Film Talk: French New Wave (PG)

François Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), which took the 1959 Cannes film festival by storm, is the most exuberant and long-lasting manifesto for the French New Wave cinema. In this illustrated talk, Ginette Vincendeau revisits the excitement and innovation of Truffaut’s moving autobiographical film and of the New Wave, placing them in the social, cultural and cinematic context of France at the turn of the 1960s.

Includes a screening of:
The 400 Blows (PG)
(Les Quatre Cents Coups)
Dir: François Truffaut
France 1959 99mins subtitled
Cast: Jean-Piere Léaud, Claire Maurier

As a young boy, Antoine is neglected by his parents and bullied by his teacher. Labeled a delinquent, his budding intellectual curiosity forces him towards an unknowing future.

“Still one of the cinema’s most perceptive forays into childhood.” Time Out