The 400 Blows: Directed by Francis Truffault,
1959
The title
sequence consists of a number of travelling shots of the Eiffel Tower, taken
from different angles and streets; a variety of Parisian architecture appears
in the foreground. The theme music continues throughout the sequence. Graphic:
This film is dedicated to the memory of Andre Bazin
ONE * * * * *
* *
1. CU of a
school room desk, seen from over the shoulder of a young boy. He is writing. He
puts down his pen and pulls a pin-up picture of a girl in a bathing suit out of
the desk. He passes it ahead and the picture moves rapidly up one row and
across others. As the camera pans we see boys of twelve or thirteen anxiously
keeping up the appearance of studying for their teacher, who sits at a large
desk in front. The pin-up makes its way to Antoine Doinel, a dark-haired boy in
a turtleneck sweater. He draws a moustache on the picture. The teacher spots
him and calls him forward. He orders the boy to stand in the corner behind an
easel. Antoine makes a face toward the class before submitting to the
punishment. The teacher keeps the boys writing. He moves freely around the
classroom. The boys squirm in their seats and work on the writing assignment.
Class ends, and Antoine tries to join his classmates as they leave. But the
teacher stops him. "Recess isn't a right. It's a reward!"
2. Three
shots of school children playing at recess. Inside, Antoine begins to write a
protest on the blackboard: "Here suffers poor Antoine, unjustly punished
by Little Quiz for a pin-up that fell from heaven. . . Between us it'll be an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." We hear him reading this as he
writes it on the board. As he concludes reading this aloud, we see another shot
of students playing outside.
The students return to the
classroom. Some of the kids notice what Antoine wrote. But the teacher,
"Little Quiz," finds it too, and he shoves Antoine away from him.
"We have a new poet in our class." He gives Antoine a difficult
assignment, to conjugate in several tenses the phrase, "I deface the
classroom walls, and I mistreat French verse." He orders the rest of the
students to copy a poem he will write on the board. Then he orders Antoine to
go out and get some water to clean off the verse he wrote on the board. The
instructor begins writing on the board. Shots of the students copying the
verse. The camera focuses on one boy trying to copy perfectly, but his pen
keeps leaking ink on each page. Frantically he tears out each ruined page and
begins anew, only to spoil the next page with the leaky ink pen, etc. The
teacher's voice drones on. Antoine returns to the room, sneaks up on the
teacher, and makes the sign of a cuckold at the back of his head. The class
snickers. The instructor keeps writing: "She loved me, my beautiful
mistress." All the kids begin to embrace each other in mock
passion--little boys reacting to sexual subjects with nervous energy. They do
so again when the instructor reads another passage with references to love and
passion. The instructor whirls around and screams at the students for
misbehaving. Then he lashes out at Antoine as well for not making the wall
cleaner. He orders Antoine back to his seat. "Poor France! What a
future!"
3. Exterior
of school. Antoine and his friend René are talking as they leave. They see
another kid, Mauricet, who is wearing fancy goggles. René asks him, "Who
did you steal the money from? Your mother or your father?" Antoine yells
after Mauricet and threatens him for squealing on him in class. "Your days
are numbered." The two boys sit on bench. "Sourpuss is an
asshole," Antoine complains. René sympathizes with him. "Before the
Army gets me I'll sock his face!" Antoine promises. Then Antoine runs into
his parents' apartment.
TWO * * *
* * * *
4. Antoine
prepares the charcoal stove in his parents' apartment. Then he pulls a few
bills out from where they have been wedged under the top of a high sideboard.
He enters his mother's dressing room. Music begins. He sits at her dressing
table and brushes his hair with her brush. We see his image in the mirror, in a
small mirror within the large mirror, and also reflected in a mirror on an
adjacent door. He smells some of her perfume and smiles. He plays with her
eyelash extender. Then we see him sitting the dinner table. He gets his
homework and sits at the table and begins to write what his teacher ordered
him. Suddenly he hears his mother arrive. We see her in the hallway. She takes
off her coat and straightens her blouse. She is strikingly attractive, slender,
blonde, her hair up. She is upset when she learns that Antoine forgot to bring
home flour. He tells her he forgot the list. She sits in the entryway and takes
off her two stockings. He leaves to get the flour. After he leaves, we see her
look into a mirror and run her hands across the lines of her face, as if
smoothing the creases and the bags under her eyes.
Antoine, the package of flour under
his arm, waits for a bus behind two women. They talk about difficult births
women have--and mention lots of blood. They walk off, and Antoine seems to
squirm as if ill at the thought of so much blood.
5. Antoine and his father on the stairs of
their apartment. Antoine tells his father about his forgetting the flour. His
father is carrying a fog light for a race car. He tells Antoine he'll use it at
the rally on Sunday. The father is in a good mood. He is a slender man with
dark hair and an open, humorous face. He looks the part of a character actor, a
buddy to the leading man. But the mother seems irritated and doesn't care to
join in the kidding around. Antoine asks his Dad for some lunch money. At the
table his Dad notices a new pen in Antoine's satchel. The boy says he
"traded" for it. "You've done lots of trading lately."
Mother brings in the soup and they begin to eat.
After the meal, the parents talk
about plans for sending Antoine to summer camp next year. Later, father and son
unfurl a banner for the auto rally. The banner reads, "Lions Racing
Club." Mom says she won't attend the rally. Dad is upset, and he taunts
her for the time she spends typing in the afternoons. There is some tension
between them. Apparently the father doesn't think her effort learning to type
is going to gain her a promotion. Antoine goes to his room, and as the parents
argue, he completes some household tasks.
THREE * *
* * * * *
6. The next
morning. Mother comes into Antoine's room and wakes him up--the parents
overslept. Antoine sleeps in a sleeping bag on top of his bed. He hops up and
begins to dress. In the bathroom he wipes the moisture off the mirror and we
hear the voice of his instructor, "I deface the classroom walls. . .
" Antoine looks into the mirror as if lost in thought. His father comes in
and adds some comic relief. Then the boy runs off to school.
On the street he runs into well-dressed
and definitely upper-class classmate René. The two decide to skip school. They
walk the streets and then hide their school bags for later retrieval. Upbeat
music accompanies their movements. They go to the cinema to see an action
adventure. Later, they cross a street, then spend time in an arcade playing
pinball.
Then we see Antoine enter a large
cylindrical revolving drum--the "rotor"--in an amusement park. From
above patrons, including René, watch the spinning drum. As the cylinder spins,
the people inside are raised off the floor by the centrifugal force. Then
Antoine turns his body so that he is upside down in the spinning drum. We see
his point of view, then a close shot, and hear the whooping of the people. He
grimaces but loves every minute of the experience. More of his point of view
shots. Then the drum slows, and the people appear to be little dolls attached
to the sides of the drum. Antoine and René leave the amusement park.
7. Back on
the streets. Wide shots. We watch the two approach in an ELS. In the center of
the image is a couple. They are kissing. Close shot of the couple. Then from
another angle, we see the woman is Antoine's mother. Description of shots:
Cut to a shot of Antoine and René
crossing the street. He looks left.
Reaction shot of his mother, as she
sees him. She breaks off the kiss.
Reaction shot of Antoine and René.
Reaction shot of his mother. She
turns away as if to hide.
Reaction shot of Antoine and René.
Antoine pulls René along with him.
Close
shot of his mother and her lover. She admits one of the boys is his son.
She tells him he was supposed to be in school. The man asks which one is her
son.
Reverse angle shot. She describes
her son.
As she describes Antoine, we see
Antoine and René hurrying away.
Wide
shot of boys walking toward camera. René says, "You're going toget it
tonight."
But Antoine says that her mother won't tell her father.
They return
to pick up their school bags. But Mauricet, their classmate, is spying on them
behind a tree. Later, Antoine and René discuss how they will get excuses from
their parents. René shows him an old one that he has kept. He tells Antoine to
make a copy--imitating his mother's handwriting.
8. Antoine in
his living room. He is copying the note. But he uses the name René and not his
own. Frustrated, he tosses the paper in the charcoal burner.
His Father returns home from work.
His Dad tells him Mother will be home later. Her boss needs her to work on
inventory. The two prepare dinner. His Dad asks him about school and then
preaches about how Antoine should be more aggressive and forward. His Father
tells him he is working on moving to a bigger apartment. After dinner his
Father asks where his Michelin travel guide is. He thinks Antoine has taken it.
But Antoine maintains his innocence. Finally, his father says he will ask the
mother where it is.
Later, Antoine is in bed--but not
asleep. He pretends to be sleeping when his father comes in and rummages around
for something. Later he hears his mother come home. His parents argue. Camera
stays on a close shot of Antoine lying in the dark. His father asks about the
Michelin guide. "Ask Antoine," she says. "He said he didn't
touch it." His mother says, "He's always lying." "Like you!"
his wife yells back. Then Antoine's father yells, "I gave him a name, I
feed him. I'm sick of this!" The mother says send him away to boarding
school--"so I can have some peace for a change."
FOUR * * *
* * * *
9. Next
morning Antoine runs out of the apartment onto the street. After a few shots of
him running on the street, we return to his house. There his parents are
arguing about something again. Suddenly Mauricet, who had been spying on
Antoine, shows up at the door and asks them if Antoine is feeling better. His
parents are shocked. The boy leaves. Ms. Doinel says, "I expect anything
from him." Then she walks away from her husband.
10. René and
Antoine plan their strategy outside the school. René tells Antoine to go in
first and present his excuse. Meanwhile, Mauricet comes skipping along--content
that he has spoiled Antoine's plans. At recess, the teacher stops Antoine. He
thinks the boy is lying about needing to be excused the day before. Then
Antoine tells a big lie: that his mother is dead. Suddenly the teacher softens
and touches the boy sympathetically. "You should have told me. You should
always confide in your teachers." What irony.
11. Back in the classroom. One of the boys is
reading. The instructor is abusive as always. Then he calls on Antoine, but
feels sorry for him and asks the boy to sit down again. Suddenly someone
outside the door calls the instructor out. Cut to shot of Antoine--camera comes
in. Antoine looks nervous. Cut to his point of view shot of adults outside the
door. They motion to him. Reverse angle. Antoine gets up and goes outside. Cut
to the door--where his mother and father's faces show in the upper panes. The
door opens. His father grabs him roughly. Cut to side view as the father slaps
his son hard, twice. Antoine slowly moves back to his seat. "I suggest he
gets the maximum punishment," the teacher says. We hear the adults discuss
his case as we watch him sit down, shown in a wide shot. All the boys watch
with curiosity. Camera in on Antoine as the shot dissolves.
12. After
school Antoine and René walk away slowly. Antoine plans to run away. "I've
got to live my own life." René has an idea. He tells Antoine to meet him
later. Later, we see the two climbing into an abandoned printing plant. René
sets Antoine up in a makeshift sleeping quarters.
Back to Antoine's house. His parents
are reading a letter he has written to them: "My dear parents, I
understand the gravity of my lie. But now we can't live together anymore. When
I'm a man, I'll return, and we'll talk about everything." His mother is
not impressed.
Cut to Antoine lying in the printing
plant. He hears voices. He leaves.
Out on the streets at night, he
walks slowly on the sidewalk. A woman asks him to help her catch her dog. A man
stops him suddenly. Then she asks the man to help her. When Antoine comes back,
the man tells the boy, "Beat it." Later, Antoine walks by closed
shops. Sad music plays. He watches a milkman unload bottles of milk. He sneaks
over to one of the cases, grabs a bottle, runs across the street, and hides in
the shadows and drinks from one of the bottles. It is nearing dawn. He climbs
into an empty public fountain and finds some water to wash off the milk on his
face. Then he runs across the square.
FIVE * * *
* * * *
13. Back at
the schoolyard. René follows Antoine. The instructor stops Antoine and cracks,
"I bet you got it last night." Antoine says all went well. He walks
away. The instructor turns to a colleague and quips, "Parents are
irresponsible."
Inside the classroom. Students are
learning English. A boy is trying to pronounce, "Where is the
Father?" The teacher--different from the other one--is abusive, as usual.
Suddenly he is summoned to the door. Then Antoine is summoned to leave the
room. He is wearing a white turtleneck sweater today.
Cut to the principal's office. Ms.
Doinel is talking to him. "We don't know what to do with him
anymore." Antoine comes in. She embraces him. "Where did you spend
the night?"
14. Later,
Ms. Doinel and Antoine are walking down the street. She holds him close to her.
Cut to a close shot in their apartment. He has finished bathing. She hugs him
close to her. She is solicitous, gentle. She asks him to sleep in their
bed--not his. He gets in. "You know, I was young myself once. Children
don't want to confide in their parents. I had a secret diary. One day I'll
share it with you." But Antoine doesn't look interested. Close shot of his
mother. "When I was your age, I ran away with a farm boy. It wasn't
serious, but we were caught. My mother made me promise never to see him again.
I obeyed. We too can have secrets." Clearly she is worried about Antoine
having seen her on the street with her lover. She asks him what he meant in his
letter by "We'll talk about everything." He says he meant he can't
concentrate at school. "I'd like to quit school and start making a
living." But she responds with a long defense of why it's important to
stay in school. She makes a deal. If on his next test he does very well, she
will give him a big reward. "But you mustn't tell your father." He
stares at her coldly.
15. Music up
as the boys leave school with the gym teacher. Everyone runs down the street
for their daily exercise. But several kids slip down an alley behind him. Then
another few kids slip away. Finally, we see René and Antoine slip away from the
teacher. More kids peel away until the gym teacher is left at the head of only
the top two students in class.
Antoine lying on a sofa at home. He
is reading a novel by the great French writer Balzac and smoking a cigarette.
He appears to be in a trance, as if inspired by these words. Later, he puts up
a picture of Balzac inside of a box set up on edge--as if a shrine to his hero.
A school scene. The instructor is
giving a writing assignment. Camera in on Antoine as he comes up with his
idea--he will copy the story from Balzac and make that his composition.
16. Back
home, Antoine lights a candle and puts it inside his "shrine" to
Balzac.
At the kitchen table. His father is
talking about work. Antoine sits between them, and busies himself with his dinner.
Then the Father smells something burning. Antoine realizes what it is and
dashes from the table. In his room his shrine is in flames. "I've had it
with you!" his father screams. "It was for Balzac, Daddy!" Of
course, his father doesn't get it. His mother defends the boy. "Let him
alone. He promised me something." The father continues to scream at the
boy. "As long as we feed you, you'll do as you're told, or we'll send you
to the military academy. They'll keep you in line." Notice how the boy is
cringing away from his father. The mother tries to be upbeat. She suggests they
go out to a movie.
17. The
family leaves the cinema and leave in their small car. They all talk happily
about the movie. Shots of the family inside the car as they drive in the rain.
Back at their apartment, everyone acts silly. As the boy leaves to get the
garbage, his mother tells his father, "I think I've won him over. I hope I
won't regret it." The father grabs her breasts and squeezes them. She
smiles at him.
SIX * * *
* * * *
18. School
scene. Mauricet, one of the best students, is reciting. One of the kids grabs
his goggles and passes it back. Some of the kids poke holes in the leather,
others smear paste in the glass. Before Mauricet finishes reciting, his goggles
are slipped back onto his desk in front of him. He looks down in despair at the
ruination of his goggles.
Now the instructor has enough lesson
to give Antoine. He tells him that he is starting with Antoine's paper not
because it is the best--but because it is the worst. He gets an F on the paper.
The instructor recognizes the passage is from Balzac. Antoine denies it. The
instructor angrily reads the passage. It is essentially the ending of Balzac's
novel--the one we saw Antoine reading earlier. Again Antoine denies this is
plagiarism. The instructor orders Antoine to take the paper to the principal.
"And tell him you're suspended from class until the end of the
semester." Outside the classroom Antoine pushes his classmate escort down
and runs away.
Back in the classroom René defends
Antoine. Then he talks back to the instructor. When the instructor tells René
to get out, René refuses. He says it's illegal. So the instructor grabs him by
the collar and hauls him out of the room.
19. René and
Antoine on the street together. They swap stories of what happened to them.
Antoine says he can't go home. His father will send him to a military academy.
René tells him that at least he can get a job if he goes into the Army. But
Antoine says he wishes he could go to the Navy instead--he would like to see
the sea. René tells him he can stay with him. They enter a large building in a
better neighborhood than Antoine's. Inside, Antoine is in awe of his
surroundings--a large room filled with objects. He is fascinated by a stuffed horse--it
was René's father's. René tells him his mother drinks and his father is always
at the track--so Antoine will be safe here. Three large cats crawl about. They
slip into the next room. René finds a hidden key and opens a chest on the
mantle. He removes some money from inside the chest. They hear a noise and hide
behind the curtain next to the fireplace. Here comes René's mother down the
stairs. She is dressed to go out. She goes through the same routine with the
key, takes some money from the chest, and leaves.
The boys free and easy on the streets of Paris. Music up. Wide
shots of the boys running free.
Later, we see René having dinner
with his Father. The mother is not present. His father goes to the kitchen for
some fruit. René grabs food off the table and sneaks it into the room where
Antoine is staying. He also moves the minute hand of the clock up about 15
minutes. His father comes back, hears the clock chime, and says, "I have
to go to the club." He leaves.
20. The two
boys in the cinema. On their way out, they grab a pinup picture of an actress
and rip it off the wall. They run away. Later, they steal some change and an
alarm clock from a woman's restroom. They run down the e street, and we hear
the alarm clock ringing inside Antoine's coat.
Back at René's house. The two sit on
the bed playing backgammon, smoking, and drinking wine. Suddenly they hear a
noise--René's father is back. They try to move away the smoke by flopping the
bedspread in the air. Antoine hides behind the bed (in the foreground of the
screen). René's father comes in and chastises his son for smoking cigars. He
doesn't see Antoine.
Wide shots of the Paris streets.
Camera moves back to show the two boys using narrow tubes as dart guns to fire
objects out onto the street. Antoine has an idea. "We could sell the
horse. With the money we'd live by the sea, have boats, be on our own.
SEVEN * *
* * * * *
21. René,
Antoine, and René's younger sister at a park. Then we see them at a puppet
show. Great reaction shots of the children watching the puppet show. René and
Antoine sit in the back. They discuss a plot to steal a typewriter from
Antoine's father's office. René says, "We'll pawn it. My mother pawns
everything." More shots of the kids watching the show.
22. René and
Antoine enter the large office building where his father works. They sneak up
the stairs. Antoine enters the office, moves across the room. Cut to MS of the
typewriter. Camera dollies up to show MS of Antoine--he looks around for a
second, grabs the typewriter ,and leaves the office. The camera follows him
down the steps. Outside, wide shot of the two boys on the street. They run to
the subway. Later, they lug the typewriter farther. Where are they going? Sad
theme music begins. More shots of them carrying the typewriter. Then they bump
into a man. He asks, "How much?" They say 10%. He takes the
typewriter and heads for a pawn shop. The boys discreetly split up. They watch
from across the street. The man comes back with the typewriter--but he keeps walking
away from them. The boys follow him. He lies and says he thought they had left.
But the boys insist that he pay them. He tells them he couldn't pawn the
machine--he needed a bill of sale. He asks for money--for his trouble. The boys
insist they have none. He tells them he will take the typewriter instead of
money. Suddenly Antoine grabs him by the lapel and threatens,
"Listen--give it back or I'll break your face!" The man pushes
Antoine's hand away from him. But then the boys see a policeman coming. The
middleman hands him their typewriter and walks away.
23. Later,
the boys are walking across a bridge. Antoine stops and says, "I'm tired
of carrying this thing." They argue about why they stole it in the first
place. So Antoine decides to return the typewriter. He thinks he can slip by
the concierge by wearing a hat. Back in the office, he is nabbed by an employee
just as he begins to put the typewriter back where he found it. The employee
recognizes him. "You're father's not going to like this." He calls
his father.
24. Antoine's
father walking with him outside his office. His father is angry. They walk over
to René. His father says, "Say hello to your pal. You won't be seeing him
for awhile." They walk away. His father holds him firmly by the boy's
collar. "This can't go on anymore." His father stops at the police
station.
25. The
father tells the police chief, "We've tried everything. Kindness,
punishment, persuasion." Antoine sits in the background in the office. The
father complains that he and his wife have to work--you know how that is--and
that the boy won't listen to them when they try to talk to him. An assistant
comes in to check in Antoine--for vagrancy and theft. The chief asks Antoine's
father what his decision is. The father says, "If I take him home again,
he'll run away. Maybe you could send him some place." The chief agrees
they can send him to a correctional facility. "They're well organized.
He'd learn a craft." The father likes this idea. But the chief explains
that he will have to transfer his parental rights to the social welfare
department. The boy will appear in juvenile court tomorrow, and one or both of
Antoine's parents needs to be present.
EIGHT * *
* * * * *
26. Antoine
being interviewed by the assistant. Cut to the father leaving the police
station. Back to the assistant, who hands Antoine the statement to sign.
Another officer takes Antoine downstairs and hands him to another officer who
takes him to a cell. Inside is a man wrapped in a blanket. "What did you
do?" he asks. Antoine says, "I ran away from home." Camera back
to show the other officer, and another seated at a desk, in the room.
27. The next morning the officers are playing
chess and sitting at desks in the jail. Camera moves right to show the man
still wrapped in his blanket. Then it moves left and down to show Antoine lying
on the floor in his blanket. Several prostitutes are herded into the cell. The
sad theme music begins. Antoine is taken out of the cell and put inside a small
one-person cage. Reverse angle, moving shot, shows his point of view as he
looks around the room through the wires of his cage. Reverse angle, camera
back, shows Antoine in his cage. He sits quietly in the corner.
28. Later,
everyone is taken out of the cells. They are taken outside, loaded into a
police van, and driven to the court. Shot by shot description follows:
Wide
shot from behind the van. The van departs, and we see Antoine looking
out of the barred back door.
Dissonant musical accompaniment
begins to play.
Point
of view shot from Antoine as he looks out the back of the van. We can see the
two bars in the opening of the van door.
Reverse
angle shots showing him holding onto the two bars of the van door. Moving
shots.
Camera comes in to show Antoine in close shot. He holds both bars in the door
opening.
Reverse
angle, point of view shot. We also see Antoine in the left of the frame,
as he watches a car driving behind the van.
Objective shot of the police van
driving.
Moving
shot, showing Antoine looking out from the back of the van, same shot
as the third above.
Reverse angle, point of view shot,
showing Antoine's point of view, similar to fourth shot above.
Reverse
angle, showing Antoine looking out from the back of the van, as parallel
editing
continues. Van stops.
Close shot of Antoine continues. We
see tears on his face. This shot dissolves to . . .
Shot
of a dark hallway. Camera moves right, and we see a dark corridor. Lights on.
An officer stands in silhouette at the end of the hallway. That shot dissolves
to . . .
29. An
officer checks him in. He takes off his clothes. All his articles of clothing
are checked in. He is shoved from the table. Next stop. Moving shot from
Antoine's point of view as he looks through the mesh screen above him to the
floors above. More cells. Camera down to show a screen closing over a window in
a cell door. Camera in of Antoine lying under a blanket in a cell. He looks up
at the wall. That shot dissolves to show him in nearly the same position at
dawn. He is given a cup of coffee to drink, but he spits it up. He rolls a
homemade cigarette from some paper in the cell and tobacco in his pocket. He
smokes it. He lies down again.
Close shots of him being finger
printed, and getting a mug shot. The police photographer roughly pushes his
head from front to profile.
30. His
mother speaking to the judge. She tells him they can't control him. She asks
him to scare the boy so that he will listen to them. The judge say,
"Perhaps you're not doing it the right way." He wonders if the boy
typically spends weekends alone. Ms. Doinel says that her husband often spends
the weekends with a racing club. She complains that the boy spends too much
time watching movies. She tells the judge her husband is not the boy's
father--he married her when the boy was small. "I think we should place
your son in a special home for observation," the judge concludes. The
mother asks that the home be near the sea. The judge plans to evaluate the boy
over a two or three month period. "Then we'll make a decision"
NINE * * *
* * * *
31. Graphic
on frame: Observation Center for Juvenile Delinquents. Wide shot of old house.
Bells ringing. Children are marched out of the building by the staff. An old
man leads three small children into an outdoor pen. (Apparently the children
belong to staff members.) The boys, all dressed in dark uniforms, run on the
lawn. One does somersaults.
Close shot of Antoine talking to
another boy. Antoine tells him he was sent here because he stole a typewriter.
The boy comments on how dumb Antoine was to take a typewriter--after all,
"they're numbered."
Another two boys exchange stories.
One says he knocked his father out because his father belittled him. The other
boy says he would have killed his father for doing that.
At the gates of the correctional
facility we see guards leading in an older boy who had escaped for two weeks.
The children excitedly follow this parade. Then a counselor lines the boys up
and marches them away. As the boys near the large house, cut to a moving point
of view shot of the three children standing behind the bars of their outdoor
pen. The three watch the criminals glumly.
32. The
dining hall of the facility. The boys file in and sit down at tables.
"Show me the bread," a counselor orders. Then he notices Antoine has
begun to eat before anyone else. He takes Antoine aside. The boys watch. Close
shot of Antoine and the counselor. The latter holds out both hands and asks,
"Right or left?" Antoine, not knowing what this means, says,
"Left." The counselor takes the watch off that wrist and whacks
Antoine on his face with the side of his hand. The man walks away. Antoine
resumes eating.
Some of the boys are talking to the escaped prisoner. They give
him some food. One boy says, "I bet they would catch you, and I won."
The kid says, "So what? I had five days of fun. I'd do it again."
33. Time for
the visit to the psychiatrist. One kid gives Antoine advice on how to act and
what the doctors do. Then the interview. MS of Antoine sitting behind a table.
He appears to be in an interrogation room. We hear the woman's voice asking
questions. This scene consists of the same shot, broken by dissolves suggesting
the passage of time in the interview process. The doctor asks him why he stole
the typewriter, why he stole 10,000 francs from his grandmother once, why he
doesn't like his mother. The boy answers her questions easily, comfortably. He
has an answer for everything. The doctor asks why he always lies. "If I
told them the truth," he says, "they wouldn't believe me anyway. So I
prefer to lie." "Why don't you like your mother?" "She put
me in a foster home, and then when they had no more money I lived with my
grandmother." He goes on. "She was old and she couldn't take care of
me anymore. So when I was 8 I went to live with my parents. I could tell Mom
didn't like me. She was always yelling at me for no reason." He tells her
he once overhead his mother say she married his father after the boy was born.
He also tells her that he found out she had wanted an abortion. Only his
grandmother refused to accept that option, so he was born. The doctor asks if
he ever slept with a girl. After a furtive glance and shy smile he says no, but
he tried to find a prostitute. But he was chased away. Then a middleman brought
him to a hotel to find a woman who liked little boys like him. But she never
showed up. This shot dissolves to . . .
34. Visiting
day. Antoine's mother enters the grounds. The camera follows her as she walks
inside. Antoine's old chum René also is coming to visit. Cut to Antoine
watching the scene from behind the window. Then Antoine's point of view shot as
he watches from behind a door. René is talking to a clerk at a table. Antoine yells "René" twice. But René throws up his hands after handing a
package to the clerk--evidently he isn't allowed to visit. Reaction shot of
Antoine--a sad expression on his face. Here comes his mother. She kisses him on
the head and they go to sit down.
Outside the home, we watch René
mount his bike and ride away, accompanied by the whistling of the sad musical
theme.
35. Inside,
Antoine's mother pours out her frustration to Antoine. "Your letter hurt
your father deeply." Notice high angle shot of Antoine from his mother's
point of view. "Whatever you think, your father and I get along
well," the mother says. As she talks, we see a point of view shot from
Antoine's point of view. First he concentrates on her eyes alone, then the
camera moves down as he concentrates on her mouth moving. "We were willing
to try again and take you back," she says. But she says they won't--what
would the neighbors think. And besides, Antoine probably told the neighbors his
stories. Antoine denies this. "And don't go crying to your father. He told
me to tell you he doesn't care for you anymore." She concludes, "You
will be sent to a labor center. You wanted to work. See how you like it."
Reaction shot of the sad Antoine.
36. The Labor
Center. Martial music. The boys march in step down the street. Cut to a wide
shot of the boys playing soccer. After throwing a ball inbounds, Antoine runs
away. A whistle blows. A staff person gives chase. After a short distance, the
staff person runs over a small bridge. We see Antoine hiding beneath a
hillside. Antoine runs under the bridge and heads in a different direction. Cut
to a moving shot of Antoine running from left to right. He has made his escape.
The camera stays with him as he runs past farm fields.
Later, he runs down the slope of a
hill and sees water in the distance. He has reached the sea. Music up. The
camera scans from right to left as the sea opens into view. The camera moves
farther left and we see Antoine enter the frame and run away from it. Then cut
to a wide shot on the beach. Antoine runs down steps onto the beach and continues
to run along the beach. Music continues. He runs left to right. Then theme
changes to sad musical theme we have heard before. We hear the roar of the
waves. He continues to run. He reaches the line of the waves and steps inside
them. He begins to slow to a walk. He walks away from the waves, and toward the
camera. He becomes larger in the frame. Suddenly the shot becomes a freeze
frame of Antoine. Camera moves in slightly on the freeze frame. The word
"Fin" flashes on the screen--the three vertical lines of the word
reminiscent of bars on a cell.
---------------------------------------------------
Copyright,
Robert E. Yahnke, © 2001
Professor, General College, Univ. of Minnesota,
Reprinted by permission of the author
for educational use only