The debut film of Francois Truffaut, The 400 Blows is worldrenowned for being the epitome of the French New Wave movement. Following the award for best director at the 1959 Cannes festival, Truffaut’s The 400 Blows entered theatres of all nations ranging from its domestic French theatres to the foreign theatres such as in the United States.
Domestic (French) reception of the film was quite positive, and commented by Jean-Luc Godard declared it to be “most free, film of the world” of the time (Godard). Certain American critics were surprisingly less appreciative of the film, with comments such as “All of them (French films) display remarkable competences, although none of them is a satisfactory picture” (Kauffmann, 21). As with all general criticism, the American responses to the film ranged from extreme praise to harsh criticism.
However, the highbrow critics criticized the film for its objective realism for being too realistic and for its lack of subjective realism while the general interest publication critics praised the film, marking the turning point of the decade when critics began to encompass subjective realism in its criteria for evaluating art cinema films. General interest publication critics positively evaluate the realism of The 400 Blows for its maturing audiences while the highbrow critics fault the realism or lack-thereof present in the film due to their stringent writing traditions to appease the intended audience of their publications.
The highbrow reviews highlight a possible social commentary that Truffaut makes through the film through the objective realism. The critic from the New Yorker states “M. Truffaut’s attitude toward lower-echelon French educators is nothing short of admiration compared to what he thinks of the French Police,” referring to the inadequate teachings of the school teacher and the French policemen’s severe misunderstanding of the main protagonist (McCarten).
McCarten notes how Truffaut attacks the public school system of the time and the law enforcement, among many other things by Doinels interactions with these forces. Claiming the film to be partly or wholly autobiographical (Hatch; “The New Pictures”), the highbrow reviews as a whole cites the faults of society Truffaut attempts to exploit in his narrative of how “everything goes wrong” (Hartung) for the protagonist. In capturing the frailty of childhood, “Truffaut asks who is to blame” (Hartung).
Reviews of the film in highbrow publications attempt to interpret the film as a media form for the director to explicate his viewpoints of the world and evaluate the film on the quality of how well the director conveys his commentary on the world for the audience. Although the nuances of Truffaut’s message in the realism is recognized by the critics, highbrow critics fault the film for its overt objective realism and describes the lack of what is now commonly known as subjective realism. One critic found a flaw in the film as “its powers of insight do not match the vividness of its surface record… e has not found the revealing devices that would open the heart of his story without breaking the admirably cool flow of its recording. ” This same critic goes on to comment that its success and reception is mostly based on its win at Cannes. (Hatch). The “insight” Hatch refers to is the subjective realism of how the emotional state of the Antoine Doinel character is shown to the audience. Alpert explicitly points out the approach of candid documentary as a hindrance to the overall movie along with its graininess of the film as trying too hard to be dramatically artistic (Alpert).
The expressive nature of the objective realism apparently detracted too much from the subjective realism to a point where the overall film is hurt by it according to these critics. Although the film vividly depicts all aspects of his life in the episodic nature of the film, highbrow reviews mention that there is a lack of subjective realism matching up with the level of objective realism to weaken the film. The reviewers ultimately extend their supposition to how the “highbrow” audience may be disappointed with the film for its imbalanced realism.
Additionally, the highbrow critics compare The 400 Blows to multiple foreign films while neglecting the Hollywood films, indicating that traditional Hollywood films are not worthy of any comparisons to the foreign art cinema films. While Hatch mentions that “The 400 Blows is no Poil de Carotte (another French film dealing with youth),” others favorably compared it to Poil de Carotte (Kauffmann) and even to the Italian Neorealist film, Bicycle Thieves (McCarten).
Although the consensus among these critics may be different, these critics cite the same source material for its comparison. Neglecting the Hollywood films in entirety for both positive and negative comparisons, highbrow critics make a stand that the Hollywood films are in a different class of films when compared to The 400 Blows and foreign art cinema films as a whole. Critics specifically identify the psychological intimacy of the subject material and how it appeals to the audiences as a far more valid criterion than other technical aspects of the film.
The highbrow critics found this aspect a particular fault of The 400 Blows. One critic states “This kind of film succeeds to the degree that we must suffer with the child” but continues to say that “I was too aware of the devices and derivation to be much moved… Truffault is so interested in photography and photographic naturalism that he has omitted to stir us theatrically. ” (Kauffmann, 22) praising the film for its attempts at objective realism but ultimately faulting it for its failure in execution in its omission of subjective realism.
Another critic says “The picture does not provide access beyond seeming to what they are” (Hatch) and finds fault in the inaccessibility of the characters for a deeper connection with the viewers. Simply put, the desire of subjective realism in the film was not satisfied for multiple highbrow critics. As a result, the critics write that the nighbrow” audience who seek out art cinema films for its sophisticated nature of content would be probably disappointed as well by the film.
Conversely, the American critics of the Ilh general interest periodicals reviews base their criticism on a different basis. The reviews of the general interest groups evaluated the film on a more holistic approach, covering not only the characteristics of the film but also the criteria of realism. The general interest reviews were overall positive from critics calling the film “a small masterpiece” (Crowther) to a film with “a master stroke of direction” (“The New Pictures”).
The general publication reviews also delved into the topics such as auteurship and the realism that are more typically found in the highbrow reviews. Contradictory to the highbrow reviews, the general interest publication reviews praise the film for its objective realism and subjective realism as “the spectator is forced to feel his share of mankind’s social guilt” (“The New Pictures”) and “one feels close enough to the parents to cry out to them because of the stunningly literal and factual camera style of M. Truffaut, as well as his clear and sympathetic understanding of the matter he explores,” (Crowther). The general interest publication critics shed a positive light on the film in regards to the same criteria of the highbrow reviews, a markedly interesting difference of the possible audience reception. Surprisingly, the consensus of the general interest publication reviews is the one that stands true with the opinions of modern critics of the film. One particular highbrow review stands out in its cursory glance of realism and that is the Commonweal.
While the intended audience for the publication is knowledgeable about the religion, film is not necessarily their forte. Catering to a wide range of audience, the Commonweal publication lie on the verge of crossing the fence of identification by how the critics of these respective sources evaluate the film in order to appeal to the wide range of audiences that read the religious publication. The review in Commonweal (Hartung) is the only one of the classified highbrow that fails to thoroughly touch upon the topic of social commentary within the film.
The lack of such commentaries in this “highbrow” publication shows how critics can write to appeal to specifically its intended audience and evaluate the film accordingly as Staiger mentioned. Interestingly, this review is the only highbrow review that favorably received the film and without any mention of realism in contradiction to the other highbrow reviews that heavily commented and criticized The 400 Blows in regards to its realism. Distinct characteristics between the highbrow and general interest publications film evaluations are shown in the reviews of The 400 Blows.
The critics of the respective publications address the film based on how its readers may understand and enjoy the film rather a universal criteria. Although certain similarities between the reviews of different publications exist (e. g. Jean-Pierre Leaud’s memorable acting), the reviews distinguish themselves by how the reviewers use certain criteria to judge the film. Certain reviews may be extremely simplistic, as in the Newsweek review where only the plot is discussed (“New Films: The Critics Revenge”), or particularly intricate, as in the case of the Nation review where the director’s past and the film is explored (Hatch).
The distinction lies in how the general interest publications praised The 400 Blows for its objective and subjective realism while the highbrow reviews criticized the film on the same criteria for being too objectively realistic and/or lacking subjective realism. Staiger’s conclusion about the general tendencies of critics is visible in the reviews but failed to recognize the evolving general interest publications. Aware of the knowledge of the highbrow critics, general interest publication critics evaluated films based on the same criteria but with a different perspective.
The highbrow critics were less appreciative of the film in their steadfast ways of writing for its particular audience using a distinct set of criteria while the general interest publication critics recognized the changes of their own audience and wrote accordingly. The general interest publication reviews’ inclusion of subjective realism along with objective realism in a positive light perhaps marks an important turning point of the understanding and tastes of the general American film audience of the time.
