The Representation of Children in the Films of Francois Truffaut

by Courtney Hoskins

Abstract
The representations of children in the films of François Truffaut serve as a two-way
mirror. The filmmaker can project the story of his own childhood upon this mirror.
Through this reflection, he can observe the roles of children in society. With four films,
Les Mistons, Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), L’Enfant sauvage (The Wild
Child), and L’Argent de poche (Small Change), Truffaut celebrates childhood. The
representation of the child in Les Quatre Cents Coups is a reflection of Truffaut’s
childhood. Although not as clearly, Les Mistons, L’Enfant Sauvage, and L’Argent de
poche also reflect aspects of Truffaut’s childhood. These films serve to expose the roles of
children in adult society to the audience. In standing behind his camera, Truffaut observes
and records the unfairness of the child’s world. From his perspective behind the mirror, Truffaut not only
exposes the cruelty of the adult world, but calls for political action for the rights of children.
 Introduction
There is unarguably a very strong presence of children in the films of François
Truffaut. According to Eugene P. Walz, even though children are central in only four of
his films, there is not a Truffaut film that does not contain at least one child. Moreover, it
seems as though even his adult characters are somewhat “childlike” (François Truffaut: A
Guide to References and resources 22). It is therefore necessary to examine the rapport
between childhood and the life of Truffaut. It is also necessary to analyze the rapport
between children and adults in society.

Before anything, it would help us to understand why Truffaut makes films on the theme of childhood.
Truffaut has said that he loves to film children because he is a beginning filmmaker and adult actors have
already played in other roles (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 91). However, his love for children comes
from the memories he has from his own childhood (Guérif 9). Truffaut reinforces this fact:

Having grown up in Paris in the quartier de Pigalle during the war, I suffered from the cruelty of adults,
never from that of children, and the love that I carry for them brings me to represent them in my films
even if the subject does not directly concern them. (“Le plaisir des yeux” 240)

Therefore, filming children is an opportunity for Truffaut to return to his own childhood.

There are also practical reasons for which Truffaut makes films on the theme of childhood. For the
cinéaste, children are the best subjects for their art because they “automatically carry poetry with them” (“Le
plaisir des yeux” 29). However, children are also good subjects because one can learn from their sincerity.

Every time that I made a quasi-documentary with children, I was happy and it went well. One can make
a sort of search for truth, if you like, with children because they have a wonderful sense of realism and
for me, that peaks my interest. (Guérif 10)

Consequently, to watch a child is to learn about their daily lives and therefore their social situations.

It is like this that the films of François Truffaut are two-way, that is to say, his films reflect an image,
but permit the audience to see through it as well. On the projection of children in his films, we can see the
reflected life of the artist. However, this reflection is transparent. This permits the spectator to see the role of
children in adult society through the director’s reflection.

Truffaut often returns to the themes of his own childhood to criticize adult society. According to Carole
Le Beurre, Truffaut often uses themes and situations which, “attached to childhood, circulate under one form or
another in almost all of Truffaut’s films and of which we recognize the personal resonance (clandestine,
transgression and punishment, revolt, running away, theft and imprisonment. The principal gears of his work
[74]). It is in exposing these autobiographical themes that Truffaut places his children against adults.

Truffaut made four films dedicated to the subject of childhood: Les Mistons (1957), The 400 blows
(1959), The Wild Child (1967), and Small Change (1976). There is a profound difference between his first two
films and his last. It is in playing the role of an adult in The Wild Child that inspired this change. “Of that
experience, I don’t feel as if I played a role, but simply directed the film from ‘in front’ of the camera instead of
from ‘behind’ it like usual” (Rabourdin 113) From this point, the audience’s perspective changes as well.
Truffaut is in front of our ‘mirror,’ on the side of the adults. From this side, he speaks to us in a more direct
manner. Moreover, he uses the image of a mirror to help the young child identify himself.

This thesis will organize the theme of childhood in two sections. First, this thesis will expose the
autobiographical themes of these four films, beginning with a detailed analysis of Truffaut’s childhood, and that
of Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows. Next, it will examine the role of children in adult society and finish with
the critiques of Truffaut himself of adult society.
 The 400 Blows: A Director’s Tale

François Truffaut’s childhood is parallel to that of the main character in The

400 Blows. Truffaut made five films on the subject of this character, Antoine Doinel
(played by actor Jean-Pierre Léaud). The 400 Blows, Antoine and Colette (Love at
Twenty), Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, and Love on the Run. In this way, Truffaut
presents us with the life of a man. It is impossible to think of Antoine Doinel without
thinking at once of François Truffaut. The most autobiographical of these five films is
The 400 Blows. Annette Insdorf tells us that, “The 400 Blows is a chronicle of
emotions and events that the director experienced at first hand” (173). In this film, Antoine is an adolescent.
Adolescence is essential to that memory of Truffaut who declared, “I believe, like Simenon, that one works with
everything that happens to us between birth and the age of fourteen” (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 14).
We can see how this belief in the importance of childhood would finally drive the films of Truffaut. His first
feature would be The 400 Blows: a film told in the first-person singular. Truffaut states that one “identifies with
the child from the first image to the last” (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 99). Antoine is, in fact, present
in every shot. When he is not in-frame, he is the subject of conversation between adults or his friends. It is like
this that Truffaut can tell us his own story through the childhood of Antoine Doinel.

In an interview with a psychiatrist, Antoine tells us the story of his childhood:

Psychiatrist: Why don’t you love your mother?

Antoine: Because at first, I was placed with a wet nurse, and then when they had more money, they
sent me to my Grandmother’s... my Grandma, she got old and all that, she couldn’t take care of me
anymore, so I came to live with my parents. It was then, I was already eight, I learned that my
mother didn’t really love me.
Antoine wrinkles his nose
She fought with me all of the time and for nothing... little insignificant things, so... also I uh when...
when... when there were fights at home... I... I heard that my mom had me when she was... (He
lowers his eyes and fiddles with his hands ) when she was... she had me when she wasn’t married
yet, and then also my Grandma was yelling at here once... and I found out that... my mom wanted
an abortion... (finally he lifts his eyes to the psychiatrist) and so if I was born it was thanks to my
Grandma. (The 400 Blows)

In her book François Truffaut: le secret perdu, Anne Gillain gives us Truffaut’s biographical
background. Born in Paris in 1932, Truffaut would never know the love of his mother “his early years spent
with a wet nurse because his mother didn’t really love him” (Guérif 54). He lived with his Grandmothers until
1942, when he came to live with his parents. Like Antoine, he lived in a small apartment near place de Clichy.
In 1944, he learned the truth about his beginnings: his mother had him illegitimately. The man he called
“father,” was not his biological father. He gave the name “Truffaut” to the young François. Truffaut’s mother,
as well as Antoine’s mother, did not really live him. Truffaut tells us that she could not tolerate him, and that in
her presence, he could only read (provided that he didn’t turn the pages too loudly. The importance of this rocky
relationship with the mother becomes very evident in The 400 Blows.
 Antoine has no real identity at home. His parents refer to him as “the kid” and never Antoine (Insdorf
170). They are both responsible for the social detachment of Antoine. The mother is guilty because she is cruel;
she does not love her own child. However, Antoine, like all children, tries to identify himself through the
mother figure. For example, at home, he seats himself in front of his mother’s mirror and plays with her
perfumes and her eyelash curler. In this way, he tries to see himself in the image of his mother. Unfortunately,
because of his mother's attitude towards him, Antoine cannot identify with her.

According to Roy Nelson, in three intercut scenes, one can see how it is she who creates the distance
between a child and his mother. First, she hides a secret lover without ever explaining it to her child. The cuts
between Antoine’s face and that of his mother suggest that the act of kissing her lover breaks any connections
between herself and her son. Next, she tries to establish a connection with her son in telling him stories of her
own childhood, but again, the intercut reverse-shots expose her true motivation: she wishes to manipulate
Antoine into doing better in his studies. Finally, she renounces him. For Antoine, this is the final blow from
which springs his desire to see “la mer” (the sea). Antoine frequently says that he has never seen the “la mer.”
This word alludes to a similar word in French pronounced in the same way, “la mère” (the mother). He lacks his
maternal needs, so he must steal milk from the streets and then hide to drink it. Parallel to his placement with a
wet nurse, Antoine must search elsewhere for his “mother’s milk.” Therefore, after his mother renounces him at
the end of the film, Antoine escapes the center for minor delinquents to find “la mer"; he searches definitively
for that which he lacks.
The father, on the other hand, is guilty because he is absent. In an English class,
the professor asks René to repeat the phrase “Where is the father?" As Annette Insdorf
has remarked, this question is at the heart of the father’s guilt. Antoine, like Truffaut,
would never come to know his real father, so the “real” father figure is always absent.
In addition, the child can never replace him. Antoine’s stepfather does not care for him.
He loves car racing (much in the same way Truffaut’s father loved camping). His lost
Michelin guide (which he accuses Antoine of stealing) worries him more than his list stepson. He always
establishes the physical distance between father and son. For example, he even punishes Antoine from a
distance when he turns him in to the police, so his punishment is present even though he is not in the frame.
When Antoine’s mother renounces him at the end of the film, we can clearly see the father’s absence in
Antoine’s life..

Don’t bother looking for your father, I came alone...

And there! That’s all I have to say to you. It’s useless to try to gain pity with your father in playing
martyr. He told me to let you know that he is completely disinterested in your fate from now on.

Again, the father is absent from the screen. He punishes his son from a distance. Because of the cruelty
of his mother (which established an emotional distance), and the absence of his father (which establishes a
physical distance), Antoine cannot identify himself at home and constantly runs away from his daily life.

In The 400 Blows, adults are represented as tyrannical and cruel. It is evident that “since his first film,
Truffaut targets against the world of adults” (Guérif 29). He presents adults as the reasons for which children
misbehave. If Antoine misbehaves, it is due to a fault committed by an adult. Antoine says his mother is dead
because she had hidden her affair from Antoine (for Truffaut, he had said that his father had been arrested by
the Germans “but my father came to get me. This caused another scene and I didn’t dare go home [Insdorf 175]
). He plagiarized because his mother told him she would give him money if he received a good grade. He wrote
on the walls of the classroom because his professor “Little Quiz” had punished him; he stole his father’s
Michelin guide because he had accused of having stole it, etc. This horrible vision of adults comes from the
childhood of Truffaut, who grew up during the second World War.

Children were obligatorily humble, obligatorily subdued. People would send children to the store even if
they didn’t have food stamps to coax the merchants, or even if they had fake stamps to pass off. You
see, the role of the child was very unrewarding, rather difficult. (Desjardins 15)

Established above, the parents of Antoine are both regarded as guilty. Anne Gillain confirms:

The absence of a stable father figure will lead to serious socialization problems for the child; the
idea of the woman will rest welded with that of the mother, forbidding the formation of a couple
based on the model of that of the parents. (71)

However, the other adults are regarded as guilty as well. For example “Little Quiz” consistently insults
his students and accuses the innocent of having committed a crime. On the other hand, he is very polite to
Antoine’s parents and the school director. It is this two-sided treatment which favors adults that marks “Little
Quiz” as guilty in the eyes of Antoine, and therefore those of Truffaut. After his unjust punishment, Antoine
writes on the classroom walls

Here suffered the poor Antoine Doinel

Unjustly punished by “Little Quiz”
For a pin-up that fell from heaven
Between us it will be eye for eye
Tooth for tooth (The 400 Blows)

According to Condillac, the act of writing begins with detachment (Derrida 280). We can thus see how the
professor provokes the isolation of Antoine.

If it is writing which isolates Antoine, it was the cinema that isolated Truffaut.
Ever since he was a child, Truffaut loved film, but he confirms, “I was rapidly isolated
by my tastes” (Desjardins 13). Moreover, in the movie house, Truffaut could escape
his domestic life. Insdorf tells us that he noted the titles of every film that he saw. He
created a ciné-club with other cinephiles as a means of criticizing and discussing films
and the art of filming. To pay for his club’s debts, Truffaut, like Antoine, stole a
typewriter from his father’s office. This created greater consequences. Unfortunately,
his father caught him and turned him in to the police (18). In addition, like Antoine, after spending two nights in
prison, he was sent to the Centre d’observation pour mineurs délinquants à Villejuif (Walz “Antoine’s Final
Adventure” 140). Anne Gillain adds that in the same way Antoine’s mother renounces him, Truffaut’s parents
officially renounced their parental rights. Instead of escaping the observation center like Antoine, Truffaut was
saved by well-known film critic André Bazin (9). Truffaut began writing for Cahiers du cinéma and Arts in
19952 (Allen 27), and even though he became an adult, his love for film stayed connected to his childhood.
Insdorf remarks that “François Truffaut’s critical writings and films suggest that he has never forgotten the
shivers of delight inherent in the early movie-watching experience” (15). Given this regard for the cinema, it is
not surprising that all the domestic problems in The 400 Blows disappear as soon as Antoine’s family goes to
the theaters to see Paris nous appartiennent, by Jacques Rivette. We quickly learn that the movie house is a
magical place. Insdorf adds, “we learn that even as a child, he felt a great need to enter into the films- a need
which he fulfilled by sitting increasingly closer to the screen” (34). It is in making his own films that this can
finally take place for Truffaut as he shows us the pleasure of ‘entering’ film.

Antoine Doinel and François Truffaut become the same person because of the
cinema. We have seen the parallels between the story the film tells, and the childhood of
Truffaut, but it is within the images themselves that we can see the complete fusion
between the director and his character. Antoine and his friend René decide to play hooky.
Antoine decides to take a ride on ‘The Rotor,’ a sort of centrifuger. Truffaut is also
present in this scene and he goes for a ride with Antoine. The rotor resembles a zoetrope (the French equivalent
given by Jean Collet is the praxinoscope), a predecessor to modern film and a tool used by animators. To see the
animated images located on the inner wall of the zoetrope, the spectator rapidly turns the device while looking
at a mirror in the center (the general placement of the camera) through slits in the outer wall. Consequently, in
entering the rotor, Truffaut and Antoine enter the world of film and become the images of the zoetrope. Truffaut
films the rotor from the point of view of the spectators. Due to the rapid rotation of the rotor, one can no longer
distinguish the cinéaste from his character. Voila, the magic of the cinema: Truffaut becomes Antoine. In
addition, it is in this way that Truffaut shows us the joy of film. The Rotor turns and the spectators watch the
passengers who spin around (like a member of the audience watches the images that the director has "rolled").
Antoine and Truffaut enjoy themselves as they are being ‘rolled.’ Antoine smiles (a gesture that does not often
appear with his character in the film) throughout the ride. The faces of the spectators remain emotionless. It is
therefore through the child that one can see the joy of being plunged into a film (Collet).

Truffaut would maintain the child as a means of expression throughout the

film. In the final scene of the film, we see the frozen face of Antoine. Truffaut the
zooms in on this confused and uncertain face. This suggests that Antoine is also frozen
in this point, that he will never reach adulthood. In fact “Antoine Doinel aged without
ever becoming an adult” (Gillain 22). In the second ‘Antoine Doinel’ film, Antoine
and Colette (Love at twenty), we learn that Antoine (here sixteen years old) was
released from the observation center based on the recommendation of the psychiatrist.
He begins earning his living at a young age. He frequently attends the Jeunesse musicales de France, in the
same way that Truffaut attended the movie house (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 123). Suddenly, he falls
in love with a young woman: Colette. He moves out of his apartment to live across the street from her, but she
never returns his amorous advances. Her parents adopt Antoine into their home and their lives, but Colette
remained at a distance from Antoine. Insdorf shows us that again, Truffaut had a similar story: he fell in love
with a young woman, moved in across the street from her, and she never returned his sentiments. André Bazin
was his ‘adoptive father.’ Therefore thanks to Antoine’s youth, Truffaut can still tell his own life’s story
through this character. We also learn in Stolen Kisses (the next film in the “Antoine Doinel cycle”) that
Antoine, in a state of madness, enlists in the French army. At the start of the film, Antoine is released for
“instability of character.” From this point on, Antoine is no longer an adolescent and the lives of Truffaut and
Antoine are no longer parallel (ch. 6, “Cinema in the first person singular”). However, Truffaut often returns to
Antoine’s childhood. In Love on the Run, we see that Antoine works in a printing press, which is the place in
which he took shelter in The 400 Blows after running away from home. Antoine is pleased to work in the press
because it represents a return to his childhood. Truffaut, in the same manner, returned to the
place in which he sought refuge as a child: the cinema. Finally, to finish his “Antoine Doinel
Cycle,” Truffaut returns us to the magic moment in The Rotor where Antoine could smile and
enjoy himself. Once again, he underlines his principle that “the more one advances in age, the
more these memories rush in and the more connected we are to the period of our adolescence”
(Cahiers du cinéma no 316 27).
 Les Mistons, Small Change and The Wild Child, Three Films Dedicated to
Childhood
Without a doubt, the presence of the themes of childhood is throughout the
films of François Truffaut. However, Truffaut only made four films which revolve
solely around children: Les Mistons, a short and the directors first “true” film, The 400
Blows; which tells the story of Truffaut’s childhood; The Wild Child, a true story of
an abandoned child raised in the wild; and Small Change, a collection of true stories of
a large group of children living in city of Thiers. In these films, one can find very
themes common to all the children that permit Truffaut to ‘sign’ his works and to
connect all of his children with his own childhood. Not a single child character in these four films has a good
father figure, nor do they have a good mother figure. As a result, they search for another “mother,” and all the
other women in their lives remain mysterious, magical, and unattainable. Without a parental rapport, solitude
plays the lead role in the lives of these children, and this solitude creates an incapacity to communicate with the
adult world. The children thus compensate for this lack of communication abilities with frequent escape into
literature and cinema.

Truffaut’s children never seem to have a capable feather figure. As established above, the guilt of
Antoine’s father in The 400 Blows resides in his absence. This film determined the model upon which Truffaut
would represent the father in his later films: they are never there. In Small Change, the main characters (who are
also the children who resemble Antoine Doinel, and therefore Truffaut as a child) do not have a sufficient father
figure in their lives. Julien has no father. With this absence of a father, he is raised by his mother and
grandmother who beat him. The other child, Patrick, has a father, but he is physically handicapped, so he is not
able to raise his son. However, the representations of rapport between father and son are the strongest in The
Wild Child. Victor has neither a mother nor a father and his ‘adoptive father’ (Doctor Itard), cannot understand
him. At the start of the film, Truffaut shows us the natural world in which Victor lives. The camera follows him
in his home and we begin to understand that this small child has no need for society. Doctor Itard, on the other
hand, is constantly speaking with others or writing in his home. We see, in a very important moment in the film,
the Doctor watching Victor through a window. This window places Victor in a frame, as if he were a work of
art to be interpreted. The Doctor holds a candle: his artificial light. Victor, on the other hand, is watching the
moon: his natural light. The Doctor then looks up at the moon in an attempt to understand its significance, but
he keeps his candle in his hand and remains behind the window. Even though he does love the child, he cannot
be present in his world because it is a world that he does not understand.

As in his own childhood, the mother figures in these Truffaut films are very cold and insensitive. As
mentioned above, Antoine’s mother cannot tolerate him and Antoine must steal his milk from the streets. Victor
must also search elsewhere for his milk. His mother abandoned him and in inspecting scars on the child’s neck,
Itard hypothesizes that she had tried to kill him. For his maternal needs, Victor must perform fro his milk, either
in squeaking out the word or in spelling the word with wooden blocks. In Small Change, Julien’s mother and
Grandmother beat him. One understands very quickly that Julien’s domestic situation is responsible for his
isolation. Beyond that representation, the mothers in Small Change are represented as being kind, but they are
still ‘criminal’ in the eyes of the child. For example Patrick has no mother so he accepts the mother of his friend
as a mother figure, as well as a romantic figure. Even though she is kind, she cannot recognize Patrick’s
romantic sentiments. She remains at a distance from Patrick. In another example, a young mother leaves her
small child (Little Gregory) in her apartment while she goes out to search for her wallet. Because of her
negligence, Gregory, who follows his “kitty,” and he falls (without a single scratch) from the tenth floor
window.
This leads the children to search for a replacement of the mother in these
films. For example, Paris becomes Antoine’s mother in The 400 Blows (Gillain 37).
The city nourishes him (the milk stolen from the streets), hides him when he is in
danger in the printing press, keeps him clean (he washes himself in a fountain), and
is Antoine’s liberty. Gillain remarks that you can see this liberty through the use
distance and motion in the outdoor camera shots. The camera remains rigid and
enclosing in Antoine’s home (30). Moreover, when Antoine seats himself before his
mother’s mirror, the song from the opening credits returns to accompany the images. In the opening credits,
Truffaut makes the audience aware of their geographical location in keeping the Eiffel tower in the center of
each shot. This return to the opening theme juxtaposed with the image of “mother” suggest that Antoine
recognizes the city of Paris as his “adoptive mother.” Elsewhere, the child in The Wild Child finds his maternal
replacement in nature. In the opening shots of the film, we find this child living in the wild where we follow
him as he climbs a tree and rocks himself in the wind. Anne Gillain suggests that “the child who has never
known the rocking of a mother's lullaby, becomes himself the mother who soothes” (212). In Small Change,
Patrick, who has no mother, falls in love with his friend’s mother. In this case, in replacing his mother, he can
also follow an oedipal relationship without truly feeling as if he has fallen in love with his mother. We also hear
Truffaut’s own voice in professor Richet, who reads aloud to his spouse (nursing their newborn child).

Le nourrisson, pendant la tétée sent bien s’il est tenu avec anxiété ou avec souplesse. Ce n’est
pas simplement une question de confort. Son plaisir ou son malaise influenceront tout son
comportement futur, et les relations, plus tard, qu’il aura avec les femmes, dépendront
directement de celles qu’il aura eues avec sa mère. («L’Argent de poche : cinéroman 115)

Evidently the relationship between Truffaut and his mother steers the direction in which he takes in the
representation of women.

From his first film on, Truffaut celebrates the mystery of the woman. The first
scene of Les Mistons shows us a young woman (Bernadette) riding her bike through
the countryside. The camera waits to make sure she is placed in the center of the
frames. Through the eyes of the director, one immediately has the impression that,
according to Truffaut, women are more important than their surroundings, even nature.
However, this fascination for women does not yet translate into love for the children.
In this way, Truffaut can express his fascination with women without having to place
them in a love story. The narrator of the film tells us that the children were not old enough to love Bernadette
“so we decided to hate her and torment her love life” (Les Mistons). Truffaut uses the same effect of
intercutting between the woman and the children to underline his convictions that the woman is unattainable
(which follows the established fact that the mother is unattainable). When Bernadette plays tennis with her
lover, Truffaut cuts between her face and those of the children. This contrasts sharply with the traveling shot he
uses to film the children. This contrast suggests that the boys are connected to one another, but there is an
unexplainable distance between the boys and Bernadette. In the beginning of the film, we can see the magic of
the woman when one of the boys gently sniffs the seat of her bicycle. Truffaut filmed this scene at high speed to
show us the power of the woman: she can slow down time and preserve childhood. Truffaut uses this effect in
Antoine and Colette as well. After having been rejected by Colette, Antoine returns to his apartment where he
lies on the bed and closes his eyes. In this case, Truffaut slows down the speed of the film to show that women
can also steal youth, and place men in a state of solitude.

The solitude of a child is a very strong theme that surfaces in these four films.
Effectively, it is solitude that marks Truffaut’s presence. In Small Change, he
presents Julien to us as a solitary child. He begins to introduce us by starting with the
child’s shoes and tattered clothing before finally allowing us to see his face. In this
way, we see that Julien is hidden behind his domestic situation. Later, we see this
small child search for his pocket money at a carnival which has closed for the night.
Moreover, Julien must sneak into the movies when everyone else can enter through the front doors. We see
Patrick’s solitude, however (and that of Truffaut as well), in his timidity. He becomes alone at the movie house
when he is too shy to kiss the girl next to him while his “more experienced” friend kisses his girlfriend. This
shyness isolates him again when he becomes too timid to make Madame Riffle understand that it was he who
had bought the dozen red roses for her. In Les Mistons, as in The 400 Blows, the children do not have names.
They are simply the “Mistons,” or hell-raisers instead of individuals. To underline the silent solitude of Victor
in The Wild Child, Truffaut relies on the images of the film to tell the story. The child lives in a world of
silence. When we meet Victor, he is fleeing from a woman he met in the forest. The images that follow this
escape underline the silence of his world. He laps up water from a stream, runs around on the ground like an
animal, and finally climbs a tree to hide and protect himself. When he beings rocking himself, the frame
changes into an iris shot that focuses on the solitude of the child. At the end of the film, Truffaut uses this same
technique to propose the idea that even though the Doctor learns to love the child, Victor remains alone because
he will never be fully understood.

This inability to communicate plays a very important role in Truffaut’s films. In Small Change, Patrick
cannot express his love to Madame Riffle. When he buys her roses (“passionate love”), she tells him to thank
his father. Earlier in the film, Patrick oddly thanks her for a “frugal meal.” The incapacity to communicate
isolated Julien and Patrick in their classroom when the professor asks them to respond to her questions. Patrick
remains silent while watching the clock until the bell sounds and the professor makes Julien stand out in the
hall. On another side of the spectrum, Victor (The Wild Child) cannot speak at all. He communicates through
touch and vision, which no one understands. However, even though he remains mute, he quickly learns to write.
It is therefore through literature that he can express himself.

Literature plays the role of evasion from the inability to communicate. According to Annette Insdorf:

Language is in fact one of Truffaut’s deepest preoccupations, subtly, but undeniably prominent in the
actions of all of his kids. This can be traced from Les Mistons in which they take their revenge on the
lovers by scribbling their names in public places or by writing a lewd postcard to Bernadette, to Small
Change whose action begins with a more wholesome postcard that Martine sends to her cousin. (161)

This love for language comes from the isolated childhood of Truffaut. As a consequence, Truffaut
affirms “I have a more auditory memory than a visual one. I’m a literary person. I love phrases, I love words, I
love style” (Desjardins 33). From this fact, it follows that his films are from a literary point of view. It is evident
that the adult world forces his children (much like himself) to find other ways to communicate beyond speech
(like Antoine’s love for literature). In the case of The Wild Child, Doctor Itard has a journal in which he writes.
It is in this way that he expresses his love for Victor. Since Victor cannot speak, he must learn to read and write
if he is to ever understand (and thus receive) this love, or ask for the things he needs. As such, written word is
his way of establishing a connection with the adult world. In Small Change, literature, which was a mark of
solitude for Truffaut, becomes that which brings people together. While the postcard that Martine sends to her
cousin (Raoul) suggests a distance between these two children, professor Richet confiscates it to make
connections between Raoul and the rest of the class (he profits from the card to teach a Geography lesson to his
students, instead of using it to punish the child like in The 400 Blows). Furthermore, it is a book which connects
the two main characters to each other. Patrick arrives at Julien’s house to walk to school. In a very symbolically
blocked shot, Julien passes a book to Patrick. This book connects the two characters who were completely
separated (Patrick stands in the top left-hand corner of the frame, while Julien sits in the lower right-hand
corner).
In spite of his love for literature, Truffaut eventually chose to pursue a career in cinema. This was his
escape as a child:

It was the next step beyond books. A beautiful and strong evasion was granted to me through books. I
read books for children, but also those which my mother read as well, so I did it in hiding from her, and
soon after, there were films, and films constituted an even stronger evasion. (Desjardins 14)

For Antoine Doinel, it’s comparable. In The 400 Blows, Antoine, like Truffaut,
found his motivation to write in the works of Balzac. Truffaut confirms that “the grand
revelation for me was Balzac, and it is not simply a coincidence that the child in The
400 Blows made an altar to him” (“Le cinema selon François Truffaut” 30). However,
literature is a way to hide through detaching oneself, and the cinema is a way to escape
in bringing people together. After having burnt down his shrine to Balzac, Antoine and
his family go to the cinema. This is the only moment where we see the family together and happy in a shot that
incorporates them all. In Small Change, the cinema is a social place where the entire town can reunite. It is also
a place where Julien, the oppressed, can finally win. He sneaks into the theater and finally becomes a part of
society. In Les Mistons, the boys can spy on the lovers in the darkness of the movie house. Truffaut can also
express his own tastes in cinema through these boys. Upon leaving the theatre, the boys rip a poster for
Dellanoy’s Chiens perdus sans collier, a film which Truffaut detested because of its terrible representation of
children (Guérif 11)!
 “The Tough Skin”: The Power of the Child

The children in the films of Truffaut are not represented solely to express the
author’s autobiography. On the subject of children, one can also find a very strong
social message. For example, Small Change is not an autobiographical work. Truffaut
himself admits that the film “is not autobiographical because I am not precisely one of
the characters" (Gillain 240). This film carries voice more than it tells his life story. In
the first images of the film, Truffaut expresses his feelings: children (Martine) are at
the heart of his film, that is, they are in the center of every frame. Furthermore, she is
at the heart of France (she is writing a postcard from Bruère-Allichamps, the town at
the “exact center” of France). Next, Truffaut bombards the audience with images of
children running through the streets of Thiers. In this way, one can conclude that
children are the vital force of France; they are at its heart, and they run through its veins (the streets). Therefore,
one must represent them honestly and justly. Truffaut establishes these feelings about children in his first
feature, The 400 Blows. In this film, he examines the role of the child in French society. He also establishes the
solitude of children and that it adults who create this solitude. Finally, he destroys the image of the mischievous
child and establishes instead their capacity to take care of themselves.

The title of his first feature-length film would define the representations of children in his next films.
Children surely “faire les quatre cents coups (the 400 blows)," or in English, are “up to no good.” In this way,
Truffaut presents us with the energy of children. In The 400 Blows, Antoine and his friend René play hooky
from school and run amuck in the streets of Paris (where they are liberated thanks to the manner in which
Truffaut films them). They amuse themselves at the expense of an adult by yelling “Bonjour Madame!” at a
rather feminine man. Antoine establishes a carefree attitude that carries through to the other children in
Truffaut’s films. They also “faire les quatre cents coups.” That liberty in running around wildly is what defines
Victor in The Wild Child. Truffaut applies the same mobility and distance in the shots of Victor in the wild to
create the child’s “wildness.” As Antoine had stolen the typewriter from his father, Victor steals Doctor Itard’s
wooden blocks. Also, in Small Change, Julien steals a hood ornament from a Mercedes, he steals his movie
ticket, and he strays around the streets of the city. The other children at the beginning of the film run
uncontrollably through the streets of Thiers. Likewise, the Deluca brothers steal plastic pistols for their
classmates and give their friend a "haircut.” Even at the end of the film, the children at the summer camp
viciously tease Patrick and Martine for their romance.

Certainly, the children in Truffaut’s films are wild, but they tend to follow the attitude of Antoine Doinel
more than that of the Mistons. In Les Mistons, the boys do nothing but “faire les quatre cents coups.”
Furthermore, they are cruel. They torture Bernadette and Gérard, they scream in the theater to embarrass and
torture the lovers and the other members of the audience, they rip up movie posters, they vandalize the city, and
they run amuck in the streets. Despite his own direction of this childlike “cruelty,” Truffaut never believed in it.

I suddenly realized that that was very artificial: the children were great in Les Mistons when I gave them
the freedom to do their everyday business. However, when it came time for them to play the part, that is,
persecute the lovers, that bored them and they performed poorly. At that moment I said... that I will
never again make a film where children are used to demonstrate something. The cruelty of children, I
know it exists, but I never really suffered from it because I was an only child. (“Le cinéma selon
François Truffaut” 345)
 He adds, “Having been a child who grew up in the quartier de Pigaille during
the war, I suffered from the cruelty of adults, never from that of children” (“Le plaisir
des yeux” 240). Consequently, Truffaut always establishes a motive for the poor
behavior of children. In the case of Les Mistons, Gérard calls them “les Mistons,” so
it is in fact he who is stealing from the children: he strips them of their identities.
Adults are always the reasons for which the children in Truffaut’s films misbehave.

Surely the title Les Quatre Cents Coups carries a double meaning. While it is true that Antoine and his
friends “faire les quatre cents coups,” they also receive “quatre cents coups (400 blows)” from adults. Truffaut
tells us, “One flash of a child’s smile and the party is won. But honestly, that which escapes the eye when one
watches life is the gravity of the child’s life compared to the futility of the adult.” (“Le plaisir des yeux" 29).
The adults of The Wild Child, for example, torture Victor to the point of self-mutilation. They smoke him out of
a hole in the ground, like an animal and they parade him up and down the streets of the city like some sort of
prize. The child is so tortured by adults that he breaks a window with his head in the hops of returning to his
proper state of being. In The 400 Blows, the adults unjustly and consistently punish the children. In a comic
scene, a child tries to write a lesson in his notebook. The professor speaks rather rapidly and the child cannot
follow him. Ink and paper are scattered about his desk, but the professor does not wait for him to catch up.
Eventually, the child gives up and heaves a sigh with a heavy face. He knows that even though he gave his all,
he will inevitably receive a bad grade. The camera (Truffaut’s eyes) stays at the child’s level throughout his
battle, so Truffaut recognizes the injustices and designs us a solitary child. In his representation of the solitude
the child has found in writing and the his isolation from the class (the other children remain distant and never
offer him help), Truffaut shows us the place children hold in society.

Children are marginal in French society, and it is the adults that isolate them. Following the examples
above (literature, language, cinema, etc.) Truffaut utilizes strong images to show the detachment of a child in
society, but it is truly the adults who are guilty of establishing the children’s isolation. In The 400 Blows (which
tells us the story of the solitude of a child), we see that it is the professor who is responsible for the social
isolation of Antoine. When the professor reprimands him for having doodled on a pin-up, he makes the child
stay in from recess. In this way, Antoine becomes detached from his friends and from the adult, and he writes
on the classroom walls. The sequencing of cuts between close-up shots of Antoine and distant shots of his
friends playing outside suggest that writing (the result of “Little Quiz’s” punishment) isolated the from his
liberated friends. The professor finally removes him from the class when he accuses him of plagiarizing Balzac.
Therefore, the professor is not only responsible for creating distance between himself and Antoine, but for
creating distance between Antoine and his own marginal society of children. In The Wild Child, Victor’s
parents abandon him in the wild, so they are responsible for the complete detachment of the child. Moreover, an
adult places Victor in an institute for deaf and mute children where the other children tease him. Victor is not
deaf or mute, so it was a mistake on the part of the adults to have placed him in this institute which lead to his
inevitable isolation from his own marginal group.
These Truffaut films also suggest that children only commit acts of cruelty if they are provoked. For
example, “Little Quiz” provokes him to lie. When he demands to see Antoine’s excuse note and Antoine
informs him that he has none, he becomes cruel and angry with the child, until Antoine is at the point where all
he can do is lie:

Antoine: it’s my mother, sir, she...

Little Quiz: Hah! Your mother! Your mother what? What does she have?
Antoine: She’s dead! (The 400 Blows)
 We have already explored the psychological reasons fro which Antoine tells his lie, but it is the
professor who provokes him to the point of “killing” his mother. Antoine steals his father’s typewriter because
he no longer has a choice. His parents no longer take care of him, so he needs to support himself. When he
steals the milk from the streets, the camera doesn’t budge. Antoine is in the center of the screen and a close-up
shot of his face reveals surprise. He seems as if he is guilty of having committed a great crime. Nonetheless,
since he is not cared for at home, it’s really his parent’s fault that he steals. Truffaut filmed the guilty face of
Julien in the same way when he steals the hood ornament from the Mercedes. However, it is not the child who
is guilty of this crime, it is the lack of love and support from his mother and his grandmother that force the child
to resort to theft.

It is in this way that Truffaut destroys a social myth: children are not guilty,
but capable of taking care of themselves. Children are much more powerful than adults
imagine. Even if he has to steal, Julien can take care of himself. In the case of The
Wild Child, Truffaut chose the story of an amazing child, the wild child of Averyron,
because it demonstrated the power of a child who yearns to be a part of society.

In one year, the wild child learned that which most children learn in seven or eight. That is: how to walk,
stand up straight, wear shoes, eat correctly, read and right, recognize objects, it was really absorbed by
him. (Delmas 14)

In Les Mistons, the narrator speaks of Gérard’s death as if it were the result of the actions of the children. The
Mistons send an obscene postcard to Bernadette which they sign “Les Mistons” to take revenge on the couple
for having stolen their identities. The narrator then tells us that the “response” to this post card was the death of
Gérard. Even though Gérard was killed in an accident, one has the impression that the Mistons really did kill
him. In Small Change, Truffaut designs his children as capable beings. For example, little Grégory, who is only
two, has already learned to help himself climb the stairs with a baguette.

Grégory also establishes the original title of the film (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 343); that
children have “tough skin.” After his fall from the tenth floor, professor Richet and his spouse (who are
expecting a child) speak of the frailty of children. The professor expresses his fear that the world is a constant
danger for children. However, she replies,

Yes... but that’s not entirely true because, if the same thing happened to an adult, there he would remain.
Children are very solid, they bang themselves against life, but they have grace. They also have tough
skin. (“L’Argent de poche: cinéroman” 49)

This theme figures in to the movie as a whole. In Les Mistons, the images help us understand the grace of
children. In a scene where the boys play war, they mimic what they have seen before in the movies. They
“shoot each other” and one of the unfortunate soldiers “dies.” However, Truffaut reverses the film and brings
the child magically back to life without a single wound! The children were not in the presence of an adult, but
they survived anyway. As we have seen, this theme is present in the lives of both Antoine and Truffaut.

Given his good rapport with the children in his films and his rocky relationship with his father, it is
curious that Truffaut chose to play the role of Doctor Itard himself, or that he connected with the father figure.
For Truffaut, this decision marked a profound change in his life:
 Doctor Itard manipulated that child and I wanted to do that myself, but it is possible that this had more
profound siginfications. Until The Wild Child, when I placed children in my films, I identified with
them and in this case, for the first time, I identified with the adult (with the father, moreover) to the point
where I dedicated the film to Jean-Pierre Léaud because this passage, this intermediary, became
completely clear for me, evident. (Desjardins 62)

This change marked a mystification of children for Truffaut. He could no

longer understand them, but he loved them all the same. At the end of the film, Itard
leaves his journal to join Victor. He no longer tries to understand the child and the
frame returns to the iris to show us that Victor is only able to return to his “natural
state” when the Doctor abandons all necessity to “understand” him and simply
loves him. It becomes clear in Small Change, that this idea really struck Truffaut.
He began to speak out for children’s rights and their place in society.
 “Filming children is not about understanding them, it’s about loving them”

Truffaut’s words underline the central idea of his films (“Le plaisir des
yeux” 240). Even before he was aware of it, Truffaut was speaking out for children’s
rights in his films. Through the images of Les Mistons and The 400 Blows, the
messages is subtle. For example, in the scene where the Mistons rip the poster of
Chiens perdus sans collier, Truffaut expressed in a subtle manner his convictions that
children are not cruel (as this film portrays them as being [Insdorf 146]). In The 400
Blows, he demonstrates the power a child can take against injustice. Antoine and his
friend Réne take turns spitting out pages of his father’s Michelin guide. From on top of the world (the roofs of
Paris), Antoine can take his revenge out on his father for having accused him of stealing his Michelin. This
timid voice gained volume after the revelation of playing the role of Doctor Itard in The Wild Child. After this
role, Truffaut began writing critical essays on the use of children in film and their roles in everyday life. These
opinions became quite political in tone and are echoed throughout Small Change.

In filming The Wild Child, Truffaut learned that “childhood has not one need for adults. It can survive
entirely on its own” (Gillain 244). Victor had been taking care of himself for at least ten years. At the Doctor’s
house, he creates tools to help him write because those which Doctor Itard have given him do not suit his needs.
The Doctor often watches him helplessly, unable to do anything because Victor can take care of himself. In
Small Change, Julien would be much better off if he were taking care of himself rather than living with his
abusive mother and grandmother. In The 400 Blows, Antoine has no need for adults because the other children
in the film help him and the streets of Paris support him. In a humorous scene, we see this lack of need for adult
supervision. A physical education instructor leads the children of his class around the streets for exercise.
Truffaut incorporates all of the children in an aerial shot which follows the class through the streets. Little by
little, the children break away from the line and hide (where they will probably run around in the streets
anyway). We also see that Antoine reads Balzac on his own. Antoine’s voice announces to us what he’s
reading, “Eureka! I’ve found it!” Later in the film, Antoine begins writing his essay, and we hear the same
phrase repeated in Antoine’s head. This tells us that Antoine has no need for adults to teach him; he can learn on
his own. He actually learns better in his apartment than at school where the professor punishes his students
more than he teaches them. All of the children in Truffaut’s films are a force that drive themselves and having
recognized this, Truffaut gives them control of the story in Small Change, where the children drive the film
themselves.
Truffaut recognized that one must let the children have control over the filming:

To film with children is just as special as filming with a helicopter. The helicopter lifts up sand.
You must wet the ground. You get the impression of wasting an enormous amount of time. But
as soon as the camera is in the helicopter, you gain an immense amount of time. You can film
thirty kilometers in ten minutes. You’re in another universe, that of “pigeon voyagers.” With
children, it’s a parallel situation. From time to time, they refuse to play their part. You must give
them the chance to play the ball. And all of the sudden, they’ll give you ten times more than
what you were waiting for. (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 337)

Upon making this discovery, Truffaut lets his children control the film. In Les Mistons, he did this rather
subtly. Even though the voice of the narrator is an adult, the images of the children and the nostalgia of the
narrator’s voice reign. One never knows which child was the narrator and the narrator uses “we” instead of “I.”
In this way, it is truly the group of children who are the real subjects of the film. Truffaut also incorporates
improvised scenes of the children (the “war” scene, for example), a liberty which he gives Jean-Pierre Léaud in
The 400 Blows. In his interview with the psychiatrist, Truffaut allowed Léaud to answer the questions himself.
“I gave him total liberty in responding to the questions because I wanted his vocabulary, his hesitations, his total
spontaneity” (“Le cinéma selon François Truffaut” 92). After that improvised interview, Antoine takes control
of his own life and runs away from the center to find the sea. Given all of this liberty, the film in which the
children are the most free is Small Change. One of the more powerful scenes in the film is the one which tells
us the story of Sylvie. Her parents leave her in the apartment as a punishment while they go out to dinner.
However, she takes control of the situation and punishes her parents. She locks the door of the apartment and
takes her megaphone to the window. She then cries “I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” The audience sees a little girl
framed by a large window. She becomes much bigger than the situation, however as she makes her voice larger
than life. All of the neighbors look on in disbelief as this poor child cries for help. Moreover, the little Deluca
brothers are the ones who figure out how to get food to the little girl.

Truffaut does more than insist that children have no need for adults, he insists that adults cannot life
without children. After all, every adult was at some point a child! Once again, Truffaut presents these ideas
timidly in his early films. For example, Antoine does all of the chores at home: he sets the table, takes out the
trash, fetches his mother’s slippers, does the shopping and helps his father make dinner. In Small Change,
Patrick “finds himself in a situation where he must assume responsibilities beyond his age. No mother, an
immobile father in a wheelchair...” (“Le cinema selon François Truffaut” 342). While Antoine’s parents could
get by without “the kid” around, Patrick’s father couldn’t live without his help. However, it is in the film in the
film, the story of the whistling child, that Truffaut says that “we are in the real theme of the movie.” (“Le
cinéma selon François Truffaut” 343) In the movie theater, the children watch the story of Oscar. His mother
speaks French and does not understand English and his father speaks English but doesn’t understand French.
The child is too young to speak, so he learns to whistle to communicate. Consequently, the adults in the story
couldn’t communicate with one another without the help of the child. Children assist adults and provide for
their own care at the same time. François Guérif says, “Small Change is a film of synthesis, because it is a film
on childhood, for children, and with children” (16). Despite this strength in speaking for children in Small
Change, Truffaut really found his voice in The Wild Child.

Released in 1969, The Wild Child preceded two critical essays by François
Truffaut: Réflexions sur les enfants et le cinéma (printed in Le Courrier de Unesco,
special children’s edition, Feb. 6, 1975), and 1979, Année de l’Enfance assassinée
(printed in Bulletin de la Fédération Internationale des Ciné-Clubs, 1979 [“Le plaisir
des yeux”]). Evidently, his role in this film was a sort of awakening for Truffaut. In
connecting with the adult, it seems that he was made aware of the power one has in
being an adult. He had given his reason for having chosen this story. In a very
dramatic scene, Doctor Itard unjustly punishes Victor to provoke freedom of thought
in the child. Even though Victor had answered his questions correctly, Itard looks him
in the closet (which steals any of the “outdoors” liberty which the child holds so
valuable. Truffaut maintains that this scene was what intrigued him from the
beginning, “the fact that the professor wrongs the child for his good. Does he have the
right to do that? Does one ever have that right?” (Le cinéma selon François Truffaut 257) By placing distance
between his child actors and his own childhood, François Truffaut began thinking of the rights of other children.
 For this reason, Truffaut began writing critical essays on the subject of childhood. He consistently
criticized French society. “I don’t believe things are going well for children in France right now. It’s worse than
hostility, it’s hypocrisy... The 400 Blows is a critique on the French style of raising children” (“Le cinema selon
François Truffaut” 260). However, he began to attack adult society everywhere. In “1979, Année de l’Enfance
assassinée,” he argues the validity of having declared 1979 “L’Année de L’Enfance (the year of the child).”

If one were to think of children, the 70’s would be a dark chapter in History that could not forgive, I
would hope, the sinister humor that declared 1979, “The Year of the Child,” since one can count by the
millions the children who died of hunger or abuse in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. (“Le plaisir des yeux”
239)

Moreover, he attacks adult society for accusing children of being guilty of cruelty or meanness.

A child who is normally loved, raised, and in normal conditions, will not show any desire to torment
another child or an animal. There are no nazi children, fanatical children, child terrorists, or fascist
children. There are only children of nazis, of fanatics, of terrorists, of fascists, and because they are
children, they are innocent. (“Le plaisir des yeux” 240)

Here, Truffaut directly tells us his opinions. Because of the maturation of the director, children all over
the world found a representative.

As we have already seen, Truffaut’s childhood is tied into films. It would thus follow that Truffaut
would criticize French cinema rather severely. Truffaut remarked that, “like African Americans in Hollywood,
children are underrepresented in comparison to the importance they have in our everyday lives” (“Le plaisir des
yeux” 240). Cinema is a mirror of society. If children are underrepresented in cinema, they must be
underrepresented in society. Truffaut gave the reason for this: “there are no “ star children.” He adds, “Films,
being commercially built around the exhibition of movie stars, don’t exhibit children as anything more than an
extra, in the margins of the action and usually in a decorative manner” (“Le plaisir des yeux” 30). Certainly, the
children of Truffaut’s films are on the margins of society, and even though Truffaut did not intend to “use his
children as a symbol to attack society” (Guérif 11), he shows us the social consequences of the injustices
towards children.

Evidently, according to Truffaut, there is no justice for children in adult society. The punishments adults
give to children are usually unjust (like the punishment of Victor by Doctor Itard, or those given to Antoine by
“Little Quiz”). The most unjust punishments in Truffaut’s films are those from which Julien suffers in Small
Change. In our introduction to Julien, we can hear a voice-off of a child reciting Molière’s “Harpagon’s tirade”
in a class.

Thief! Thief!
Assassin! Murderer!
Justice, oh just heaven!
I am lost, I am betrayed! (“L’Argent de poche: cinéroman” 23)
 Through this presentation, we already sense that Julien knows injustice in his life. For the most part,
adults are allowed to be unjust because children have no real voice in society. Through the character professor
Richet, Truffaut calls to adults to listen.

Amongst all of the injustices that exist in the world, those which affect children are the most
unjust ... but one must fight if there is to be justice ... Things are moving, but not fast enough.
Politicians always start their speeches in saying “The government will not give way to threats,”
but in reality, it is quite the contrary, the government helps create threats and the amelioration are
only obtained because they were demanded for fiercely...

But in all of these struggles, the children are forgotten. There exists not a single political party
that really fights for the rights of children ... and there is only one reason for that, that is that
children haven’t the right to vote. If they were given the right to vote, you could make demands
for whatever you like, and you would obtain it because you would have your voices heard. For
example, you could obtain the right to come to school an hour later in the morning in the winter
instead of running here in the dark. (“L’Argent de poche: cinéroman” 129)

In this unjust system, the child becomes a prisoner. Professor Richet continues:

An unhappy adult can start his life over elsewhere, he con change location, he can make a fresh start. An
unhappy child cannot have that thought. He senses that he is unhappy, but cannot put a name on the
feeling, and above all, we know that deep down inside he cannot question his parents or adults.
(“L’Argent de poche: cinéroman” 129)

Imprisonment is a theme which figures strongly into Truffaut’s films. For example, in The 400 Blows,
Antoine is a prisoner. In his home, he doesn’t have his own bedroom and is forced to sleep in a sort of “cell” in
the entryway of the apartment. Guérif explains:

The absence of liberty is underlined by an ensemble of locations that all symbolize the idea of “prison”:
The home (there the child has a “secret hiding place” for his money and hides to read), the classroom
(there “Little Quiz” reigns with an arbitrary order), the prison van (there the child contemplates the “free
world” through the bars of the van), the police station, and then the center for delinquents. (11)

“Little Quiz” also tells Antoine to stand in the corner of the classroom: A “cell” behind the chalkboard
and separate from the rest of the class. Even in prison, the prison guards put Antoine in an even smaller cell to
make room for three adults. Finally, even though they have no intention of punishing the children, the adults
caring for three little girls at the delinquents center place them in a cell to protect them from the boys.

Truffaut does more than attack adults in his films. There is also an optimistic message for children.
When Truffaut attacks French society through the professor in Small Change, he encourages the children:
 Life is not easy, it is very hard, and it is very important that you learn to toughen up to face it. Attention,
I didn’t say to harden up, but to toughen up. By some sort of bizarre balance, those who have a difficult
childhood are usually better armed to face adult life than those who were very protected, very coddled;
it’s a sort of law of compensation. (“L’Argent de poche: cinéroman 129)

In this way Truffaut explains that a tough childhood is often necessary to learn how to live. As
mentioned above, Truffaut also believes that childhood is the most important part of life. What intrigues him the
most are “children between eight and fifteen years of age” because for adults adolescence carries no real
meaning.

That which precedes adolescence and the word adolescence itself mean absolutely nothing to adults.
Adolescence is the discovery of injustice, the first desire for independence, the final weaning, the first
sexual curiosities. It is thus par excellence the critical age, the age of the first conflicts between the
absolute moral and the relative moral of adults, between purity of the heart and the impurity of life, it is
conclusively, from the point of view of any and every artist, the most interesting age to bring into light.
(“Le plaisir des yeux 30)

After all, it is the child reciting “Harpagon’s Tirade”(and the voice-off suggests
that the child is the narrator of the film) who can recognize that Julien’s life is full of
injustices.
 Conclusion
We have seen how François Truffaut’s childhood influenced and drove his
art. His beginnings encouraged him to inform society of the solitary state of children.
Truffaut chose film as a means of expressing himself. Moreover, it is evident that his
art, in turn, influenced his life. Since Truffaut was a film-lover as much as a filmmaker,
he encouraged other filmmakers to represent children. In this way, he taught the
innocence and isolation of children to his audience, while learning justice and honesty
from children.

In his last film, Truffaut alludes to his first. The professor in Small Change
says, “an unhappy child, a child martyr always feels guilty and it is that which is
abominable” (L’Argent de poche: cinéroman 129). In this way, Truffaut attacks adult
society in The 400 Blows where Antoine always seems guilty of something and is
accused of “playing martyr.”

The professor adds, “I would like to tell you also that it is precisely because I carry a bad memory of
my childhood with me that I chose the job that I have: professor” (“L’Argent de poche : cinéroman 216).
Perhaps this suggests that Truffaut became a filmmaker because he “carries a bad memory” from his childhood.

Nevertheless, it is evident that Truffaut gained much in making films with children. With the presence
of children, his films become more precious. “All that a child does on the screen, he seems, curiously, to be
doing for the first time. This “two-wayedness,” the balance between this singular fact and the value of the
general symbol render the film that records these young faces in transformation particularly precious” (“Le
plaisir des yeux 31).

Moreover, The 400 Blows is a very well-known film, so it certainly influenced many children and
adults. “That is why, for twenty years, I haven’t been able to stop filming children, and that is why I will
dedicate even more films to them in the years to come” (“Le plaisir des yeux” 31)

In conclusion, it is clear what Truffaut wishes to establish in the cinema:

I will remark that the responsibility of a filmmaker is greater as soon as he

films children, because the audience cannot help but draw a symbolic impression for
everything a child does on the screen, we seem somewhat projected into the past, towards
our own childhood and the things children do, it seems to us that childhood as a whole is
in the process of making himself. (“Le plaisir des yeux” 240)
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