"If." moves between surreal and realistic scenes, making it impossible to know if the military attack Mick and his friends carry out on the school at the end of the film is a figment of Mick's imagination or actually happens. Michael Buening writes for Pop Matters that in the decades since the film's initial controversial release, "The divisiveness with which the original audience seems to have reacted to Mick has faded."
This film is critical of the British government, using the senior Whips as stand-ins for law enforcement, while the teachers and the headmaster embodied the parliament and prime minister. "If." has excellent scores on Rotten Tomatoes with both critics and audiences alike. Part of the power and longevity of "The 400 Blows" comes from the fact that this affecting story is told from Antoine's perspective. There is no moralizing, judgment, or dramatizing, which has given this realistic and heartbreaking film near-perfect scores on Rotten Tomatoes.ĭirector Lindsay Anderson used the structured microcosm of an English boys' school as a stand-in for the conservative U.K. It was also one of the first independent films made outside the studio system and was an influence on American auteur filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese (per MTV). "The 400 Blows" marked Truffaut's directorial debut and is an early example of auteur filmmaking. Truffaut and his mentor, film critic Andre Bazin, are the originators of auteur theory, which postulates that directors are the "authors" of a film. "The 400 Blows" is an early example of French New Wave Cinema and was inspired by writer/director François Truffaut's childhood (via Criterion). He is the illegitimate child of an unwed mother and was raised by his grandmother, until he was sent to live in poverty with his stepfather and mother in Paris. His teacher is awful and seems to hate children.
Antoine turns to the streets because no one who is supposed to care about him does. He blames his inability to focus for his poor grades, but he also gets no encouragement or help at home to find a way to change this. These three teens rebel in different ways, but come together as a found family, offering each other the support they are lacking at home.Īntoine doesn't seem like a bad kid. Judy's (Wood) father distances himself from his daughter: He shames her for her nascent sexuality, and strikes her when she tries to display affection, which leaves Judy feeling rejected. Plato's (Mineo) family essentially abandons him, leaving him with their housekeeper. His mother dominates his more submissive father, which reveals a lack of unity in a family structure that is "supposed" to adhere to more traditional gender norms. Jim's (Dean) family doesn't hold him accountable for his actions because they are afraid of social fallout. This film showed the ways that inadequate parenting could lead to the emotional turmoil of teenagers.
#WATCH STARCROSSED 1985 MOVIE#
Shadowlands movie cast.The film was revolutionary in part because it didn't depict juvenile delinquency and teenage rebellion as a problem of poverty, but rather as something that could occur in middle-class and upper-middle-class families too (per SBIFF).
0 kommentar(er)
