The Cutting of ‘The 400 Blows’
Note: This post contains spoilers!
François Truffaut’s first feature ‘The 400 Blows’ is not an editorial gold mine like that of his friend and colleague Jean-Luc Godard, whose debut film ‘Breathless’, made a year later in 1960, is sprinkled with jump cuts, heralding in a new style of cutting. However, ‘The 400 Blows’ does have some subtle cuts and editorial techniques that are worth exploring. It is almost as if Truffaut is announcing to the world of cinema “this is my style, folks that I will employ in almost all my films to come”. This style works for ‘The 400 Blows’, a film about an eight year old boy’s rebellion against society, and indeed for most of Truffaut’s later work, which deal with women or children and bears his gentle stamp on them.
The opening scene of the film which shows our man Antoine Doinel, all of eight and bursting with mischievous ideas in a classroom ruled by a despot teacher, sets the editing style for the rest of the film – the mise-en-scene with its long takes and very few cuts within the scene like inserts, a characteristic of all the films made by the French New Wave directors. This works for this film because the idea is to stay with Antoine as he goes about his business, like setting the table for dinner by laying out every piece of silverware, or throwing out every piece of trash into the garbage, or watching in a bored fashion as two ladies in his neighborhood gossip, or creating the details of a ruckus at his friend Remy’s house, or the entire action of rolling a joint later in the film, or the soccer game just before the climax, or the non-stop running in the climax. Most of the French New Wave films were character driven, rather than plot driven, and it seems organic for the audience to stay with the protagonist in such cases.
Mise-en-scene is also used in the film to create a connection, or lack of one using irony in the film in a couple of instances. There is a scene in the earlier half of the film when Antoine lies to his father. Truffaut shoots this using mise-en-scene – the camera dollies in on Antoine as he tells the lie and then dollies out to an intimate medium shot of the two of them as Antoine’s father believes him. Truffaut also uses mise-en-scene again later in the film when Antoine is at a juvenile center and the boys are talking to a boy who has just been literally imprisoned after a failed escape attempt. The camera stays on the boy and without cutting before moving on to Antoine, foreshadowing the climax.
When Antoine spots his mother kissing another man on the street, Truffaut shows us Antoine’s deadpan reaction shot three times. Here, unlike most films, a film technique is used to convey an emotion rather than the actor’s expression. There are only two jump cuts in the film. The first one is an almost tongue-in-cheek moment when Antoine’s friend, Remy, advances the hands of the clock so that his father would leave soon. Such self-referential moments were characteristic of the French New Wave films, as the filmmakers wanted the audience to know that they were watching a film. The second one is when Antoine’s father has just shockingly turned him over to the police.
Truffaut uses intercutting brilliantly at the end of the first scene where Antoine has been punished. We see shots of his friends playing outside during recess intercut with shots of him sulking alone in the classroom. This technique is used again soon to show our protagonist taking his time erasing the board behind the enclosed space while his friends are in the regular part of the classroom. When Antoine’s parents come to the school after discovering that he has been cutting classes and his teacher is called outside the class, the camera dollies in to a medium shot of Antoine, cuts to the teacher outside talking to his parents, and then cuts back to a close up of Antoine. The scene finally ends with a cross dissolve as the camera is still zooming in on Antoine.
The fastest cuts in the film are used in the sequence after Antoine and Remy steal a typewriter from Antoine’s father’s office and are running with the hidden fear of getting caught. The cutting returns to its amble pace after the two little thieves have literally slowed down upon entering a subway station. At one point in the film, Antoine’s parents read a letter he has left them after running away from home. The positioning of this scene in the narrative is interesting. Truffaut places this scene after showing us, the audience that Antoine has run away and is spending the night at a printing press, much like his mentor Hitchcock showing the audience the gun before the victims on screen know about its existence, even though temporally the finding of the letter should precede Antoine spending the night at the press.
Truffaut chooses to jump the line just twice in the film, thus rendering the shown events in a bold typeface. He uses this when Antoine discovers his mother kissing another man and the second time when we see the largely apathetic Antoine shed tears in only one scene of the film. This happens towards the end of the film when he looks out onto the Parisian streets through bars from the back of a police van. This is preceded not too long back by a shot of a couple of angels in a Parisian shop window where Truffaut lets the camera linger for a couple of beats after Antoine and his father have walked by, thus portraying visual irony and foreshadowing as Antoine’s father is about to turn him over to the police in the next scene.
No Truffaut film is complete without the use of the freeze frame, and ‘The 400 Blows’ tells us that he started employing this visual device early in his career. The first one is used when Antoine is being photographed for mug shots by the police and his face is forcibly turned to a profile. This generates a feeling of imprisonment in the audience. The other instance of its use is in the final frame of the film when Antoine, after having enjoyed his freedom on the beach, looks at the camera, thus breaking the fourth wall while the music continues in the background. This is another wink by Truffaut to the audience, characteristic of French New Wave cinema.
Truffuat also uses transitions, specifically cross dissolves to share information about the mood of the film’s protagonist. The first of these is used in the first dinner sequence at home when the family drinks soup and it seems as if Antoine belongs to a happy home. The second time this device is used is also at his home when his mother, who has just been shown to be having an extra-marital affair is supposed to be back late and thus father and son are photographed in a tight medium shot, cooking dinner in the kitchen. There seems to be a suggestion of intimacy in the scene with his upbeat father trying to cheer Antoine up, though nothing consolatory is ever said.
Cross dissolves are used abundantly when Antoine discovers Balzac (a Truffaut idol) and places a photo of him as if he were a God, and then later, when he lights a candle in front of the photo. When the family comes home from a movie and Antoine is happy, a cross dissolve is used. Like with Balzac, the cross dissolve is used multiple times when Antoine and Remy are having fun together. It is also used a few times in the famous scene at the end of the film when a psychologist, who we never see but only hear off screen, is asking Antoine various questions as there are background noises of children being disciplined. Not only do these dissolves show the passage of time and the voluminous number of questions being asked, but also convey Antoine’s confidence. The scene ends with a cross dissolve as the camera is still zooming in on Antoine.
Towards the end of the film, Antoine’s mother comes to visit him at the detention center and sweet talks him but Antoine is distantly calm and unaffected by this as the scene ends with a cross dissolve. The final use of the cross dissolve in the film occurs in the climax when Antoine has reached the beach – a sort of promised land to him, as he admits to Remy in the beginning of the film that he has never seen the ocean. One of the postulates of the French New Wave is the discarding of regular establishing shots of locations in the story. In keeping with this, Truffaut uses a very thematically tolling bell as an establishing shot for the juvenile detention center where Antoine is sent, with unabashed text on the screen letting us know what the location is.
Truffaut uses regular over the shoulder shots sparingly in the film, in fact, only to portray emotionless, distant conversations, like when Antoine’s parents – the halves of an unhappy marriage, talk to each other. This is contrasted in the use of a close up two shot of his parents when one of Antoine’s classmates come home to squeal on him, and the parents are united in their decision to punish Antoine. Nothing is said, but the choice of the shot and the looks of the actors towards each other are enough for us to realize that Antoine is in for some punishment.
Exclusive tight three shots are used a bit later when the family have a happy dinner at home, come out of a movie theater and are returning home in a car. Antoine is happy. An over the shoulder technique is used to shoot the conversation between Antoine’s father and the police inspector, but we never see a frontal shot of the father as he tells the inspector to take his son into custody. Usual over the shoulder shots are used as Antoine’s mother has a dispassionate conversation with a counsellor. The final use of this technique is the last conversation between Antoine’s mother and him. The relationship has strained so much that what is left can only be covered using impersonal over the shoulder shots.
The film contains sequences throughout that make use of off screen dialog. The first use is in a haunting scene where the teacher is reciting something meaningless. The camera is on a student who keeps spilling ink on his notebook and thus tears the page. This continues till he has torn off all the pages of his notebook. On two occasions, we hear Antoine’s parents arguing in the next room while we stare at Antoine who listens expressionless. As he takes out the garbage, the music from the neighbors’ radio spills onto his ears, and thus into his unhappy life of mundane daily chores. As the squealer, who complained about Antoine skipping school to his parents, is reciting something in class, his underwater goggles are stolen in full view by the kids of the class and passed around from hand to hand, followed by the camera, and finally broken by Antoine, and passed back to him, just as he finishes his recital.
Towards the beginning of the film, Antoine and Remy go to a revolving attraction. This scene is cut in real-time, and the camera rotates along with Antoine, giving us his POV at times, thus producing this dizzying effect that he is undergoing. After Antoine steals some milk from the street, he is very secretive about his escape. Truffaut chooses to cut this sequence of him running as far away from the scene of the crime as possible in continuity, thus allowing the audience to share Antoine’s anxiety.
Musical cues are started and faded out in perfect precision in sequences, like when he enters his parents’ bedroom alone when they are away. There is a scene in the middle of the film where Antoine’s mother is suddenly being nice to him as she gets him from school, so that he doesn’t tell his father about her kissing another man on the street. Again she says nothing about the incident to Antoine, but we understand that she is bribing and seducing him. As they walk along the street, they talk, but we, the audience aren’t allowed to hear this superficial conversation. All we hear is wild sound of howling wind. This technique is repeated towards the end of the film when Remy visits Antoine at the juvenile center. As Remy is arguing with the guard to let him in, Antoine watches him from a glass door. We can only hear Remy faintly as Antoine would through the glass door, before he turns to look at Antoine sadly and leaves.
‘The 400 Blows’ won François Truffaut the Best Director award at Cannes and the film won the Best Film award at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards – a first. More importantly, along with Godard’s ‘Breathless’ and Alain Resnais’ ‘Hiroshima Mon Amor’, it ushered in the 60’s for the revolution in French Cinema known today as the French New Wave, which ended up altering how cinema is perceived around the world.
Tags: Francois Truffaut, French New Wave, The 400 Blows
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Nice one Arsenik… u have ne idea whr to get the copy of Alain Resnais’ ‘Hiroshima Mon Amor’…? I have also heard that thr is a full interview coverage of Resnais’ whr he explains the scenes in detail…
Thanks Kalpesh. I have not actually seen Hiroshima Mon Amour (yet), but sounds like it’s really hard to find. Hmmm…
I actually downloaded it free from the net…someone might call it unethical but I think since it was not available anyway, there is nothing wrong in it…
This is a wonderfully written piece. Although I dont understand much of editing myself but loved each bit of your explanation on the intent of using specific cuts. I am saddened to see how this post is being missed out by our readers here at PFC. You have indeed taken lot of pain in writing this and I truly appreciate it. What did stay in my mind etched and embossed from the film was the last existential run towards the beach. I am going to watch it again to make sense of your post.
Thanks Neeraj. I feel the existence of the post is justified if it is able to make even one person re-watch the great Truffaut’s work.
Hi Arsenik
Are you a film student? This looks like an assignment you turned in!
I wonder if we sometimes read too much into things and uncover a master’s hand where none was intended.
I loved 400 blows. Your analysis was very interesting. Please post more.
Hi DAC,
Yes and yes, but I can assure you that the amount of detail in this post wasn’t required for the assignment. I did it because I like analyzing films that affect me. I think film is an art form and the beauty of any form of art is its subjectivity and what different people make out of it.
Glad that you liked it.
Brilliant Analysis my friend
The movie is a classic and has been debated endlessly, but this is truly a remarkable piece focussing on one of the most important aspects of movie making -ie editing. Truffaut’s movies are a masterclass in this very aspect. Thanks for bringing this to us. I wonder if we could have more articles on technical aspects like these like lighting, sound design etc
Cheers
Deepak
Thank you, Deepak. I wrote a post on the cinematography in ‘Se7en’ last week here: http://passionforcinema.com/a-cinematic-exploration-of-the-evolution-of-film-noir-se7en/
Good stuff ArSENik..keep them coming.