Paris as Pastoral: Urbanity in The 400 Blows and Le Grand Chemin Anonymous College

The 1959 film Les 400 Coups (The Four hundred blows, a French idiom referencing something along the lines of “raising hell”) articulates the city of Paris as a city full of temptations and corruption, which shapes Antoine into the character he ultimately becomes at the end of the film and in the four subsequent films Truffaut made starring him. The film seems to put forth the corrupting influence of the city as an opportunity to form who someone is for the long-term, even though the same qualities that make the city formative also mean that it is something Antoine ultimately seeks to escape in the film’s final shot. Meanwhile, the 1987 film Le Grand Cheminestablishes a different relationship between the characters and the city, as it functions as something of a pastoral in which Louis, sick and weak from his indulgent and sheltered city life, learns to become stronger because of his exposure to the authentic Brittany lifestyle that Martine shows him.

In Les 400 Coups, the mischief Antoine engages in is portrayed as somewhat more serious than the traditional “400 coups” that a child might raise. He steals, skips school, and stands up to his father. Yet at the same time, the film shows a certain sympathy and empathy for Antoine,...