From Gavin Breeden, Charlotte, NC:
When I think of great opening shots, my mind quickly goes to Francios Truffaut's 1959 masterpiece, "Les Quatre Cents Coups" (aka "The 400 Blows"). I may have to break the rules a bit here and consider the entire opening credits sequence rather than the first shot though I think Truffaut would approve since he broke many cinematic conventions of his day with this film.
"The 400 Blows" fades in on a traveling shot down a Parisian street. The Eiffel Tower can be seen in the distance over a few rooftops and the viewer's attention is naturally drawn to it throughout the opening sequence. The camera moves down the street and towards the Eiffel Tower until it is blocked from view by a building. Then the film cuts to a new tracking shot which seems to be slightly closer to the Tower. The camera is still focused on the Eiffel Tower, though the tracking direction now runs parallel to it rather than toward it. Several more traveling shots follow in which the Tower gets closer and the camera seems to be moving in a circular motion around it through the streets of Paris. (The camera seems a bit like the POV of a child riding in a car around Paris-- attention always fixated on the Tower which dominates the skyline.) Finally, there is yet another traveling shot from the street running directly next to the Tower (almost under it). Just as the Tower is centered in the frame, "Mise en Scene de Francois Truffaut" appears near the top of the screen and for a split second the words are perfectly centered in the shot. After this the there are a few tracking shots of the camera moving away from the Tower.
JE: Thanks, Gavin. I like your description of the shot/sequence being seen through the eyes of a child. The music -- a melody of childlike simplicity over which a wave of romantic strings occasionally wash, like the sea in the final shot -- certainly suggests as much. And the freedom suggested by the movement of the opening contrasts with the movement of the final shot, which tracks Antoine Doinel to the edge of the ocean, and then zooms (as if trying to find some other way to keep moving) into a freeze-frame when the boy has run out of room to run...
The opening shot of the film proper would make a fine subject, as well: Looking over a schoolboy's shoulder as he opens up his desk and passes a girlie calendar across the room to Antoine, who draws on it, gets caught by the teacher, is told to go stand in the corner behind a chalkboard, and makes a face at the class as he disappears behind it -- all in one effortless long take.
What a classic. What a Godawful bore.
[i]The camera seems a bit like the POV of a child riding in a car around Paris-- attention always fixated on the Tower which dominates the skyline.[/i]
That is a perfect description of the opening. For some reason the opening always had some childlike feel, but I never had an image to associate with these shots. That is the perfect one.
Masterpiece? Ugh.
JE: I don't know if it's even worth it to reply. Truffaut -- the man who imagined his characters running breathlessly through the Louvre -- would probably be horrified to have his films considered museum pieces. But is this -- or "Jules and Jim" or "The Wild Child" or "Two English Girls" or... -- boring? I can't even imagine how somebody could limit themselves to seeing them that way.
Hey Jim,
totally off topic but have you seen the recent South Park episode, the one that mocks the Dark Knight? The kids with the deep gravely voices cracked me up.
"400 Blows" boring? I'm sorry but I just can't comprehend that. What I love about the films of Truffaut and Godard and the whole new wave movement in general is those films were so alive and vibrant. The filmmakers took their own theories on film and experimented with things that were never seen before. "400 Blows" was the first Truffaut film I remember seeing and it had a profound effect on me. It set me on a path to "Shoot the Piano Player", "Day for Night" and "Jules and Jim" which is a film I hold in high regard as something that speaks to me as an artist. I suggest to the person who considers this film boring to watch it again and try to see just how innovative and exciting it really is.
JE: And be sure to check out the "Day for Night" Opening Shot!
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2006/08/opening_shots_day_for_night.html
I have always been reluctant to admit it in public but now that I have an opening, I also find "The 400 Blows" to be a tedious bore. And "Jules and Jim" is simply unbearable. And I say this as a man with a deep and abiding passion for the French New Wave.
Unfortunately, these two films led me to the conclusion that I didn't like Truffaut. They're the first two Truffaut movies you're usually exposed to after all, and if they're his masterpieces and you don't like them, well, you must not like him.
So I made the mistake of ignoring him in favor of Godard, Varda, Resnais, etc. But then I finally came back to him because no education on the Nouvelle Vague is complete without knowing Truffaut. Shoot the Piano Player? Loved it. The Bride Wore Black? Awesome. Day for Night? A bit of a drag, but still wonderful. Wild Child? OK, so I'm a Herzog snob and I think "But it's still no 'Kaspar Hauser'" but so what? Wild Child is still phenomenal.
I still don't hold Truffaut as dear in my heart as Godard, Varda, Resnais, etc. but there's no need to compare like that. He was a magnificent filmmaker. I can't really explain why I don't like 400 Blows except to say that I just didn't like it. I had no emotional reaction of any kind to the movie. I didn't care one whit about Antoine Doinel. I offer nothing more constructive than that. Which is, to say, nothing at all but a report of my honest reaction or non-reaction to the movie.
I have never seen any of Truffaut's films,so I can't comment on whether they are boring or not.
However,I have seen a couple of Godard's(which include Breathless and Contempt)and so far I love his work and I think I might love Truffaut films if I also love Godard's work being that they are both French New Wave Filmakers.I don't find Godard's films really boring at all they been an intriguing experience.
Yet, I can understand why some might find Godard's movies boring since his films can be talky,leisurely paced,intentionally confusing and not have the patience for it.So,I think a boring or interesting movie is in the eye of the beholder.
So pretty soon I will see some of Truffaut's films(which I have NetFlixed) and there are still plenty Godard movies I haven't see yet such as Weekend,Pierre Le Fou,Alphaville,Two or Three Things You Din't Know About Her and My Life to Life.So I have some catching up to do.
Hey Jim,
totally off topic but have you seen the recent South Park episode, the one that mocks the Dark Knight? The kids with the deep gravely voices cracked me up.
Hate to be picky (well, not really), but the famous running through the Louvre scene is in Godard's "Band à Part".
JE: I'm getting my running French New Wave threesomes mixed up! You're right, of course: I made a seamless mash-up of "J&J" and "Band" in my memory at the moment I wrote that....
In the context of the late 50s, the films of the French new wave must have been exciting - I can say this because that's how everyone likes to describe them. "Exciting!" Being that I wasn't born until 1976, I don't see The 400 Blows (or Breathless, or Cleo From 5 to 7, etc.) in the same way that a lot of other people do. I've seen quite a few films from the movement (some several times), studied the period on my own and in college film courses and I still have yet to find the films "exciting." I don't doubt that they were (or are, for other viewers) but I just don't see it. That's not to say I haven't enjoyed what I've seen - I just don't hold these particular films to the same high standard that so many others do.
If these films are not seen as exciting, revalutionary, or whatever, to new audiences, are they still as great of films as they are made out to be? I'm just not so convinced that the films of the French new wave are great on the whole or just products of their time. When I watch The 400 Blows, I am not bowled over by its technique or the narrative. I discovered the film in the last 10 years and wouldn't have had any idea that it was part of a revolution had I not sought out some criticism and education on it (I had a similar experience with La Avventura).
I hate to sound sisparaging here - I don't dislike The 400 Blows, nor do I find it boring. But the disparaging remarks that were posted already were pretty lame. If you're going to take the time to write a comment, especially a negative one, I think you should take the time to actually say something. There's nothing wrong with going against the grain but let's further the conversation while doing so.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that "Godawful bore" and "Ugh" is all we're gonna get from those posters. Somehow I doubt that they're dissing Truffaut because they find him lacking compared to Bresson or Godard. More like: "I had to watch this crap in film school, and the other students mocked me for loving Michael Bay. So screw Truffaut."
Not to be posted on this particular entry, but if you ever have a post about Kubrick in the future you might check out this nifty montage:
http://b.static.ak.fbcdn.net/swf/mvp.swf?8%3A152719%3A1&v=1075361411560&ev=0
While there are plenty of other directors that I hold in higher regard, Truffaut has always seemed to me like a prodigy child with sidewalk chalk. It may be difficult for some, approaching his films as cinema masterpieces, to accept his playfulness.
Let's not forget that this is the man who also made "Small Change".
Also off topic but I just can't leave it alone:
Really?! The Chanel commercial Ridley Scott's finest work? In a post about The Watchmen? I love the spot but Isn't that a bit of a backhanded compliment?
As I was watching Che yesterday I found myself wondering what it would look like if Ridley was shooting it instead of Soderbergh. Just the shooting not the directing.
Maybe it's because I first watched it at just the right time in my life (five years ago, at age 15), but few films have moved me (and entertained me) as much as "The 400 Blows". And I really don't see it as something that was "good, for it's time" - even today it seems brimming with energy and life. Few films have connected with me as deeply, and repeated viewings (it's one of the few films I've watched more than ten times) have only reaffirmed its greatness. Though I've since seen (and liked) nearly all of Truffaut's films (he remains my favorite of the New Wave directors), this one will always hold a special place in my heart.
The French New Wave has become the new Dad's cinema. The cycle continues.
JE: Hmmmm. Wonder what that makes Italian Neo-Realism... the influence of which is all over the place, from "Half Nelson" to "Chop Shop" to "Wendy and Lucy"? So-called "mumblecore" must be Grandkids' cinema...
I had a similiar experience to Timothy (ableit 15 years later). Always wanted to see it and it recently aired on our World Movies channel here is Australia. I switched it on (it was a good transfer) and my fiance and I sat transfixed for the length of the film, dinner going cold and not a word spoken. Not a usual happening at our place but what a beautiful way to spend an evening. We are not cinephiles as such (the technical aspects and making of films are not in our area of expertise or interest really) but we found it an easy film to love.
Dad's cinema?
If you mean that a lot of the things that made the French New Wave so bracing have been subsumed into the mainstream, I'd agree. But that doesn't make the films any less captivating today.
The New Wave happened well before I was born, and I can't think of a film movement dearer to my heart except perhaps the New German Cinema (which I was alive for, but I was only a baby then.)
A world of cinephilia without Godard at the center make no sense to me.
I've never been able to look at this film objectively, but I've always had a real soft spot for "The 400 Blows," (a terrible literal translation of the French title). I'm a native American spent his youth in Paris and was approximately Antoine's age at approximately the period depicted in the movie. What is special about this film for me was how real it is. When anyone asks me what being a kid in Paris in the very late '50s, early '60s was like, I suggest they watch this movie. From the way kids shake hands with each other to the tiny apartments to the chalky classrooms with the inkwells and blotter paper and the decrepit street carnivals. Nothing romanticized, but just as it was. It really feels as if some guy with a camera followed me and my French pals around the city. I think it's that kind of realism that appeals to people and makes the film exciting.
JE: It's so beautiful to see that full French title, "Les quatre cents coups," stretched across that wide frame in the opening. I, too, felt I was seeing a real world through someone else's eyes (and memories) from the very start. It feels so personal and particular to me, like every frame is capturing a specific image that Truffaut had to get into his film, as if he were trying to recapture and hold onto it before it slipped away. (I think photography in general is very much about attempting to capture fleeting time...) In that way it reminds me of another of my favorite films about the relationship between movies and childhood, Terence Davies' "The Long Day Closes." I don't know how you would, or would even want to, remain "objective" about a movie as personal as this one!
By Dad's cinema, I was talking about Godard's rejection of "Le Cinema de Papa," a term he used (I think) around the time of Breathless.
In Film, Form, and Feeling, Dennis DeNitto writes:
The film opens with five moving shots, connected by dissolves, of the fronts of buildings facing streets of Paris. During this footage of less than 3 minutes, a crawling title moving vertically presents the credits. Theme music we come to associate with Antoine emanates from the sound track.
These shots do more than indicate the setting and provide an opportunity for the credits. We notice that in each one, usually over the top of the buildings, the Eiffel Tower is visible in the background. In the first two shots the camera is moving from left to right, in the next two from right to left. It is as if we were circling the Eiffel Tower, though never getting closer, as it stands dominant, authoritative, phallic in the center. Finally, in the last shot the camera moves down a boulevard, directly toward the tower and presenting the clearest view of it, but only for a few seconds before a fade to black.
The Eiffel Tower can be considered as representing a type of masculine authority never reached. The tower also symbloizes Paris. Most of the film takes place in the city, and Antoine spends as much time wandering its streets as he does at school or at home. In fact, it is a kind of foster home for him. We see the city bustling with people during the day, bright with electric lights and window displays at night, still and majestic in repose in early morning light --- a vital, living presence that evelops the young man. Yet Paris rejects him as his stepfather and his teachers do. Perhaps Antoine senses early that this will happen, for even while the in the city, he dreams of an alternative.
I recently watched "The 400 Blows" for the first time from The Criterion DVD print and was captivated during the entire viewing. The adolescence of kids who are not always on their best behaviour is distinctive. In Truffaut's hands, it's also revealing. I felt sympathy for the main character because although he gets into trouble, he’s not a bad kid; he’s just surrounded by stupid adults, at home, at school, everywhere. "The 400 Blows" is so well directed and acted and it all feels so genuine, it’s perfectly enjoyable just the way it is.
I'll have to play the DVD again and re-watch the opening sequence. Thanks.