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Select media
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Stills must not be reproduced, copied or downloaded in any way.
Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
France
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Year
1959
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Genre
Drama
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Alternative titles
- Les Quatre Cents Coups Original French
- The Four Hundred Blows Alternative
- Wild Oats Alternative
- Les 400 coups Alternative French
Introduction
“Truffaut was moving both backward and forward in time – recalling his own experience while forging a filmic language that would grow more sophisticated throughout the 60s.”
Annette Insdorf, The Criterion Collection, 2003
Together with the first films of Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, both former colleagues of François Truffaut at the film journal Cahiers du Cinéma, the release in 1959 of this lyrical tale of childhood heralded the arrival of a younger generation of French filmmakers who would revitalise their staid national cinema.
Dedicated to André Bazin – co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma and a champion of personal filmmaking – and made in the expressive, spontaneous spirit of 1930s director Jean Vigo, Truffaut’s film introduced his errant alter ego, Antoine Doinel (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud). Among Truffaut’s stylistic innovations, the most celebrated is the final freeze-frame which fixes Antoine’s expression as, having made a break for liberty, he gazes back into the camera, his future heartbreakingly uncertain.
Truffaut would return to the Antoine Doinel character for four more films, beginning with a segment for omnibus film L’Amour à vingt ans (1962).
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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Antoine Doinel
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Antoine's mother
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Antoine's father
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teacher
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M Bigey, René's father
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René Bigey
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cast member
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cast member
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[Abbou]
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cast member
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cast member
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cast member
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cast member
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cast member
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cast member
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cast member
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schoolmaster
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cast member
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cast member
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Mme Bigey
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cast member
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examiner
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cast member
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English teacher
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nightwatchman
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woman with dog
Jeanne Moreau (uncredited)
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lover
Jean Douchet (uncredited)
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policeman
Jacques Demy (uncredited)
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man at funfair
Philippe de Broca (uncredited)
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man at funfair
François Truffaut (uncredited)
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cast member
Jean-Claude Brialy (uncredited)
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Credits
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Direction:
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Director
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1st Assistant Director
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2nd Assistant Director
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2nd Assistant Director
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2nd Assistant Director
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Script Supervisor
Rights:
Production:
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A Co-production
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A Co-production
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Unit Manager
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Assistant Unit Manager
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Production Manager
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Administration
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Secretary
Writing:
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Screenplay
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Adaptation
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Adaptation
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Dialogue
Photography:
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Director of Photography
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Camera Operator
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Camera Assistant
Stills:
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Stills Photography
Editing:
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Editor
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Assistant Editor
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Assistant Editor
Design:
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Art Director
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Properties
Film processing:
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Laboratory
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Processed by
Music:
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Music
Sound:
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Sound
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Assistant Sound
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Sound Studio
Consultant:
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Thanks
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Dedicated to the Memory of
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The Greatest Films of All Time 2012
Ranked 39th in the critics’ poll