French New Wave Hero

As we started watching the French New Wave, it seems to me that Francoise Truffaut is my French New Wave hero. Truffaut illustrated through his film, “The 400 Blows”, the life of a boy who goes through hard times. Like the boy, Stanton students also go through hard times while balancing work, responsibility, and our personal lives. The name of the boy was Antoine Doinel, who is a juvenile delinquent in his early years, and then becomes self-reliant after living by himself, earning money by himself as well.

Truffaut makes Doinel “speak” to the young viewer, just like how characters of children’s books speak to children. Doinel struggled in school, and had a hard time winning a girl, making the film seem more relateable to adolescent viewers. This is likely how the movie became popular worldwide, thanks to Truffaut’s creativity and fresh style of film-making, opposed to the status quo of the time. In the film’s period, watching it must have been revolutionary, as it still stands out today despite not having insane special effects that filmmakers add to their content. Simple things that Truffaut did, such as changing the panning style, making characters occasionally talk to the audience, and the breaking of film “rules” made Truffaut stand out.