As we learned in class The 400 Blows was based on Francois Truffaut's childhood. I feel that it is a real fairy tale. The ambiguous ending let the audience decide what happened with Antoine once he escaped to the beach. Antoine was not like Oliver. In the end we know that Oliver has a happy ending. He ends up finding the truth about his family, he's awarded an inheritance, and he lives a happy existence with Mr.Brownslow in their little home in the country. Ultimately, he overcomes adversity with the help of the one adult he was able to trust and who loved him. Antoine didn't have that. He had to overcome adversity all by himself and I think therein lies the true beauty of this fairy tale. the root is that these stories are about children who find their own way to break free from the rules of a game that works against them in every way. They were poor, they came from broken households, they had very few options but they rose above it. The moral of these stories teach us that with or without a person by your side, no matter what circumstances you grew up in ,every person has the power inside them to better their situation. I can only imagine what happened to Antoine but if he truly is Truffaut he grew up and became successful.
The 400 Blows and Oliver Twist are both stories of survival. They are stories about boys who take charge and escape from the horrible situations they were born into. This first point really highlights the connection to the coming of age element in fairy tale stories. We talked about how blood is symbolic of loss of innocence with girls blossoming into womanhood. The 400 Blows and Oliver Twist give the male perspective. It is common for boys to prove their manhood by overcoming obstacles and coming out as survivors. It's like a test of manhood that I think these films portray vividly. In the following blog I would like to discuss some of the similarities and differences between the two films. 1. History I think these two works are significant for their historical value. They are set during transitional periods in human history, The 400 Blows took place immediately following World War 2 and Oliver Twist took place in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. I have come to think of these two boys as symbolic of their respective nations during this time. The post WWII world was in tumult. There was a global restructuring of power and this was when the forming of the United Nations was underway. Many of the colonies started rebelling against European imperialists and fighting for independence. Likewise, Oliver Twist depicts the eternal battle between the classes. This was the forming of modern capitalism. There were no child labor laws yet established and the wealthy manufacturers didn't think of the people they employed as human. They were seen only as a source of cheap labor and were horribly exploited. I view the fact that these two stories are set around children as symbolic of the new trying to overcome the old, rebellion against the establishment.
2. Steal to Survive Antoine and Oliver are both forced into thievery. Oliver is forced to become a pick pocket for Finch when he escapes his small town and flees to find better luck in London. Antoine steals milk, money, a typewriter, and his father's Michelin guide. Although it seems Antoine is choosing to make bad decisions of his own accord ultimately for both boys it comes down to survival. If Oliver doesn't go with the other boys and steal he will have no food, no place in a group which means no emotional security, and no place to stay. Antoine wants money so he can runaway from his abusive home, that's why he steals the money from his mom and tries to pawn off the typewriter but, when he runs away the first time he steals the milk because he has no money for food.
3. Frenemies - The Artful Dodger and Rene Every story always has a moral to it and watching these two films made me think of the phrase "beware of the company you keep". Although Dodger and Rene are central to the development of the lives of the main characters and without a doubt if the main characters had not had these two wing men at their sides their lives would have been bleaker that doesn't negate the fact that they also lead them to suffer unnecessarily. Companionship is good and essential for developing good mental health. Rene was Antoine's only "real" friend. Antoine's happiest moments in the film were with Rene but Rene was a bad influence. Rene is the one that convinces Antoine to skip school and talks him into stealing the typewriter. When Antoine gets caught trying to return the typewriter he goes down alone. When Rene see's Antoine's father yanking Antoine out of the building and yelling at him Rene stay's silent, doesn't admit to a thing, and doesn't step in at all. The Artful Dodger was Oliver's savior. He was the one who befriended Oliver and gave him food and a place to stay. He took Oliver under his wing. In the film Dodger taught Oliver how to take monograms out of handkerchiefs. However, it was because of Dodger's actions (a.k.a getting caught stealing) that Oliver gets taken to court due to a case of mistaken identity and would have been sent back to the workhouse were it not for the intervention of Mr. Brownlow.
4. Physical and mental abuse
In both films children experience physical and mental abuse by the adults around them. Antoine overhears his parents fighting about him. He is constantly accused of being a liar and a troublemaker by his parents and his teacher. Throughout the film his interactions with adults isn't pleasant. He is either getting reprimanded, hit, or being tugged around. The same is true with Oliver no one thinks he is a good kid. At the workhouse he is scorned when he asks for more food. He gets passed around from place to place until he willingly chooses to remove himself by running away. Once he gets away he is still ill treated. He gets threatened to death by Bill Sykes. He later gets shot. Throughout the film he is yelled at and tugged around.
Film Elements
The approach to shooting the film were completely different. The 400 Blows is experimental and raw. The 2005 Oliver Twist is a big Hollywood production, everything is heavily edited. Everything about it was elaborate, the costumes, the sets. The Oliver Twist movie used color to set the mood of a particular scene whereas The 400 Blows, being a movie shot in black and white used music to convey a particular mood/ emotion. For example, In Oliver Twist, mostly all of the scenes use darker colors, lots of brown, gray, black, blue, green for scenes set in the complex where the pick pockets stayed and when Oliver was at the workhouse. However the scenes where Oliver was staying with Mr. Brownslow were brightly lit and used bright colors, lot's of white and pastel type of colors.
The 400 Blows used lot's of non -diegetic sound so that in the rare instances that they used diegetic sound it was very obvious and it made you pay attention to that particular scene. I noticed that they played music in the scenes where an extreme of a particular emotion. Either sadness or happiness was being shown. For example, In all of the scenes where Antoine was able to be free, in a wide open space, being happy an upbeat song would start playing. Likewise, in the scene where Antoine is being pulled way in the back of a police car and you can see the tears running down his face a melancholy song would start playing, a song that used a lot of wind, string, and piano. It would make us feel that much more for him.
Final Thoughts
There are many other comparisons to make, importance of space and freedom in these films are also important themes. We see Antoine's space gradually become smaller and smaller. When Oliver leaves the workhouse to become and undertaker's apprentice he is relegated to a small sleeping space under a desk. Both boys fight to the very end to get their freedom. As I said in the beginning the stories are stories of overcoming adversity and I think that is a very positive message and certainly one that is universal.
Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse in 1830s England. His mother, whose name no one knows, is found on the street and dies just after Oliver’s birth. Oliver spends the first nine years of his life in a badly run home for young orphans and then is transferred to a workhouse for adults. After the other boys bully Oliver into asking for more gruel at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, offers five pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from the workhouse. Oliver narrowly escapes being apprenticed to a brutish chimney sweep and is eventually apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. When the undertaker’s other apprentice, Noah Claypole, makes disparaging comments about Oliver’s mother, Oliver attacks him and incurs the Sowerberrys’ wrath. Desperate, Oliver runs away at dawn and travels toward London.
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Outside London, Oliver, starved and exhausted, meets Jack Dawkins, a boy his own age. Jack offers him shelter in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin. It turns out that Fagin is a career criminal who trains orphan boys to pick pockets for him. After a few days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketing mission with two other boys. When he sees them swipe a handkerchief from an elderly gentleman, Oliver is horrified and runs off. He is caught but narrowly escapes being convicted of the theft. Mr. Brownlow, the man whose handkerchief was stolen, takes the feverish Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Brownlow is struck by Oliver’s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman that hangs in his house. Oliver thrives in Mr. Brownlow’s home, but two young adults in Fagin’s gang, Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy, capture Oliver and return him to Fagin.
Fagin sends Oliver to assist Sikes in a burglary. Oliver is shot by a servant of the house and, after Sikes escapes, is taken in by the women who live there, Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful adopted niece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver, and he spends an idyllic summer with them in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks are set on recapturing Oliver. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Oliver’s mother left behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains and destroys that locket. When the Maylies come to London, Nancy meets secretly with Rose and informs her of Fagin’s designs, but a member of Fagin’s gang overhears the conversation. When word of Nancy’s disclosure reaches Sikes, he brutally murders Nancy and flees London. Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, he inadvertently hangs himself while trying to escape. Mr. Brownlow, with whom the Maylies have reunited Oliver, confronts Monks and wrings the truth about Oliver’s parentage from him. It is revealed that Monks is Oliver’s half brother. Their father, Mr. Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman and had an affair with Oliver’s mother, Agnes Fleming. Monks has been pursuing Oliver all along in the hopes of ensuring that his half-brother is deprived of his share of the family inheritance. Mr. Brownlow forces Monks to sign over Oliver’s share to Oliver. Moreover, it is discovered that Rose is Agnes’s younger sister, hence Oliver’s aunt. Fagin is hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they and the Maylies retire to a blissful existence in the countryside.
For my final movie analysis I wanted to compare the lives of Antoine from the 400 Blows and the title character of Oliver from Oliver Twist. I had a lot of difficulty coming up with a good idea but this one really clicked. I like that they both touch upon life from a child's perspective. But beyond that the stories focus on topics like the battle between the social classes, how corruption from adults ultimately ends up corrupting the youth, loss of freedom and feelings of entrapment, the loss of innocence, and abuse on both a physical and psychological level among many other things.
Question about the Film Water
The Film ended on a pretty ambiguous note whith Shakuntala placing Chuyia into Narayan's care and instructing him to give Chuyia over to Gandhi. My question is do you think that's really what happened and if so what kind of life do you think Chuyia would have lived given her background and the teachings of Gandhi.
Interesting Use of Music
For my choice of interesting music I chose a scene from a Mexican Telenovela (Soap Opera) that I used to watch when I was little. The title of the show is Amor Real (Real Love). The context is that this woman named Matilde just got married to this rich guy named Manuel to save her family from financial ruin but her boyfriend who has been missing for months came back looking for her and she wants to escape with him. Manuel finds out and let's just say it does not go well. I love it because it's really over the top and dramatic and the background music just intensifies that.
Cultural Perspective of Water
The use of water in the film "water" had lots of religious connotations. In literature the fact that water is used / mentioned symbolizes cleansing, life, and freedom but the type (body) of water is equally as important. In this film the main source is the Ganga River. This river has been important to the Hindu religion for millennia. It is seen as a living entity, a goddess. It is worshipped and highly regarded. Moreover, in general literary terms rivers represent the flow of life and fertility, constant movement, and the character following a distinct path. In the film water represented freedom and cleansing for the main character Kalyani when she decided to commit suicide by drowning herself in the river. By doing so she was able to free herself from her life of misery. In the Hindu culture it is customary to cremate the body in order to detach the soul from the body so it can properly reincarnate. Kalyani didn't have a chance to do this first of all because she could not afford it but I think it was symbolic of her cleaning her body from the dirtiness it accumulated from the way she was forced to use it, namely prostitution.
