The 400 Blows

THE 400 BLOWS (1959)

CRITERION COLLECTION #5

I could probably get motivated to write another long-form essay solely devoted to discussing the implications of how my main point of reference coming into this movie was that I recalled on VH1's Pop Up Video many years ago that the techniques in some scenes of Beck's Devil's Haircut video were an homage to the final shot in this movie. I don't think that spoils it for anybody. Given a little bit of my familiarity with new wave European cinema, this could have been a riveting film that uses the art of cinema to tell a compelling story, or an exploration of film technique with a directionless narrative that I have to force myself to appreciate because it was one of those "important films". It's more of the latter with this one, unfortunately, and now the big question is whether I should take advantage of the feature length commentary track Criterion provided that might help me understand the film a lot more completely, as was the case with L'Avventura which could be comparable to this. As far as that modern context in which I watched that film, perhaps this film is too dated to appreciate in a contemporary setting. Maybe the lack of direction and deep story was the point of filmmakers back then, as they pushed the enveloped of what people could expect from filmmaking, and that there were truly revolutionary counter-culture elements in The 400 Blows that shocked audiences then, when a disturbing twist on other norms (creative use of sex and violence perhaps) are what can grab our attention nowadays. Anyway, it was a good looking movie. I just will probably have to read a film school textbook to understand why it was a masterpiece.