Movie #0017 – The 400 Blows (1959)

Directed by: François Truffaut
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay, Claire Maurier
Third Viewing

Synopsis: A few weeks in the life of a rebellious young kid in Paris.

Well, I finally joined the 21st century and got a Blu-ray player (a PS3, to be precise), and this film seemed as good as any to christen the new machine. The movie looked pretty darn spiffy, though to be honest it’s kind of hard to tell the difference on my crappy old 30 inch CRT HDTV (I hate that stupid, tiny, outdated old TV with a passion). The picture was crisp, and Criterion did a great job (as usual) making sure the image was well-restored and without any noticeable signs of aging.

François Truffaut is definitely my favourite director from the French New Wave. I can appreciate guys like Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais, but it’s fairly clear that they were more interested in challenging the traditional notion of what a film can be than actually making something that most people would want to watch. I don’t know how pretentious you’d have to be to really love something like Weekend, but I’m not there yet.

Honestly, I don’t have a whole lot to say about this movie. I’ve seen it a few times now, and I definitely like it, but it’s one of those movies I like and respect but am fairly ambivalent towards. Truffaut does a great job getting really naturalistic, convincing performances from the kids, and the widescreen, black and white cinematography always keeps things interesting on a visual level.

A note: since I don’t have a Blu-ray drive on my computer, I couldn’t capture my own image from the film, so credit goes to DVD Beaver for the picture above.

Buy the movie at Amazon