The 400 Blows

Locations
Call Number: Blu-ray FLC-FRE Four
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	Blu-ray FLC-FRE Four	1-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	Blu-ray FLC-FRE Four	1-week checkout	Due 03-23-2024
Pittsfield Adult A/V 1-week checkout	Blu-ray FLC-FRE Four	1-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult A/V 1-week checkout	Blu-ray FLC-FRE Four	1-week checkout	Due 04-23-2024

Originally released as a motion picture in 1959.
Special features: Audio commentary by cinema professor Brian Stonehill; audio commentary by François Truffaut's lifelong friend Robert Lachenay (directed by François Chalais and Jacques Planche, aired on May 2, 1959); rare audition footage of Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick Auffay, and Richard Kanayan; Newsreel footage of Léaud in Cannes for the showing of The 400 blows; excerpt from a TV program in which Truffaut discusses his youth, his critical writings, and the origins of Antoine; TV interview with Truffaut about the global reception of The 400 blow and his own critical impression of the film; theatrical trailer; an essay by film scholar Annette Insdorf.
Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble, Georges Flamant, Patrick Auffay.
Antoine Doinel is a young Parisian boy who is neglected by his derelict parents, skips out on school, sneaks into movies, runs away from home, steals things, and tries, with disastrous results, to return them. Like most kids, he gets into more trouble for things he thinks are right than for his actual trespasses. But, unlike most kids, he gets whacked with the big stick. He lives in a Paris filled with dingy flats, seedy arcades, abandoned factories, and workaday streets. Paris is a city that seems big and full of possibilities only when seen through the eyes of a child.
Blu-ray disc, widescreen (2.35:1); Dolby Digital uncompressed mono., 24-bit, 1080p High Definition (new and restored digital transfer).
This Blu-ray disc will not play in standard DVD players.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Awesome submitted by mysterio on July 28, 2011, 2:57pm Awesome

French New Wave submitted by Meginator on July 4, 2022, 8:44am This film is undeniably an important and influential work of deeply considered craft, but while the story has the ring of honesty to it the film’s lack of conventional narrative structure and slice-of-life style makes it difficult to relate to. Nonetheless, this tale of an aimless boy on the cusp of adolescence pulls the viewer in, perhaps because of the loose and natural dialogue and long takes that make the film feel as much like an eavesdropping as a deliberately shaped narrative. For all of its pathos, particularly in the relationship between Antoine Doinel and the authority figures in his life, the film also portrays the resilience of the deep friendships that are often forged during the early teenage years; the story is dark but never unbearably depressing, and its final striking moment can be read as one both of hope and of despair. While I ultimately experienced this film at a bit of a remove, the talent behind it is obvious, and it has enough fundamental emotional honesty to keep less interested viewers engaged enough to linger on the striking technical aspects of the film’s construction.