Where is the boy going in Les quatre cents coups (1959)?

Title: The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups)
Director: François Truffaut
Language: French
Rating: Unrated

At the heart of this beautiful movie is a boy who's unloved. Antoine Doniel's mother tolerates him, or tries to. His father is friendly with him, but they don't have a close relationship. At school, Antoine repeatedly gets in trouble. The one bright spot in his life is his friend, René, who seems a light and friendly spirit, out for some adventure.

The movie isn't melodramatic. It isn't always sad. For a boy of Antoine's age, there are pleasures and fun pranks. He can try to strike out on his own. During one part of the movie, he's staying with René without his parents or René's parents knowing; he's just dropped off the grid. He's walking a fine line between the pleasurable part of running away from home, the childish fantasy of it, and the darker side of it. Who at home cares that he's gone?

In the movie, there's a funny scene where a group of boys jog through the streets of Paris behind their gym teacher, and then in twos and threes they peel away, until the man is basically jogging on this own. That's the playful side of escaping authority. The movie also shows the dark and more desperate side of it. Antoine's truancy eventually leads to petty crime and lands him in a juvenile correctional facility. At one point, during an outdoor sports game, he flees. He's heading for the sea, which he's never seen. But once he's there on the beach, where else is there to go? Once you've reached the limits of yourself, what comes next? The sea no longer represents escape; it's another barrier.

Antoine can't run away from himself. All of his problems are seeded in him. He's long taken into himself the knowledge that he's unloved and unwanted, and he carries it everywhere. What can he make of himself when he has all of this in him? He doesn't need to think about it or talk about it for it to be there. The authorities offer him nothing. Whether it's the police or a psychiatrist or a teacher, they set up pens to put people in. What Antoine carries in him doesn't change, and what he longs for doesn't materialize.

At different points, he tries to take from other people to make himself free and whole, to reinvent himself perhaps or start over. He plagiarizes a paper from a famous writer and steals a typewriter to pawn off for cash. His experiences blur the lines between childhood and adulthood. If only he were an adult, that would mean freedom, because for most of the movie he hangs onto his optimism about adulthood as a liberating force. But take a look at the adults around him. In what sense are they wise or self-sufficient or free? He's running from them too and what they represent.

The movie starts with the camera prowling the streets of Paris. In the shots, The Eiffel Tower is always obstructed or glimpsed from strange angles. There is, from the start, a feeling of hunger. The camera keeps going down one street after another, but where is there to go? After he reaches the sea, Antoine has an expression on his face that says, among other things, "Is this it?"

Week in Seven Words #214 & 215

214

encrusted
Thoughts of taxes are like barnacles I want to scrape off of my brain.

fancies
One of those wild days when we talk about ideas for hours. I feel closest to him then.

overbooked
He trudges along in his karate uniform, with a violin in one hand and a tennis racket slung over his shoulder.

parts
I'm an ear, and she's a mouth.

price
Having a ready-made role to step into can be a relief, but what are you sacrificing for the extra comfort?

quailing
Their arrogance keeps them from confronting the fears that have hollowed them out.

yoked
This is the arrangement they've come up with: He's cut down on his leisure time, and she's compromised her dignity.

215

blank
For years, he hasn't dared to dream about anything.

chemistry
There are fascinating stories behind each element on the table.

dainties
Three small identical dogs, leashed to a bike rack, peer into the bakery that promises so many treats.

microscopic
Toddlers want to go at their own pace, examining sidewalk cracks and clods of dirt, and not just be tugged along all the time.

secure
Throwing pebbles, a child tries to knock birds out of a tree. Some twigs crackle, but the birds stick around.

unwasteful
With his finger, chasing the last of the whipped cream in the paper cup.

wavering
He continues to tip his chair back, frightened but excited about the moment of reckoning: a mastery of balance or a humiliating fall.

The First Walk That Felt Like Spring - Central Park (4/20/14)

A couple of weeks ago, I took an awesome walk in Central Park, starting from the south, going north past the lake, through the Ramble, and alongside the Reservoir, to the Conservatory Garden, then the Harlem Meer, followed by an exploration of the North Woods.

Here's the lake:


The view, when crossing an inlet of the lake to go into the Ramble:

Week in Seven Words #212 & 213

212

confinement
A young tree strait-jacketed by ice.

contorted
In black and white film: the grace of a ballerina and the grip of polio.

engulfed
A snow drift has swallowed up another small business.

fluffy
Sinking a fork into a marble chocolate cheesecake.

outsourcing
It's scary when you realize how much other people have staked their happiness on you, convincing you along the way that you're responsible for their moods.

tribunal
This is the dynamic at the table: there are those who can do no wrong, those who can do nothing right, and those who are judged right or wrong without consistency, based on how their hair looks at a given moment or on what shirt they picked out to wear.

untouched
Sometimes at a restaurant the best moment is when the food just arrives. It looks delicious. At that moment, you think there can be nothing wrong with it.

A sunny walk along the Hudson River on Manhattan's west side

Last Sunday was a gorgeous day. Sunny, warm for several hours, with a spring-like feeling (finally). I joined an organized group walk of several miles that made its way along the Hudson River from Manhattan's 79th Street Boat Basin to the South Ferry station at the southern tip of the island.

We begin with the Boat Basin off of Riverside Park.


Then head south. The landscape still looks mostly like kindling. But the weather is wonderful.


On Riverside South, which is the Hudson shoreline between 72nd and 59th streets, there are interesting finds, like the remnants of the New York Central Railroad transfer bridge, which had been built in the early 1900s to take train cars across the river to New Jersey.


There's also art on display.

Further south at Pier 96 on 55th street, there's a giant wine bottle, and in it a replica of a Queen Mary state room. This is Malcolm Cochran's sculpture, "Private Passage."



Looking at it at the time, I thought it was a cross between a bottle and a submarine, and that it tries to capture some of the romance of messages traveling by bottle, only there would be people in this one instead. It has a strong sci-fi vibe.

Week in Seven Words #210 & 211

210

absorbed
He drinks in picture books.

busywork
I doubt the teacher will care what she writes. The requirements are a neatly typed page. The contents, which amount to some painful regurgitations about the leather-making process, will pass muster.

charred
The lake water exists in different states. The ice is puckered; at the edges it's darkened, as if crisped. The remains of a tree rear up from the ashy ice and slush.

formed
Childhood has become remote to him. It's a phase portrayed in books. He was always an adult.

froze
A landscape of rocks, ice and petrified trees.

kinetics
I'd like to stretch my legs and stride.

uplift
Beneath a sheet of ice, the water sings.


211

deflection
He won't examine the things he fears. He pretends he has no fears and is contemptuous when other people are afraid.

graded
Does she feel like a Mr. Goodbar among the Godiva truffles?

herbaceous
When using henna, I feel like there's a greenhouse on my head. An earthy odor, moisture, bits of herbs clinging to my scalp.

intuitive
When they were younger, they liked what they liked without looking to other people to see what they should like.

primary
In Act I, the stage is draped in a decadent red. Act II is full of gold and champagne. That lasts until the third act with its blue and gray bars of shadow.

rebounding
It's a brilliant cold night, and the lights are bouncing off the black reflection pool.

respite
I watch her enjoying the music and think that this is what she could be, more often: contented, engaged, and full of delight.

What the start of spring looks like