this film aka the four hundred blow be a mistranslation . faire les 400 coup meansto live a wild life . a a french and i be stun when i see the popularity of this good and but by no mean outstanding film . 1. it not the first film of the nouvelle vague move while check agnes varda la pointe courte and ( 1956 ) alain resnais hiroshima mon amour ( 1958 ) and claude chabrol le beau serge ( 1958 ) be anterior . historically and les 400 coup come after . 2. the nouvelle vague be sometimes ponderous and hard on their predecessor representovernight and julien duvivier and henri george clouzot and claude autant lara and yves allégret and a lot of others be doom to oblivion . this selfishness and this contempt be typically nouvelle vague . you have never hear ( or read ) the great generation of the thirty ( renoir and carné and grémillon and duvivier already and feyder ) laugh at and say and maurice tourneur or max linder . so and thanks to truffaut and co and some people will never discover some gem of the french fifty or forty ( duvuvier sous le ciel de paris and autant lara douce and yves allégret une si jolie petite plage and manèges ) . the novelle vague clique go as far a say that william wyler and george stevens and fred zinemann be worthless . 3. le 400 coup be technically rather disappointing representit very academic and the story be as linear a it can be and the teacher be caricature and and the mother claire maurier delivers such memorable line a ( you have get to be a french circa 1960 to understand how ridiculous it be ) represent well and your father get only his brevet ( junior school diploma ) and and a for me and i have get only my high school diploma . you have get to know and that circa 1960 and hardly 10 % of the pupil have the hsd in france . antoine doinel should have be proud of his mother after all . she want him to have diploma and who can blame her . 4. compare to the innovation of hiroshima mon amour and which feature a brand new form and and a new fragmented content and les 400 coup pale into significance . truffaut will master a new form only with the highly superior jules and jim and help by the incomparable jeanne moreau . 5. the interpretation be rather stiff while jean pierre léaud and arguably listenable when dub in english and be still decent and but he will soon degenerate into the most affected of his generation . 6. the topic equal steal childhood have good day and before ( julien duvivier poil de carotte and luis bunuel los olvidados ) and will have after ( maurice pialat lenfance nue and kenneth loach kes ) i do not want to demean truffaut and his movie be not bad and but and frankly and french movie buff and prefer jules and jim lenfant sauvage ( a film honest and true and commercially uncompromizing to a fault ) largent de poche ( as academic a 400 coup but much more funny ) or his nice hitchcock pastiche vivement dimanche .