missed. A soulful movie.

The first works of the new wave of French cinema, one is "À bout de soufflé” and the other is "Four Hundred Blows". At the beginning of the modernization of cinema by the New Wave (especially the "Cahiers du Cinéma"), two distinct exits have been split. One is to break the narrative mode of classical films and use new film language and technology to impact people's knowledge of the film Godard. His revolutionary propositions and techniques stunned the audience, and the break between narrative and emotion reminds people to enter. subjective thinking.

But Truffaut is different. Although he also broke the rotten narrative mode of the original film, he is more tender and calm. He constructs the "author's film" at the ideological level with the unparalleled sincerity of emotion. He can also be fancy, but he never wants to forget the eternal emotional appeal of human beings. If expressed in one word, it is still sincerity.

"The Four Hundred Blows" is a sincere movie that shouldn't be missed.

Truffaut also had a special affection for Antoine, and he let him grow up in his films, and made the famous "Antoine Five". The five films cover Antoine's youth, youth, and adulthood. Antoine completes his growth in the film. He loves music, falls in love, loses love, and enters marriage... He is another Truffaut image in the movie.

Four hundred strikes is a slang term in French, which roughly means that children should be beaten four hundred times to be obedient. However, in Truffaut's eyes, we see a young man growing up, the beauty was destroyed little by little, the light is dim, and the cruel reality he bears in his heart is the price everyone has to pay.

This price urges us to grow, and the pain can only be endured by ourselves. When Antoine fled the teaching center and ran to the seaside, we did not see the happiness of freedom, only the confused eyes facing the camera. This ending, which has been appreciated and interpreted by countless people, seems to remind us that growing up is a kind of suffering that sinks again and again, and it is also a kind of relief from forgetting and forgetting again and again.