It was on TCM, tonight -- "Les Quatre Cents Coups." ("The 400 Blows")
It's the story of Antoine Doinel and his descent into juvenile delinquency thanks to parents who don't like him and a school system not set up to handle anyone as precocious as him. One of the most alive and exquisite and honest tellings of a boy's story I've ever seen...and the ending image is an icon in film history.
I first saw this in college, in San Antonio, and fell completely in love with it. I started taking French so I could better understand what was really being said instead of dealing with the subtitles. Never got to that point, but when I was in Paris I still managed to get around and do a tour of the places in the movie.
The moment it came out on VHS I bought it. I'd only seen it in regular film format, so it worked fine...but then at UT they showed it in widescreen and I just about died at realizing how little of the movie had been visible before. Soon as it came out on DVD, I grabbed it and have had one ever since. Even when I was selling off my DVD collection to pay my bills, I never even thought about selling this. I couldn't.
I now have the Criterion collection of the whole Antoine Doinel series.
This movie destroys me, every time. Here's the trailer for it.
J'aimerais faire des films comme ça. Totalement.
I first saw this in college, in San Antonio, and fell completely in love with it. I started taking French so I could better understand what was really being said instead of dealing with the subtitles. Never got to that point, but when I was in Paris I still managed to get around and do a tour of the places in the movie.
The moment it came out on VHS I bought it. I'd only seen it in regular film format, so it worked fine...but then at UT they showed it in widescreen and I just about died at realizing how little of the movie had been visible before. Soon as it came out on DVD, I grabbed it and have had one ever since. Even when I was selling off my DVD collection to pay my bills, I never even thought about selling this. I couldn't.
I now have the Criterion collection of the whole Antoine Doinel series.
This movie destroys me, every time. Here's the trailer for it.
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