TSPDT placing: #46
Directed by: François Truffaut
Written by: François Truffaut (scenario, adaptation), Marcel Moussy (adaptation, dialogue)
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble, Georges Flamant, Patrick Auffay
WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!
I'm a little hesitant about rating and reviewing François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, as my first viewing was a rather dysfunctional and muddled affair, one of those moments when you wish that DVD technology had never been invented as a substitute for the perfection of the cinema screen. A remarkable feature-length debut from the revered critic-turned-director, Truffaut's touching and funny portrait of juvenile angst proved one of the pioneering films in the French New Wave. Just a few days ago, I decided to attend my university's film society for a showing of the film, but, inconceivably and unforgivably, the screening was started a full thirty minutes into the picture, and, due to a wearisome technical fault, we missed a further ten minutes in the centre of the story, including the moment when young Antoine reveals himself to have never seen the ocean, a remark that proves extremely significant once we arrive at the conclusion.
Fortunately, I had a copy of the film back at home, and promptly viewed the scenes that had been neglected, allowing me to better appreciate the intricate depths to which the film explored its characters and their respective situations. Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) was born out of wedlock, and practically abandoned by his parents to live with relatives. After several years, Antoine returns to his resentful mother (Claire Maurier) and his friendly, if inadequate, stepfather (Albert Rémy) to hopefully commence a normal lifestyle, but, driven by the discomfort of his uneasy home relationships, Antoine descends into a life of mischief and petty crime. When his misbehavior becomes overwhelming for his strained parents, Antoine finds himself in a correctional facility for juvenile delinquents, and, despite the institute's strict disciplinary action, he still finds himself yearning for "a life of his own," to be completely independent of his elders, and to live unrestrained by their narrow-minded restrictions.
Léaud, in only his second film appearance, is wonderfully natural in the main role, portraying Antoine's tortured confinement – stemming both from society's restrictive disciplinary system, and his stagnant family relationships – with poignant, and often funny, enthusiasm. He would reunite with Truffaut on a further four occasions between 1962 and 1979 to complete the story of Antoine Doinel's life. There's little doubt that The 400 Blows is at least partially autobiographical. Truffaut himself never knew his natural father, had a detached relationship with his mother and frequently found shelter in his love for cinema. During the film, Antoine discovers a passion for the French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac, whose successful career was borne from a life plagued with personal and professional difficulties, his willful nature often squandering his attempts at business success. Always thirsting for independence from those who dictate rules to him, Antoine relates easily with Balzac, even building a candle-lit throne to the author, but his word-for-word "homage" is mistaken for plagiarism by his short-sighted school teacher.
The film's final moments are rightfully celebrated for their touching and poignant ambiguity, as Antoine escapes from the juvenile institution and proceeds towards the ocean, which he has never seen before; his arrival at the rolling waves representative of that almost-unattainable independence of which he was so desirous. In a single, extremely smooth long-shot, Antoine ambles across the sand, always moving forward but seemingly getting nowhere. As he finally kicks at the breaking surf, Antoine pauses, perhaps uncertain of his path from here. Having acquired his goal of independence, he suddenly finds himself alone and purposeless, a small boy playing dolefully in the water. Antoine turns his back to the ocean and faces the audience directly (does he see his pursuers approaching in the distance?), and the camera zooms in on a captured frame of Antoine's face, his soft, inquiring eyes asking us what he's supposed to do now.
8/10, though a less-fragmented viewing is very much in order
Currently my #5 film of 1959:
1) Die Brücke {The Bridge} (Bernhard Wicki)
2) Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder)
3) North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
5) Le Quatre cents coups {The 400 Blows} (François Truffaut)
Recently-released criminal mastermind, Doc Erwin Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), has, for the last seven years of his incarceration, protected the plans for the most ambitious and profitable heist of his "distinguished" career. He arrives in a dreary, smoggy, crime-ridden city, where low-lifes patrol the darkened streets and law officers, some honest and some crooked, do their best to control the escalating crime-rates. The Doc hires a diverse assortment of essential criminals to ensure the success of his caper – a "boxman," or a safecracker (Anthony Caruso) with a young family, a "top-notch" getaway driver (James Whitmore) with a twisted back, and a small-time "hooligan" (Sterling Hayden) with a costly passion for horses. Also involved in the elaborate scheme is Cobby (Marc Lawrence), a sleazy, treacherous bookie, and Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern), a bankrupt professional businessman who agrees to finance the operation but houses plans for a disastrous double-crossing. The film's female protagonists come in the form of innocent Doll Conovan (Jean Hagen, prior to her career-defining performance in 'Singin' in the Rain (1952)') and an up-and-coming Marilyn Monroe as Emmerich's sexy, playful and naive young mistress.
As was typical in film-noir films of the era, whose contents were dictated by the meddlesome Production/Hays Code, the ultimate moral of the story is that crime doesn't pay. Each of the thieves receive punishment for their involvement in the robbery, either through conviction or death, as does the fraudulent detective (Barry Kelley) whose corruption is described as a "one in a hundred" case. Nevertheless, Huston succeeds in creating a certain amount of empathy towards the criminals, sympathetically presenting the audience with each man's reasonable motivations towards breaking the law. By recruiting our support, Huston invariably places the audience in the shoes of a criminal, suggesting, as the perfect scheme begins to unravel, that our own fates lie in the balance. This evocation of realism is certainly complemented by Harold Rosson's gritty, documentary-like cinematography, and the heist sequence itself – while falling well short of Jules Dassin's breathless 30-minute counterpart – is tense, intriguing and authentic. As Huston himself explains in a pre-film introduction on the DVD release, each of his characters is immoral, largely unlikable and driven by a debilitating vice; however, despite this, or perhaps because of it, we can't take our eyes off them.
Only Angels Have Wings was filmed in Los Angeles, and does an excellent job of evoking the exotic tropical environment of South America. The characters always appear beleaguered by the overwhelming heat and humidity of the Ecuadorian jungle, and the frequent storms bombard the landscape with stifling fog and rain. The scenes of aviation, largely produced using elaborate model-work, remain mostly convincing, and those few shots that aren't have a likable charm about them. Roy Davidson (photographic) and Edwin C. Hahn (sound) received an Academy Award nomination for their special effects work, the first time that an Oscar had been offered in that category. One particular aviation shot, apparently involving no effects of any kind, follows Richard Barthelmess' mail-plane as he attempts an extremely risky landing on a perilous plateau. Filmed from adjacent aircraft, the long shot follows the plane as its swoops around the makeshift runway and comes in for the landing, coming to a stop just metres from the edge of the cliff. It's an elaborate and meticulously-staged moment that really makes you appreciate what cinema is all about.
The story involves Geoff Carter (Cary Grant), who manages a air-mail business from the small port-town at Barranca. Though he has been romantically-involved with many women, Geoff has basically given away all chances of happiness, being unwilling to place any woman through the stress and fear that besieges any wife whose husband has such a dangerous occupation. Spirited and intelligent Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) arrives at the town, and, despite her initial aversion towards Geoff, slowly finds herself caring about him. Geoff's repeated attempts to rebuff Bonnie's advances ultimately prove futile, and he discovers that the woman who truly loves him will never allow herself to be affected by his rejections, however selfless and noble his intentions. Forming the film's dramatic heart is the character of Bat Kilgallen (Richard Barthelmess), a disgraced pilot who finds himself aggressively slighted by his comrades for ejecting from his aircraft and leaving his navigator, the brother of Kid Dabb (Thomas Mitchell), to die. Even when offered only the most dangerous missions, Kilgallen's unwavering desire for redemption earns him the respect of those who had formerly denounced him as a coward.
Christina Delassalle (Véra Clouzot) and Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret), both teachers at a boarding school for young boys, have a rather peculiar friendship. Christina is married to Michel (Paul Meurisse), a violent and tyrannical husband who derives pleasure from humiliating his pretty but physically-delicate wife. Nicole, conversely, is Michel's mistress, a proud and independent woman who knows how to take control of a situation. At one point in the film, upon witnessing the two woman quietly conversing, a fellow professor makes a fascinated remark: "I may be reactionary, but this is absolutely astounding - the legal wife consoling the mistress! No, no, and no!" The mere fact that Christina and Nicole have become close should already hint at a sinister situation underlying the surface, and, indeed, it is soon revealed that the two women plan to murder Michel and ridding themselves of his oppression. The "murder" itself – a sedative in the alcohol, and drowning their unconscious victim in the bathtub, is exceedingly disturbing, as we guiltily and uneasily ask ourselves if we'd have the courage to carry through such a scheme.
Alfred Hitchcock often delighted in creating suspense through the audience's subversive empathy for a film's villain, as a murderer attempts frantically to remove all traces of their crime. Clouzot uses a similar technique in his film, though, given the loathsome nature of the murder victim, our sympathy for the two women is almost demanded of us. However, the disappearance of Michel's body from the school swimming pool is completely unexpected, and either hints at a supernatural overtone, or that somebody else is quite obviously aware of their terrible crime. The paranoia from here rarely lets up, and we continually bombard ourselves with an endless stream of questions, unable to provide an answer for any of them. On a weaker note, despite the ever-present air of tension, few scenes actually succeeded in getting my heart pumping at a mile-a-minute, which was a slightly disappointing response that I can't quite explain. Perhaps a few sequences need to have been shortened slightly, just to swipe off ten unnecessary minutes, and allowing for a brisker pace that never gives you a chance to exhale.
James Cagney plays C.R. "Mac" MacNamara, a proud veteran of the Coca-Cola Company, who has dragged his family around Europe for the past fifteen years in futile pursuit of the European managerial position. Now located in West Berlin, his goal is seemingly within reach, despite the elevating friction between the Americans and the Communists of the East. Just on the verge of a groundbreaking deal to distribute Coca-Cola across the Iron Curtain, Mac is unexpectedly asked by his boss (Howard St. John) to babysit his hot-blooded seventeen-year-old daughter, Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), during her stay in Berlin. When Scarlett suddenly announces her marriage to a fierce Communist radical, Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz), Mac realises that he has just hours to transform this unapologetic Yankee-hater into the perfect son-in-law, otherwise his career is as good as doomed. Racing frantically around his office, barking orders with incredible ferocity, Cagney is absolute dynamite in the leading role, the film's hectic conversational pace often reminiscent of a Howard Hawks film, particularly His Girl Friday (1940) {which Wilder notably remade in The Front Page (1974)}.
Though some of the jokes occasionally miss their mark, the screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond {adapted from the one-act play by Ferenc Molnar} is brisk, intelligent and regularly very funny. The supporting characters each bring a streak of vibrancy to the darkly-themed satire, and, though Cagney always dominates his scenes, each performer complements him well. Schlemmer (Hanns Lothar), an ex-SS member who denies everything, habitually clinks his heels together at every order, despite being asked on multiple occasions to cut it out; Phyllis MacNamara (Arlene Francis) resents her husband's neglect of his family, and verbally articulates her frustration by referring to him as "Mein Fuhrer"; Fräulein Ingeborg (Liselotte Pulver) is Mac's sexy, ambitious secretary, and Wilder certainly knows how to make good use of her. Filled with amusing characters and situations, and more film references than I was able to count, Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three is surefire Cold War entertainment, and fans of James Cagney will relish the opportunity to witness Rocky Sullivan playing the comedian.
If I ever had any doubts that Akira Kurosawa was my kind of film director, then I may now consider them groundless. After two solid but flawed efforts in Stray Dog (1949) and 
Akira Kurosawa, working with cinematographers Fyodor Dobronravov, Yuri Gantman and Asakazu Nakai, has committed to celluloid some of the most strikingly-gorgeous images since David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The wilderness of Siberia is, at first glance, exceedingly mundane and unremarkable, but, out of the sheer isolation and purity of the landscape, Kurosawa uncovers a noble beauty about the trees, rocks, waters and, indeed, the people who survive there. The film's most breathtaking shot shows Arsenyev and Dersu perched before a pristine sunset, the pair perfectly-framed between the blazing red Sun and the ascending Moon. Out of a bitter windstorm on the frozen expanses of a lake, Kurosawa crafts an intense episode of nail-biting suspense, as the two frantically attempt to gather grass for the purposes of constructing a crude but vital sleeping shelter, their only opportunity to avoid freezing to death in the relentless cold of the Siberian night. Recognising the inherent beauty in the landscape he was photographing, Kurosawa often makes excellent use of long takes, allowing the viewer to simply sit back and absorb the majesty of the wilderness with which he has been surrounded.
Another important theme in Dersu Uzala is the cultural and environmental toll of progress. It was only during the early years of the 1900s that the Sikhote-Alin region of Siberia began to abandon its old-time traditions and lifestyles in order to catch up with the more advanced civilisations that surrounded it. Dersu, who has lived alone in the forest for much of his life, proves a final victim of society's progress, a tragic symbol of a culture that has been irretrievably lost in the past. With his dwindling eyesight, and an escalating superstitious paranoia of the forest caused by his senseless murder of a tiger, Dersu finds that he can no longer provide for himself, and so accompanies Arsenyev back to his home in the city. His spirit crushed and broken, Dersu spends his days staring soullessly into the burning fireplace, consumed by memories of his lifetime in the free and peaceful isolation of the forest. He eventually resolves to return to the wilderness, but is shortly murdered for his expensive rifle; the lone hunter has now been completely destroyed by the unstoppable march of progress, which brings along both its benefits and its unavoidable evils.
An Affair to Remember was a remake of McCarey's own 1939 film, Love Affair, which starred Irenne Dunne and Charles Boyer. Then-acting veteran Cary Grant, who received his big break in the director's The Awful Truth, plays Nickie Ferrante, a witty and debonair social playboy/failed artist, who, in the wedding event of the year, is due to marry wealthy socialite Lois Clark (Neva Patterson). On his luxury cruise to greet his would-be bride in New York, Nickie meets Terry McKay (a lovely Deborah Kerr), who is initially too proud and sensible to have anything to do with the notoriously charming Nickie, but nonetheless slowly falls for him. The pair attempt to hide their budding romance, to the amusement of their nosey fellow passengers, but soon they realise that their situation is simply inescapable. They plan a rendezvous in six months' time, on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building, giving each other the opportunity to repair their uncertain lives and decide if they truly are in love with each other. 
What impressed me the most about McCarey's direction is how seamlessly he was able to blend together comedy, romance and drama. The first half of the film is very much a light-hearted romantic comedy, but the pair's departure from the ship proves an important turning-point in the tone of the story, and the audience is left gripping their seats, wondering anxiously "will they ever get together again?" The film's single misstep lies with the addition of two children's choir musical numbers, performed by a group of freckle-faced urchins under Terry's instruction. These songs have absolutely nothing to do with the story, and I suspect that their inclusion was purely a matter of extending the running time. Conversely, Kerr's musical numbers {her vocals dubbed by Marni Nixon} are touching and beautiful, fuelled with intense emotion, and lovely to listen to. The film's most tender sequence undoubtedly takes place at the the residence of Nickie's grandmother (Cathleen Nesbitt), who plays the piano as Terry begins the sing, the defining moment when we realise that Nickie and Terry are destined to fall in love.
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