Letters from Vienna #59
I’ve been dreaming about my school days of late and am not sure exactly why. One movie that deals with the difficulties and travails of youth in a fresh, unsentimental and unconventional fashion is “Les Quatre Cents Coups” (“400 Blows”) by François Truffaut, which was one of the most successful films of 1959.
It is a highly autobiographical movie but one which differs from reality in significant ways. It embodies, in short, the essence of Truffaut’s experience, without too much of the dull detail.
Childhood
François Truffaut was born on a Saturday, the 6th of February 1932, in the Rue Léon-Cogniet, Paris, to Janine de Monferrand, a teenage, unwedded mother. He was immediately given over to the care of a wet nurse in Boissy-Saint-Léger and rarely saw Janine for the first three years of his life.
On the 24th of October 1933 Roland Truffaut, who wasn’t his real father, recognised the boy as his own and a wedding took place on the 9th of November, in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
In the spring of 1934 a half-brother by the name of René was born but died shortly afterwards. According to Janine’s sister Monique, this tragedy made everyone acutely aware that the very existence of François was a problem; hitherto, he’d all but been forgotten.[1]
The little boy gradually became paler, sicker and weaker and was saved by his grandmother, Geneviève de Monferrand, who took him to Paris, where she cared for him. The flat in the Rue Henri-Monnier however was tiny. Geneviève and her husband Jean shared a bedroom, Bernard, their fourteen-year-old son slept in the vestibule while Monique, who was ten, and François, who was two, were quartered in the living room.
Youth
By the time he was eight François had become an obstinate, undisciplined and inattentive brat and was simply too much for his poor grandmother to handle. Attempts by Janine, who occasionally dropped by, or his grandfather, to instil discipline invariably failed.[2]
In August 1942, while François was staying with his paternal (step)-grandparents in Juvisy-sur-Orge, which is roughly 18 km south-east of Paris, Geneviève died from a deadly combination of pleurisy and tuberculosis. Roland Truffaut, against the wishes of Janine, decided to bring the boy back to Paris, where he lived with his step-father and mother in the Rue Clignancourt (1942), Rue Saint-Georges (1943) and Rue de Navarin (from 1944 onwards). Again: the apartments were simply too small and François was forced to sleep in the hallway.
Janine made her son feel unwanted, which he was, treated him like a servant and insulted him on a regular basis. He, in turn, came to loath her.[3] Roland liked to fool and joke around with his step-son but both he and Janine had no problem at all in neglecting François if it suited them. While they went off hiking François, who was at a difficult age as it was, was simply left to fend for himself. He was even forced to spend Christmas on his own, which is demoralising enough for any adult, let alone a child, while they visited friends and doubtlessly had a merry time of it. The fact that his mother had numerous lovers, who Roland, in truly French fashion, tolerated, didn’t help matters at all.
Given that François wasn’t able to sleep properly and was neglected it is hardly surprising that he was an unruly and difficult pupil or that he managed to arouse the ire of most of his teachers at the various schools (in the Rue Milton 5, Rue Milton 35 and Rue Choron) he attended.
Much of this experience: the cramped living conditions, the fights at home, the fooling and joking with his step-father, the truancy, the neglect, the punishment by teachers, and the mother’s lover, finds expression in the film.
Perhaps the most important thing about the movie though is that it’s neither moralizing nor judgmental; the director doesn’t seek to preach or apportion blame and there are neither heroes nor heroines: simply real people. There aren’t any complicated or surprising twists or turns to the story while the figures are realistic, three-dimensional and psychologically plausible. The camera-work doesn’t seek to enchant while there’s no fancy or innovative editing.
Revenge isn’t art
“Revenge isn’t art” one of the figures in “La Nuit américaine” (“Day for Night”) says but that is perhaps the wrong way of interpreting this particular film, which is quirky and occasionally funny. It isn’t an act of hatred but rather love. Equally importantly: it’s not simply a document of parental neglect or brutality at school but essentially a buddy movie.
In the autumn of 1943 Truffaut got to know Robert Lachenay, who inspired the character René Bigey in “Les Quatre Cents Coups”, at school. They became fast friends because both shared a passionate love of books and films, were neglected by their respective parents and had a habit of truancy, mendacity and theft.[4] This hugely important youthful experience finds expression in the film.
Lachenay later became, like Truffaut, a film critic and worked as Production Manager on Truffaut’s “Les Mistons” (“The Mischief Makers”), as well as Assistant Unit Manager on “Les Quatre Cents Coups” two years later.
In many respects “Les Quatre Cents Coups” resembles “Pather Panchali”, (The Song of the Little Road) by Satyajit Ray, which I discussed in Letter #55. “The raw material of cinema is life itself,” Ray then opined. This is not to say that there’s no place for fantastic inventions or the pyrotechnics of Hollywood. Paul Schrader might well be right when he scornfully says that Hollywood isn’t concerned with dealing with life’s problems but rather avoiding them yet there has always been, since Georges Méliès, a place for magic and spectacle in cinema. The first and most significant film-makers however were the Lumière brothers, who documented life itself.
What is important, as Ray knew all too well, is “an acute understanding of human beings and an ability to devise the ‘chain’ type of story that fits perfectly into the ninety-minute span of the average commercial cinema. Simplicity of plot allows for intensive treatment, while a whole series of interesting and believable situations and characters sustain interest . . . For a popular medium, the best kind of inspiration should derive from life and have its roots in it. No amount of technical polish can make up for artificiality of theme and dishonesty of treatment.”
[1] p.22 François Truffaut, Antoine de Baecque, Serge Toubiana
[2] Ibid pp.29-30
[3] Ibid p.32
[4] Ibid p.39
Fascinating, MB. Simply fascinating. Who knew?