For the first time I saw the 400 blows in 1960. I got then a very strong impression. Then, there was interval of more than 40 years, during which I never watched it, though not forgot. Recently I bought DVD and saw it again. I got the same huge impression. But now I have understood the cause of it. It is not only the greatness of Truffaut, excellent photography of Anri Decaee, charming musical score of Jean Constantine, performance of wonderful children Jean-Pierre Leaud and Patrick Auffray. All these were not enough. But, in addition to these qualities of the movie, I had a strong feeling of identification with Antoine, and that identification had come because many facts and events of my childhood were coinciding with what had happened with him. Even surroundings of my childhood was almost the same - not in Paris, but in one of the greatest capital cities. I think many people on whom the film made so strong impression had that sense of identification.
The tragedy of J.P. Leaud is that he came to perfection TOO EARLY, at his teens. But one who had come to perfection stops his development. In other movies of the A.D. circle (Stolen Kisses and so on), he is, IMHO, incomparably weaker than in the first film. So, the endearing boy - Antoine Doinel of the 400 blows - became for J.P. Leaud a kind of a monster, with whom he had to contend all his life, and whom he could never overtake, not mention to leave behind. Genius in his childhood, he lowered to just a good (sometimes not so good) actor in his adulthood. A learned artistic craft of his later films could never substitute the freshness and vitality of the 400 blows.
The tragedy of J.P. Leaud is that he came to perfection TOO EARLY, at his teens. But one who had come to perfection stops his development. In other movies of the A.D. circle (Stolen Kisses and so on), he is, IMHO, incomparably weaker than in the first film. So, the endearing boy - Antoine Doinel of the 400 blows - became for J.P. Leaud a kind of a monster, with whom he had to contend all his life, and whom he could never overtake, not mention to leave behind. Genius in his childhood, he lowered to just a good (sometimes not so good) actor in his adulthood. A learned artistic craft of his later films could never substitute the freshness and vitality of the 400 blows.