In François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, one of the most notable aspects within the film that makes it unique is the alterations of stereotypical gender identities that generally take place within films that contain this sort of familial set up. Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a troubled schoolboy who doesn’t receive the kindness or guidance from either his parents that he needs and as a result he continues to cut school and find himself in undesirable situations. However, one aspect of the film that Truffaut puts a twist on is the roles of Antoine’s parents within the household. Typically, in films that contain an unstable family that affects the main character, it is usually the father figure or dominant hyper masculine male that creates the bulk of the turbulence within the plot that the main and supporting characters have to contend with throughout the story. In this case, it is Antoine’s mother Gilberte (Claire Maurier) is the parent that causes a large amount of his mental instability and rebelliousness. Throughout the film, Gilberte is shown to be extremely selfish, unkind, doesn’t help the family from a financial perspective as much as she could, and is very discontent with her husband and son. She also commits numerous acts of infidelity with little regard for what her husband or son’s reaction might be if either of them found out. The discovery of this does have a negative emotional impact on Antoine which can be observed in the scene when he and his friend René (Patrick Auffay) are cutting school and they see his mother making out with another man. The same facial emotions appear on Antoine’s face when his father tells him that his mother is working late even though she is likely cheating which shows how his mother causes Antoine a considerably large amount of hardship which is unusual for motherly characters in films with this sort of set up. A third scene within the film that shows Gilberte’s negative impact on Antoine’s well-being is when she talks to him shortly after hearing about him frequently cutting class. Despite being in a visibly sad state Gilberte simply lectures Antoine and tries to sway him from remembering what he saw her do which shows the callousness she exhibits.
There are several notable strategies that Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte, the films editor implicates that help add emotion to scenes within the film. One of the more frequent ones is the shot/ reverse shot editing method where the camera focuses exclusively on each character while they are in a conversation with one another. This is seen when the teacher scolds Antoine for plagiarizing a paper by reading it out loud to the entire class and then accusing him of cheating. The camera then focuses on Antoine to hear his response. By doing this the film illustrates the intensity of the moment between the two characters. This method is also present in the scene Antoine discovers his mother is cheating on his stepfather. The camera takes turns viewing them separately in order to enhance their dialogue and by doing so, reveals the severity of the situation.
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