The title of the film means "struggling to protest" in French, referring to the protagonist's protest against social injustice. The teenage pain he experienced is a very typical life course, without any pretense or exaggeration, so it can resonate widely. The original idea of the film was a 20-minute short film, which was later selected by Truffaut from four short-film proposals to be processed into a complete feature film. As soon as it came out, it immediately became the pioneering work of the new wave film genre, and also won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It is a monument in the history of art film.
[About the movie]
Before watching this movie, or even after watching it, there must be many people who don't understand why this movie, which tells the trivial life of a teenager, is named "The Four Hundred Blows". However, with a little knowledge of French, or looking up a French-Chinese dictionary, you will understand that "four hundred strikes" turns out to be a fixed phrase in French, which means to slap a disobedient child 400 times so that he can become good child. This is basically the same as China's "Huang Jing stick brings out good people". The title of this film is sometimes translated as "Misunderstanding". If "Four Hundred Strikes" is the beating itself, then "Misundering" is the reason for the beating.
In this film based on Truffaut's own childhood experiences, the young master Anthony Daniwan doesn't listen to the class well. He passes pictures of beautiful women in the class and smears bad words about the teacher on the wall... In short, he doesn't He's likable, which makes teachers and parents think he's a liar and can do anything bad. He stole the typewriter from his father's unit, but instead of selling it, he was caught and sent to a juvenile detention center. According to the investigation and analysis of sociologists, due to lack of care and love, children often use these so-called "nonsense" to release their inner innocence and express silent resistance. However, waiting for him is often not the appearance of care and love, but It is the "four hundred strikes" of the "Huang Jing stick", and it is a juvenile management station covered with barbed wire. "Four Hundred Strikes" is an indictment of this social phenomenon.
"The Four Hundred Strikes" is the pioneering work of the "New Wave" of French films in the 20th century. This laconic, unpretentious cinematic approach was even a necessary marker in the early days of the New Wave. This is not only because filmmakers with conscience and aspirations in various countries after World War II are constantly reflecting on the evil brought about by the illusion of filmmaking, but also because of the clamor of French existentialism at that time, and most of the directors of the New Wave generation were movie fans. Before handing the director tube, these people have smashed various good films in the previous film history in the French Film Archive, and wrote wonderful film reviews to present their own film ideas. Undoubtedly, these directors were deeply influenced not only by American Hollywood film technology in the 1920s and 1930s, but also by the Italian neorealist film ideas. In the name of rebelling against French "quality films", they developed their own film concepts and developed new film styles in their own film practices, thus creating a new fashion in an era. "Four Hundred Strikes", as the work of the revolt, is undoubtedly on the cusp of this "wave".
[About the director]
Truffaut was originally an orphan who lived on the streets and slept in the rough. He was also imprisoned in a juvenile prison for stealing. Fortunately, a man named Andre Bazin took him out of there and raised him to adulthood. This Andre Bazin is also a famous figure in the history of film. It can even be said that without him, there may be no later "New Wave". It was Bazin, a man of keen insight and compassion, who nurtured Truffaut into a film buff and, later, a world-class director. With the help of Bazin, Truffaut has been writing for Bazin's "Cinébook", and was a very famous film critic at that time. After Andre Bazin's untimely death, in 1958, with the generous sponsorship of his wife's family, Truffaut finally completed this highly autobiographical "first novel", which became an instant hit. The film was also the beginning of a series of his later films centered on the character of Anthony Dano. From 1959 to 1979, Truffaut made five such films, in which Anthony Dano grows, falls in love, gets married, has an affair, gets divorced, and then grows old. From these films, we can not only see the growth of Champier Leo, who can be called the "face" of the "New Wave", but also see Truffaut's own life and his attitude towards life from this character. Thinking and feeling. Truffaut later made many films, which were closer to commercial films in form, which also led to the fierce criticism of Godard, who was also a film critic of the "Cinebook" and a director of the "New Wave", who originally The deep friendship was completely shattered. However, it now seems that the audience of Godard's films about the resistance of the lower class cannot be the lower class. On the contrary, the warmth and sentimentality of Truffaut's films are more suitable for the psychology of the lower class. Therefore, Truffaut's films are universally respected and loved. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, Truffaut is also translated as Chufu, which seems to be more in line with the French pronunciation of his name.
Trivia
· During 1959, when the New Wave movement began, there were 24 French directors who made their debut films, among which Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows" and Godard's "Exhausted" were the top ones.
·In "Four Hundred Blows", when Anthony and his buddy Laine are truant from school and loitering on the street, they pass a wall of posters and they tear down a poster of a woman, the woman It's Harriet Anderson, and the image on the poster is her scene from Ingmar Bergman's 1953 film "Monica the Bad Girl," about a young lover who divorces. A story of running away from home "to seek my own life".
The title of the film comes from the French saying "faire les quatre cents coups", which means "four hundred hits".
Anthony likes to smoke cigarettes, which is exactly the same habit in Truffaut's life.
A one- sentence comment on
Angel faces hell-bent for violence.
Det franske mesterv?rk om de unge il?mmelalderen [Denmark]
Truffaut recounts his tragic boyhood in Four Hundred Blows.
—George Sadur
Clean, concise, and articulate, we were surrounded and deeply moved by this film.
- reel film review
Truffaut is shooting a life, a real life without any embellishments.
——Reel's film review
"The Four Hundred Strikes" reveals the inner world of teenagers in that era with the trivial details of Anthony's growth.
——DVD Commentary
"The Four Hundred Blows" contains a broad tension in its straightforward narrative.
——Godard
Director's Award at the 12th Cannes International Film Festival,
British Academy Award for Best Film Nomination
, New York Film Critics Association Award
Filmed in 1959 by the famous French New Wave director Francois Truffaut, this work brought him international fame. This is a film that reflects the problems of teenagers. The protagonist, Antoine Doinel, a young boy who cannot bear the pressure of school, family and society, embarks on a path of rebellion and seeks his own freedom.
"Four Hundred Blows" is translated from the English "The Four Hundred Blows", which in turn is translated from the French LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS, which means "adolescent strong rebellion". Perhaps it would be better translated as "rebellion without a cause".
The theme and meaning of this film and the impact it brings are beyond the scope of my notes, but I will never forget it - when Antoine was sent to the police station by his own father, and was driven into a police car with criminals and prostitutes, he was in the dark night. Tears glistened on his face.
When it comes to this film, most people can think of the last classic long shot about running, which has been included in the textbook. In fact, there are many wonderful passages in this film.
The director selected places such as schools, homes, police stations, and juvenile detention centers as places to put pressure on the young Doinel. In these places, Doinel is always in a passive role, and the camera rarely gives a full view of the characters. Only in indoor places, such as streets or squares, the camera is more open, and the content of the expression is relatively optimistic. For example, the Paris street scene shot from a low angle at the beginning of the film, or the physical education teacher leading the students to jog, and then the overhead shot of the long-range shot where all the students slipped away, and also added a relaxing element to the soundtrack, and washed out some of the content. Depression.
But that doesn't mean that Doinel is happy outside or on the street, as evidenced by a scene of stealing milk late at night in a starving and cold night. Doinel first got up from the "temporary bed" in the printing factory, walked out to the depth of the camera, and after reaching the street, walked to the right of the camera, turned to the left through the jump axis, and then repeatedly walked left and right when stealing milk. After several times, he finally walked to the left to appear in the camera, and then walked from the depths of the frame to the foreground. The camera panned to a street corner where black and white intersected, and Doinel, who was submerged in black, sipped white milk, and the contrast was clear. This scene is full of gloom and loneliness, even when Doinel runs into the crowded street in the back, it can't stop the sense of loneliness.
There are few close-up shots in this film. There is a saying that the close-up shots overemphasize the individual itself, which separates the relationship with the environment. Compared with the whole film, this shot will lose its meaning of existence. Environment and documentary expression and their own unique understanding.
In the film, Doinel has a lot of running shots, but they don't run very far, and the shot duration is also very short. The depressing atmosphere continued until it finally reached a climax in the juvenile management center. Doinel was in a dialogue with a psychiatrist, accumulating emotional disturbances by repeating pictures and jumping, and Doinel's mother's visit even made this point through dialogue. This repression develops to a new peak. So, at the end of the film, out of rhythm considerations, the director took a long shot to let the emotions accumulated by the protagonist and the film completely vent.
One shot before taking the long shot is of Doinel hiding under a bridge and seeing no one coming after him, he runs a few steps deeper into the frame and then turns left. The first long shot is about one minute and twenty seconds long, and Doinel draws from the left, skipping the axis, emphasizing the change of mood. In the middle of the panorama, and then kept running, running out of the scope of the juvenile detention center, the sound was the sound of running at the same time, and he could even feel his heartbeat. In the second shot, Doinel's panorama ran from the far side of the screen to the right of the camera, and the painting was drawn. At this time, the background music played, the camera began to pan to the left, and the sound of the waves could be heard. When it panned to the view of the sea, the music was very loud, and it stirred up the emotions for a while. As usual, the movie could end at this time, but the camera was still panning to the left until it reached the shore, and Doinel's back appeared. Just now Doinel, who was running towards the camera, is now running from the close to the depth of the camera. The change in the direction of movement is very natural and wonderful. This shot is about 50 seconds in total. The last one-minute long shot of the film is still running and panorama. Doinel got off the shore, ran to the beach, and continued to run to the right of the screen. The camera began to move slowly to the right and back, panning. Doinel ran to the sea, took a few steps to the right sideways in the water, but turned his head and walked towards the camera, the picture freezes and pushes towards his confused, melancholy eyes, close-up, the music and the sound of the waves continue, the play end.
These three sets of long shots are really superb from an audio-visual point of view, and the soundtrack of the film is also in place. For a film like this, no matter what year it was born, there will always be a place for Truffaut in the Best Director Award.
Doinel can see the sea, but not freedom. Perhaps the price of fighting for freedom is the loss of freedom.
In addition to the classic word, or the classic word. After watching this movie, you can know why Cai Mingliang paid tribute to the film at "what time is there on your side", and also understand that the old man Jean-Pierre Leo, who sat opposite Chen Xiangqi on the street in Paris, is very important to the entire film history. how important it is. Chu Fu opened the prelude to the "New Wave of French Cinema" from this film, and also poured out the anger and sighs of his youthful youth. Even now, it seems that this film still has a strong impact on children's psychology and education system, which makes the film more powerful. People are full of blood, but they also dedicate to Chu Fu. Besides being a creator, he does not deny his tender feelings as a movie fan at the same time.
As for the classic horribly long run at the end, it's the most obvious of all the metaphors for rebellion and flight. Of course, the most wonderful thing is the famous look in Antoine's eyes when facing the waves of the sea.
View more about The 400 Blows reviews
