Well? What sorts of claims can you make about these films? I don't want to suggest things here so that you feel free(r) to make claims on your own and not to merely expand on mine.
There is an interesting scene in “The Mischief Makers” that directly references one of the early Lumière films, where one of the boys steps on the hose and an older man gets sprayed in the face, then aims the hose at the young perpetrator. In this early period of film, audiences enjoyed these “actualities”, able to identify with the images by projecting their own personal feelings onto the screen even though what they were viewing had no real narrative or character development. In that film, audiences could have just as easily been amused with the act as well as identifying either with the perpetrator or the old man. Truffaut managed to overcome limitations due to both budget and length by working within this premise, dealing less with “characters” and more with “representations” or “icons”. While Truffaut is clearly aiming for the perspective of the boys, none of the gang is given any singular identity, and the romantic couple work more as a summation of adolescent confusion/frustration/desire then actual individuals. The boys are “the brats” and Bernadette and Gérard are “the lovers”. While Truffaut does play around with “reality” (“Bernadette” and “Gérard” are the real names of the actors), he is more interested in (as we discussed in class) presenting images and letting the audiences project their own thoughts onto the screen, unlike the manipulative power of melodrama. A deadpan narration lets the audience know of Gérard’s death, but instead of a direct cut to Bernadette’s tear riddled face, we instead find the boys splashing about ignorantly in the water. When Bernadette does appear (dressed in black), we identify with her sadness just as much as the boys childish ignorance, despite no real empathy drawn from their expressions. Just as Bernadette is a summarized “image” of the boys lust even though they have no idea about real “adult” emotions, so to is the film a summation of pre-teen yearning, even though the impressions made are entirely up to the audience.
After watching Antoine and Colette Truffaut comes off more and more as the humanist within the group of filmmakers in the French New Wave scene. There are moments that seem more comparable to a film like Amarcord by Fellini rather than another French films of the time in that it captures the human frustration of a young man. Antoine is trying to work all the angles in his head in order to woo Colette. Eventually he realizes all attempts have failed, and he never had her. This film along with Stolen Kisses totally captures that embarrassment and frustration that comes about in pursuing a woman, especially when someone is a teenager. Similar to what the essay on Truffaut said, Truffaut almost wants the viewer to become “friends” with him or the characters. At the end of this short film one cannot help but feel bad for Antoine. What is rather interesting about this sympathy is the lack of emotion brought on by Antoine. When he fails to get a kiss from Colette or in the end knows he has failed, there is this blank face. Yet, something about that lack of emotion makes the situation worse rather than a melodramatic expression. The pain can seem worse because there is almost this element that he is fighting it. Antoine, after watching this and The 400 Blows, has had a rough life, and he has probably had to bury certain things to move on. This can been seen in this short film. The viewer is still attached to Antoine despite him not truly letting the viewer into his mind. Even when Truffaut creates a mild barrier to his characters he can still let one see and feel the human side of his films, and the situations he puts the characters through in his films like Antoine and Colette he accomplishes this.
In Les Mistons, the initial perception of the boys in the film is a conventional view of them as being undisciplined and rebellious troublemakers. However, a deeper look shows that due to the recklessness of each boy, an artist is born. Truffaut’s boys are admirable not because they are rebels and mischief-makers, but because out of chaos and disorder comes creativity and artistry. The film interprets the jealousy, turmoil, and pain of boyhood as the driving force of ingenuity and innovation.
Another interesting aspect of Truffaut’s short is the representation of gender, with Bernadette being the key figure in the film. With repeated shots of her being spied on behind trees and walls, she is unquestionably the subject of the male gaze. Also, during the scene that displays Bernadette’s body parts in a series of single shots, she becomes more of an object of affection than a human being. By introducing the boys to a symbol of infatuation in Bernadette, Truffaut successfully explores each young male’s sexual awakening.
What I found interesting about Antoine and Colette was that it offered a vastly different look at family life than what we saw in The 400 Blows. According to the booklet that accompanies my Antoine Doinel boxset (thanks, Criterion!), Truffaut deliberately set up Antoine and Colette so that he could "compensate" for the shortcomings of Antoine's parents in The 400 Blows.
I think this was an interesting choice on Truffaut's part, for it illustrates a curious aspect of Antoine's life. In The 400 Blows, Antoine is constantly embroiled in a bitter struggle with his parents, but once he sets out on his own, he is equally trapped by the love Colette's parents offer him. With his own parents, he was struggling against brutality, but with Colette's family, he finds love can be just as suffocating. It can be a delicate situation when your girlfriend's parents like you more than she does!
By the time Colette leaves on her date, leaving Antoine with her parents, it is apparent that Antoine is just as alone as he was at the end of The 400 Blows.
I thought it was interesting that Traffaut shows us the painting of young Antoine (with the collar over his mouth) on the wall of Antoine’s apartment. This use of mise-en-scene shows how Traffaut wants us to compare the young Antoine with this older one. If anything, we watch ANTOINE ET COLETTE to follow Antoine as he progresses as a character, now as a teenager. There is a sense of progression, but also regression.
We pick up with ANTOINE ET COLETTE on one end to see if he has matured at all. He does in fact have a job and live in an apartment, but despite those new responsibilities, Antoine is still immature. I don’t mean his intentions are to be immature, but he is still young, and unknowingly naïve. We pick up on another end to focus on Antoine’s encounter with his first love. This however comes off as just another blow. In THE 400 BLOWS, Antoine is constantly beaten down by his family and society, and now in ANTOINE ET COLETTE, he is yet beaten down again through rejection. Antoine sees Colette as a beautiful woman, however what she turns out to be is an experience. Antoine experiences his first heartbreak, and yet it transitions his character even further into STOLEN KISSES, where he almost treats Christine just like Colette treated him.
An example of his character progressing is shown through his curiosity. This can be seen in THE 400 BLOWS with him running away from the straight line of kids walking, and in ANTOINE ET COLETTE with him secretly following Colette and studying her without her knowing. It makes absolutely perfect sense that with these two examples of his curiosity, that it leads him to a job working as a private investigator in STOLEN KISSES. He works outside of the law, which shows him still rebelling from “real society” and his job is to discreetly follow and study people, which he loves doing.
Truffaut seems to be very capable of plucking the heart strings of his younger audience. with Antoine and colette he shows a young man chasing a girl who ends up breaking his heart by going for another man. pretty much anyone can relate to this or atleast some similar situation.
the same goes for Mischief Makers. Everyone remembers what it was like to have a crush on someone and not know what to do about it simply because these emotions were so new. Truffaut captures this concept perfectly.
I think there is something to be said for Truffauts ability to show emotions so clearly through his films not to mention in a way that releated so closely to those young people that were watching his films at the time.
Again, in both Les Mistons and Antoine and Collette, Truffaut succeeds in creating realistic characters that are representative of anyone and everyone. Perhaps as someone earlier commented, this is the reason that the narrator of Les Mistons refers to the children as a cohesive group rather than as individuals and Bernadette and Gerard are “the the two lovers”. What I found interesting about Les Mistons is towards the middle there are a couple of little vignettes within the story paying tribute to both Hollywood Cinema and the Silent Film Era. When the children are at the amphitheatre spying on the lovers they pretend they are having a shootout. During their game, the camera movements and cuts are faster, imitating the Hollywood style of shooting action scenes. Shortly after, when the children are watching the lovers play tennis, there is a short vignette where one of the children steps on the hose of a nearby gardener and then the gardener ends up getting sprayed. Like the films of the silent era, comedic music is played in the background and the frames play at a faster rate per second. In Antoine and Colette, Truffaut also seeks to imitate life which is evident at the end of the film when he provides stills of couples together. By doing this, he is connecting the story that we have just seen to real life people and situations.
There is an interesting scene in “The Mischief Makers” that directly references one of the early Lumière films, where one of the boys steps on the hose and an older man gets sprayed in the face, then aims the hose at the young perpetrator. In this early period of film, audiences enjoyed these “actualities”, able to identify with the images by projecting their own personal feelings onto the screen even though what they were viewing had no real narrative or character development. In that film, audiences could have just as easily been amused with the act as well as identifying either with the perpetrator or the old man. Truffaut managed to overcome limitations due to both budget and length by working within this premise, dealing less with “characters” and more with “representations” or “icons”. While Truffaut is clearly aiming for the perspective of the boys, none of the gang is given any singular identity, and the romantic couple work more as a summation of adolescent confusion/frustration/desire then actual individuals. The boys are “the brats” and Bernadette and Gérard are “the lovers”. While Truffaut does play around with “reality” (“Bernadette” and “Gérard” are the real names of the actors), he is more interested in (as we discussed in class) presenting images and letting the audiences project their own thoughts onto the screen, unlike the manipulative power of melodrama. A deadpan narration lets the audience know of Gérard’s death, but instead of a direct cut to Bernadette’s tear riddled face, we instead find the boys splashing about ignorantly in the water. When Bernadette does appear (dressed in black), we identify with her sadness just as much as the boys childish ignorance, despite no real empathy drawn from their expressions. Just as Bernadette is a summarized “image” of the boys lust even though they have no idea about real “adult” emotions, so to is the film a summation of pre-teen yearning, even though the impressions made are entirely up to the audience.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching Antoine and Colette Truffaut comes off more and more as the humanist within the group of filmmakers in the French New Wave scene. There are moments that seem more comparable to a film like Amarcord by Fellini rather than another French films of the time in that it captures the human frustration of a young man. Antoine is trying to work all the angles in his head in order to woo Colette. Eventually he realizes all attempts have failed, and he never had her. This film along with Stolen Kisses totally captures that embarrassment and frustration that comes about in pursuing a woman, especially when someone is a teenager. Similar to what the essay on Truffaut said, Truffaut almost wants the viewer to become “friends” with him or the characters. At the end of this short film one cannot help but feel bad for Antoine. What is rather interesting about this sympathy is the lack of emotion brought on by Antoine. When he fails to get a kiss from Colette or in the end knows he has failed, there is this blank face. Yet, something about that lack of emotion makes the situation worse rather than a melodramatic expression. The pain can seem worse because there is almost this element that he is fighting it. Antoine, after watching this and The 400 Blows, has had a rough life, and he has probably had to bury certain things to move on. This can been seen in this short film. The viewer is still attached to Antoine despite him not truly letting the viewer into his mind. Even when Truffaut creates a mild barrier to his characters he can still let one see and feel the human side of his films, and the situations he puts the characters through in his films like Antoine and Colette he accomplishes this.
ReplyDeleteIn Les Mistons, the initial perception of the boys in the film is a conventional view of them as being undisciplined and rebellious troublemakers. However, a deeper look shows that due to the recklessness of each boy, an artist is born. Truffaut’s boys are admirable not because they are rebels and mischief-makers, but because out of chaos and disorder comes creativity and artistry. The film interprets the jealousy, turmoil, and pain of boyhood as the driving force of ingenuity and innovation.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting aspect of Truffaut’s short is the representation of gender, with Bernadette being the key figure in the film. With repeated shots of her being spied on behind trees and walls, she is unquestionably the subject of the male gaze. Also, during the scene that displays Bernadette’s body parts in a series of single shots, she becomes more of an object of affection than a human being. By introducing the boys to a symbol of infatuation in Bernadette, Truffaut successfully explores each young male’s sexual awakening.
What I found interesting about Antoine and Colette was that it offered a vastly different look at family life than what we saw in The 400 Blows. According to the booklet that accompanies my Antoine Doinel boxset (thanks, Criterion!), Truffaut deliberately set up Antoine and Colette so that he could "compensate" for the shortcomings of Antoine's parents in The 400 Blows.
ReplyDeleteI think this was an interesting choice on Truffaut's part, for it illustrates a curious aspect of Antoine's life. In The 400 Blows, Antoine is constantly embroiled in a bitter struggle with his parents, but once he sets out on his own, he is equally trapped by the love Colette's parents offer him. With his own parents, he was struggling against brutality, but with Colette's family, he finds love can be just as suffocating. It can be a delicate situation when your girlfriend's parents like you more than she does!
By the time Colette leaves on her date, leaving Antoine with her parents, it is apparent that Antoine is just as alone as he was at the end of The 400 Blows.
I thought it was interesting that Traffaut shows us the painting of young Antoine (with the collar over his mouth) on the wall of Antoine’s apartment. This use of mise-en-scene shows how Traffaut wants us to compare the young Antoine with this older one. If anything, we watch ANTOINE ET COLETTE to follow Antoine as he progresses as a character, now as a teenager. There is a sense of progression, but also regression.
ReplyDeleteWe pick up with ANTOINE ET COLETTE on one end to see if he has matured at all. He does in fact have a job and live in an apartment, but despite those new responsibilities, Antoine is still immature. I don’t mean his intentions are to be immature, but he is still young, and unknowingly naïve. We pick up on another end to focus on Antoine’s encounter with his first love. This however comes off as just another blow. In THE 400 BLOWS, Antoine is constantly beaten down by his family and society, and now in ANTOINE ET COLETTE, he is yet beaten down again through rejection. Antoine sees Colette as a beautiful woman, however what she turns out to be is an experience. Antoine experiences his first heartbreak, and yet it transitions his character even further into STOLEN KISSES, where he almost treats Christine just like Colette treated him.
An example of his character progressing is shown through his curiosity. This can be seen in THE 400 BLOWS with him running away from the straight line of kids walking, and in ANTOINE ET COLETTE with him secretly following Colette and studying her without her knowing. It makes absolutely perfect sense that with these two examples of his curiosity, that it leads him to a job working as a private investigator in STOLEN KISSES. He works outside of the law, which shows him still rebelling from “real society” and his job is to discreetly follow and study people, which he loves doing.
Truffaut seems to be very capable of plucking the heart strings of his younger audience. with Antoine and colette he shows a young man chasing a girl who ends up breaking his heart by going for another man. pretty much anyone can relate to this or atleast some similar situation.
ReplyDeletethe same goes for Mischief Makers. Everyone remembers what it was like to have a crush on someone and not know what to do about it simply because these emotions were so new. Truffaut captures this concept perfectly.
I think there is something to be said for Truffauts ability to show emotions so clearly through his films not to mention in a way that releated so closely to those young people that were watching his films at the time.
Again, in both Les Mistons and Antoine and Collette, Truffaut succeeds in creating realistic characters that are representative of anyone and everyone. Perhaps as someone earlier commented, this is the reason that the narrator of Les Mistons refers to the children as a cohesive group rather than as individuals and Bernadette and Gerard are “the the two lovers”.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting about Les Mistons is towards the middle there are a couple of little vignettes within the story paying tribute to both Hollywood Cinema and the Silent Film Era. When the children are at the amphitheatre spying on the lovers they pretend they are having a shootout. During their game, the camera movements and cuts are faster, imitating the Hollywood style of shooting action scenes. Shortly after, when the children are watching the lovers play tennis, there is a short vignette where one of the children steps on the hose of a nearby gardener and then the gardener ends up getting sprayed. Like the films of the silent era, comedic music is played in the background and the frames play at a faster rate per second.
In Antoine and Colette, Truffaut also seeks to imitate life which is evident at the end of the film when he provides stills of couples together. By doing this, he is connecting the story that we have just seen to real life people and situations.