Francois Truffaut's Adventures of Antoine Doinel (1959)

A must have

If you are into french cinema, I highly recommend these films. Antoine Doinel is a classic charachter in french cinema history and it would be a sin not to get to know him, all his women as well, specially Christine, my all time favourite. I actually didn't like "Love on the run" since Truffaut wanted to end Antoine's story on the previous film "Bed and Board" but it's worth to have all the films, since you realize how important these films were back in those days and how they still are in cinema history. "400 Blows" is a must and "Stolen Kisses" is just beautiful, eye candy, love story, comedy,drama, all in one. :)
March 5, 2008

Essential cinema: Truffaut's 'Adventures of Antoine Doinel.'

François Truffaut's (1932-1984) 1959 film debut, The 400 Blows - Criterion Collection, was a turning point for French and world cinema. Challenging traditional Hollywood cinema, it marked the beginning of the radical French New Wave Movement. Truffaut won the Best Director award from the The 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the same festival that banned him the previous year. It follows Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) through his adolescence in Paris. Born to an unwed mother into an unhappy home life, Antoine is perceived to be a trouble maker by his teachers. (The film's French title refers to "faire les quatre cents coups," which means "to raise hell.") Poorly dressed and poorly fed, Antoine is also considered an unwanted burden by his indifferent mother and step-father, who eagerly surrender him first to a detention center, and then to a reform school, transorming the film into an exposé of the injustices of the treatment of juvenile offenders in France at the time. Antoine eventually escapes his work camp and runs towards the sea. Truffaut creates film history by ending his film with an unforgettable freeze-frame of Antoine on a beach with his feet in the surf, looking back to the shore, with no place left to run. Antoine has never experienced the sea before.

Léaud and Truffaut continued "The Antoine Doinel Cycle" over the course of twenty years with four more films depicting Antoine at later stages of his life. This highly-recommended Criterion Collection includes The 400 Blows with the rest of the Doinel series--Antoine and Colette; Stolen Kisses; Bed and Board; and Love on the Run--which follows Antoine's frustrations and romantic entanglements from his teens through his marriage, children, divorce, and adulthood.

Three years after The 400 Blows shook world cinema to its very foundations, Truffaut returned with the second chapter in the ongoing saga of Antoine Doinel. Antoine and Collette (Antoine et Colette) (1962) was the second film to feature Doinel. It paints a portrait of young, unrequited love, as 17-year-old Antoine pursues an icy high-school student, Colette (Marie-France Pisier). Léaud brings emotional depth to his memorable performance.

Stolen Kisses (Baisers volés) (1968) continues the Antoine Doinel story as the perpetually love-struck Antoine begins his relationship with violinist Christine Darbon (19-year-old Claude Jade). Having returned from military service, Antoine works a series of jobs (hotel night clerk; detective; TV repairmen) before ending up in bed with Christine (after trying to fix her irreparable TV). The film ends with the recently engaged Antoine and Christine strolling in the park, when a stranger declares his love for Christine. Stolen Kisses has been praised by critics all over the world.

Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal) (1970) follows the married life of Antoine and Christine. While Christine gives violin lessons to children in their apartment, Antoine dyes and sells flowers beneath their window. They read in bed together, and Antoine teases Christine about her breasts. (He wants to name them Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.) When Christine becomes pregnant, Antoine starts an an affair with a Japanese beauty (Hiroku Berghauer), and Christine then leaves him. When they later reconcile, Antoine tells Christine: "You are my sister, my daughter, my mother." Christine replies, "I'd hoped to be your wife." This film offers a bittersweet look at young married life and the line between adolescence and adulthood.

Following Antoine's infidelity, Love on the Run (L'amour en fuite) (1979) concludes the Antoine Doinel cycle eight years later. Divorced and now in his thirties, Antoine works as a proofreader while writing his autobiographical novel. Believing that without love, one is nothing, he falls in love with a record seller, Sabine (Dorothée), before reuniting with Colette (Marie-France Pisier), who is now a lawyer. After taking a journey by train with Antoine, Colette meets Christine. The series ends with Antoine fervidly believing that because he is still in love, he is still alive.

Funny yet heartbreaking, playful yet melancholy, Truffaut's films are among my all-time favorites. This first-rate Criterion five-disc set offers a crisp digital transfer with a clear soundtrack.

G. Merritt July 23, 2007

The New Wave's Hero

In the early Fifties, Francois Truffaut and other important critics and soon-to-be-filmmakers (such as Godard and Varda) contributed to the film journal "Cahiers de Cinema". But in 1958, Truffaut decided to put up or shut up (as the ancient axiom is "those who can't do, criticize"). What resulted was a series of films so breathtakingly new, so odd and yet moving, that this box set collects them brilliantly.

Antoine Doinel (as played by Jean-Pierre Leaud through four films and one short) is Truffaut's alter-ego, a disruptive but good-hearted young boy who matures into a hopeless romantic of an adolescent and adult. In "The 400 Blows" (1959), he escapes the clutches of his negligent family and the boundaries of his state prison, only to be left alone on the beach. In the short subject "Antoine et Collette", he is older but not wiser, as he falls for a girl way, way out of his league (her parents warm up to him, however, especially when he moves across the street).

In "Stolen Kisses", made during the turmoil of Langlois's dismissal from the Cinematheque in 1968 (just prior to the May riots that would sweep Paris out of the comfort of bourgeois existence if only briefly), we return to Doinel as a recent "dishonorable discharge" from the Army, and he finds work and time to be with the charming older wife of an employer as well as his soon-to-be wife, Christine Darbon. But in "Bed and Board" (1970), the happy family is shattered when Antoine falls for another impossible woman. Though he returns to Christine at the end of the film, in "Love on The Run" (1979), they have seperated, and the film finds Doinel reflecting on his romantic past and trying to preserve his possible future with a young record store clerk.

That, in a nutshell, is the story. But there's so much more going on in each film, and Truffaut doesn't so much focus on the stories of each film as the way his character Antoine navigates the events. The only one of the series that fails is the last, which feels a lot like a "greatest hits" wrap-up of the series, and because Antoine's love interest isn't nearly as interesting as the returning Collette (who reappears in Antoine's life and would have made a more interesting reward for all of his romantic angst over the years, if you ask me).

I came to Truffaut thanks to seeing the work of his cohort, Jean-Luc Godard, in a class last spring, and I have to say both revolutionized the way I see movies. I wasn't a philistine when it came to foreign films, I had just never bothered to examine why they're worth studying. Now I get it: apart from surrendering to the Germans, the French are also good at film-making.

Seek this box set out, it's worth your time if you're well-aware of the French New Wave or if you're new (and you get it mixed up with the musical "new Wave" of the Seventies). There's nothing wrong with expanding your cinematic horizons July 19, 2007

Collector 'must have'

I was a bit concerned about paying the high price for films I've never seen before. But without a doubt I can only describe this series as "excellent." The caveat would be for those viewers expecting high drama.

I was surprised to learn Francois Truffaut was disappointed with Love on the Run as the finale to the adventures of Doinel. For the period in France, the series was befitting of family struggle post war reconstruction, and the new socialism of the 1970s. I also appreciate how French films seem to allow women to pursue the same sexual desires Hollywood likes to reserve for men.

Character Doinel is stuck, (which seems to have bothered Truffaut most,) but he gets away with what most men probably wish for -- being a silly prankster boy who ends up never having a shortage of women in his life as an adult.

As with many French 'people' films, this series is not for those who wouldn't appreciate the lifestyle and culture and storylines simply about 'average.' One could draw a comparison between what films were being produced in the USA during '59/'62 -- '79 to see the difference from being entertained (by John Wayne) to spying on a character's real life saga via story telling.



January 21, 2007

Antoine And The Art Of MovieMaking

For my money, "The Adventures of Antoine Doinel" might be my favorite Criterion release. Period. One of the reasons I respect Criterion (and not every choice is a slam dunk) is that it allows regular people to really learn about cinema. As someone who attended graduate school in film, I feel as if my education and appreciation has never waned due to the influx of great choices on DVD. The constant improvement of special features and supplemental material adds a new level to the movie going experience. This set alone has scores of pertinent interviews, commentaries, a short, promotional art and a 72 page book of contemporary essays and Truffault's own notes.

Now, I had seen "The 400 Blows" several times--but I had not been introduced to the other 4 films that represent the saga of Antoine Doinel. And like some other reviewers, I will not dissect each disc--but leave some overall impressions. "The 400 Blows" is considered one of Truffault's masterpieces--not only was it instrumental in initiating the French New Wave movement, it's just a great entertaining film!

And it doesn't stop there. Every film, to me, succeeded on the level of entertainment. Some people think that the later films are lesser works--and surely they are less significant on an individual basis than "The 400 Blows." But I loved them. Any one of them, taken out of context, is worth seeing--if for no other reason than entertainment value. There is much humor, sweetness, romance, and trouble to be had in the misadventures of Doinel.

Taken together, however, I think this set is a towering achievement! It's a real pleasure to spend 20 years with the same director, the same actor and the same character! You see how these components interact and evolve. How often do you get a chance to sit down and live a life with someone? By compiling the set together and watching it together--you are experience history. A good story and entertaining films, YES--but you are also growing and aging with a phenomenal director, his iconic antihero, and the film movement. The whole experience was magical and enthralling and I definitely recommend it to anyone who really loves film! KGHarris, 10/06.
October 1, 2006

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