The 400 Blows
1959 | Drama/French New Wave | 99 minutes | In French with English subtitles
Info
Antoine Doinel is a troubled youngster growing up in Paris with a mother and stepfather who do not understand him. He skips school, steals, and repeatedly is punished for misbehaving. When he is caught plagiarizing Balzac, he quits school. He steals a typewriter from his stepfather and hopes to sell it and finance his getaway. He is apprehended and spends the night in jail, sharing a cell with prostitutes and thieves. His mother has given up caring for Antoine. She realizes if she takes him back, he’ll run away. Antoine is placed in an observation center for troubled youths. He manages to escape and he heads to the sea, which he has never seen. He reaches the shoreline. It’s a transformative experience. Directed by François Truffaut.
Cast
Why Stream This Film?
- Rotten Tomatoes Score (Critics Consensus): 100%
- Metacritic Score: 92
Accolades
- Cannes International Film Festival: Best Director (François Truffaut)
-
New York Film Critics’ Circle Awards: Best Film
-
Academy Awards: Nominated, Best Original Screenplay (François Truffaut and Marcel Moussy)
Now streaming on:
François Truffaut’s THE 400 BLOWS is one of the most intensely touching stories ever made about a young adolescent. Inspired by Truffaut’s own early life, it shows a resourceful boy growing up in Paris and apparently dashing headlong into a life of crime. If the New Wave marks the dividing point between classic and modern cinema (and many think it does), then Truffaut is likely the most beloved of modern directors—the one whose films resonate with the deepest, richest love of moviemaking.
The film is so fluid, so graceful, so apparently natural, that it seemed not to have any agenda at all. It doesn’t feel willful; it feels (as revolutions too rarely do) inevitable. It’s a lyrical and surprisingly tough-minded little picture about a 12-year-old troublemaker named Antoine Doinel as seen by a sympathetic and slightly more seasoned troublemaker named François Truffaut.
This film is a landmark in modern cinema, launching the French New Wave and turning Francois Truffaut from a critic into one of the world’s most distinguished filmmakers.
YOU MIGHT ALSO CONSIDER:
To Leslie
Leslie, a West Texas single mother, wins $190,000 in a local lottery. But being an alcoholic, her money is gone in a few years…
The Banshees of Inisherin
It’s 1923. On the green island of Inisherin, Pádraic, a milk farmer, and Colm, a violinist in the process of composing a song, meet every day at the local pub for a pint of Guinness…
Lost Illusions
In 1820s France, 20-year-old Lucien de Rubempré, an idealistic poet and writer, travels from his provincial country home to Paris to seek his fortune…
Contact
If you found this site helpful, please recommend it to a friend. We also welcome your comments.
info@streaming-flix.com / call 917-439-3364
P.O. Box 20038
New York, N.Y. 10075
Follow us on social media:
0 Comments