Director's Chair: 400 Blows

Charles Harris is the director of Footloose Films, whose credits include the international award winning Paradise Grove.

This August, he gives us his take on The 400 Blows - so read ahead for our Indie director's Indie choice!

François Truffaut, doncha hate him?

He makes his first full-length movie in cheapo black and white with next-to-no money and next-to-no stars and immediately invents a new genre.

Not only that, but it turns out to be a classic of world cinema; it becomes the quintessential French New Wave movie (non-gangster), probably also invents autobiographical cinema, I'll be damned if it isn't then the start of what is surely the first ever autobiographical film trilogy, the first ever autobiographical film tetralogy and pentalogy. (Duh - Go look it up!)

This is true poetry on a total budget of less than the trailer for Harry Potter and the Blah of Blah, or Batman Regendered, or whatever summer blockbuster boredom the studios have lined up for us this year.

Bastard.

I watch each time through gritted teeth, hoping that this time it won't work, this time I'll spot a major flaw, and for a moment I think I'll succeed. There's a rush of lush music, a grainy shot of Paris in 1959 - I'm resisting, I'm holding out - and then that little five-note figure on the piano kicks in, and those tracking shots of the Eiffel Tower glimpsed from grimy, post-war streets... and I'm hooked. Is there a greater piece of film music than those sneaky, simple five notes that worm their way into your brain, never to be removed except with a surgical instrument and considerable amounts of blood?

It is the greatest use of music in film after Psycho, Once Upon A Time In The West and School of Rock.

Then there's the story. As they used to say on the old movie posters, Jean-Pierre Léaud IS François Truffaut, although his name in the movie is Antoine Doinel, constantly in trouble at school, hardly cared for by his mother and stepfather, tortured by endlessly pointless days at school. Luckily for us, unluckily for him, he is also full of energy and boundless rebellion. His refusal to put up with the ignominies of his daily life leads Antoine into constant trouble, heading for a slippery slope whence beckons delinquency, Borstal and a life of crime.

Some say the movie's only semi-autobiographical. Well, stuff them. This is not just the autobiography of his childhood, it's an autobiography of French movies (and American) that Truffaut loved almost more than life itself. In part it's what saved him from that slippery slope and he celebrated it here with a joyous burst of parody, scenes, tricks, characters stolen from his favourite films (watch the school scenes and then watch Jean Vigo's Zéro de Conduite).

In the process, François as good as invented the Coming Of Age movie. If you held my head down the toilet you could maybe get me to admit that James Dean lit the touchpaper in East of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause, but only a Frenchman could have invented the style. And then the ending... One of the most superlative endings in cinema, a simple freeze frame - and that music again, those five notes. Ah! Magic that Master Potter could never dream of.

Not content with all this in his first movie, Truffaut went on to direct a zillion more, including a light, funny sequel, Stolen Kisses, a pocketful of classics, and more than enough semi-classics such as The Last Metro (both also on this month).

Now do you see why I hate his guts? If you're a human being, just watch and fall in love with cinema. If you're a fellow film-maker, watch and hate him too.

Charles Harris