les quatre-cents coups (1959) & how spectacle plays its part

 

There’s a brief sequence in Truffaut’s ‘Les 400 Coups’ where we watch young Antoine & Renee accompany Renee's sister to a puppet show. The two lads are flanked by hundreds of young children, completely enamoured by the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ play being put on before them. For a second, we see a young boy resting his head on another’s shoulder in absolute awe. Notably, Antoine and Renee are not nearly as gripped by this attraction as the other children that Truffaut’s pensive camera sits on. In fact, they’re not watching at all, but rather discussing their upcoming theft. An unfortunate loss of innocence, they no longer belong to this group of young innocents simply enjoying the show.

It’s fitting for a character so dear to Francois’s heart that it’s hard to separate his childhood from Antoine’s. Cinema and literature can serve so many purposes. Escape. Education. Excitement. Empathy. So many more words that start with the letter E. I think it’s worth investigating another instance of how cinema & spectacle play a role in this film. 

Antoine, his mother and his father are all gathered around the supper table. The frame is tight, and the dining room small. Antoine small stature shows how important he feels in this family dynamic. The camera is sedentary in this shot, like how it is in all other interiors throughout the picture, giving us a feeling of being stuck. Camera-Stylo. Smoke is smelt. Mum & Dad soon find out that a fire has erupted in Antoine’s ad-hoc bedroom. He lit a candle and placed a curtain over the top of it. Dad puts out the fire before fuming at the young accidental arsonist. Indebted, or more so for fear of being blackmailed, Mum suggests catching a flick at the local cinema to smooth things over, and boy does it ever. The next time we see the family, they’re quoting lines to each other and laughing up the staircase to their apartment, jovial as can be and the resentment of the fire snuffed out. If this doesn’t show Truffaut’s belief that films contain an immense amount of power over us, I don’t know what does!