Francois Truffaut's Adventures of Antoine Doinel (The 400 Blows / Antoine & Collette / Stolen Kisses / Bed & Board / Love on the Run)

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The Adventures of Antoine Doinel captures François Truffaut's alter ego (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud) over the span of five films and 20 years. Truffaut's first feature was The 400 Blows (1959), in which Doinel is a boy who turns to petty crime in the face of neglect at home and hard times at a reform school. The film helped usher in the heady spirit of the French new wave and introduced the Doinel character. Poignant, exhilarating, and fun (there's a parade of cameo appearances from some of the essential icons and directors from the movement), this film is an important classic.

The second film to feature Doinel, "Antoine and Collette" (1962) was originally made for the omnibus film Love at Twenty but has outlived its companion shorts. As romantic and gently ironic as The 400 Blows is harsh and haunting, this modest 20-minute lark finds a teenage Antoine pursuing the lovely, lithe 20-year-old Colette (Marie-France Pisier) like a lovesick puppy. The comic sweetness of this episode sets the tone for all future Doinel films, and Léaud, who matured into the poster boy for the French new wave, displays the lanky charm and self-effacing egotism that propelled him through some of the greatest films of the next two decades.

Stolen Kisses (1968) opens with the now-grown Doinel sprung from military prison with a dishonorable discharge. He woos the perky but unresponsive object of his affections, Christine (Claude Jade), while he engages in a series of professions--hotel night watchman, private investigator, TV repairman--with mixed success and comic entanglements. But when he falls in love with the elegant wife of his client (Delphine Seyrig), Christine realizes she misses Antoine's persistence and clumsy passes, so she embarks on a seductive plan of her own.

Bed and Board (1970) finds Doinel married to Christine and still plugging away at odd jobs. He learns of his impending fatherhood, but then throws a monkey wrench into his new happiness when he becomes obsessed with a beautiful young Japanese woman (Hiroku Berghauer). Truffaut enlivens Doinel's courtyard apartment with the bustle and business of neighbors and pays homage to comic auteur Jacques Tati. However, he tempers the giddy screwball kookiness with a less forgiving disposition toward Antoine's passionate irresponsibility and emotional impulsiveness.

Love on the Run (1979) was Truffaut's last film in the series. Here, our compulsive liar and general scamp is found out time and time again, but, as the women of the film find, it's impossible to blame him entirely. The film stands on its own as a light comedy but carries much more resonance if watched in its proper place in the series.

Description

The release of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (Les Quatre cents coups) in 1959 shook world cinema to its foundations. The now-classic portrait of troubled adolescence introduced a major new director in the cinematic landscape and was an inaugural gesture of the revolutionary French New Wave. But The 400 Blows did not only introduce the world to its precocious director—it also unveiled his indelible creation: Antoine Doinel. Initially patterned closely after Truffaut himself, the Doinel character (played by the irrepressible and iconic Jean-Pierre Léaud) reappeared in four subsequent films that knowingly portrayed his myriad frustrations and romantic entanglements from his stormy teens through marriage, children, divorce, and adulthood. With The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, Criterion is proud to present Truffaut's celebrated saga in its entirety: the feature films The 400 Blows, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, and Love on the Run, and the 1962 short subject, Antoine and Colette, in a special edition five-disc box set.

Customer Reviews:

Essential cinema: Truffaut's 'Adventures of Antoine Doinel.'.......2007-07-23

François Truffaut's (1932-1984) 1959 film debut, The 400 Blows - Criterion Collection, was a turning point for French and world cinema. Challenging traditional Hollywood cinema, it marked the beginning of the radical French New Wave Movement. Truffaut won the Best Director award from the The 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the same festival that banned him the previous year. It follows Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) through his adolescence in Paris. Born to an unwed mother into an unhappy home life, Antoine is perceived to be a trouble maker by his teachers. (The film's French title refers to "faire les quatre cents coups," which means "to raise hell.") Poorly dressed and poorly fed, Antoine is also considered an unwanted burden by his indifferent mother and step-father, who eagerly surrender him first to a detention center, and then to a reform school, transorming the film into an exposé of the injustices of the treatment of juvenile offenders in France at the time. Antoine eventually escapes his work camp and runs towards the sea. Truffaut creates film history by ending his film with an unforgettable freeze-frame of Antoine on a beach with his feet in the surf, looking back to the shore, with no place left to run. Antoine has never experienced the sea before.

Léaud and Truffaut continued "The Antoine Doinel Cycle" over the course of twenty years with four more films depicting Antoine at later stages of his life. This highly-recommended Criterion Collection includes The 400 Blows with the rest of the Doinel series--Antoine and Colette; Stolen Kisses; Bed and Board; and Love on the Run--which follows Antoine's frustrations and romantic entanglements from his teens through his marriage, children, divorce, and adulthood.

Three years after The 400 Blows shook world cinema to its very foundations, Truffaut returned with the second chapter in the ongoing saga of Antoine Doinel. Antoine and Collette (Antoine et Colette) (1962) was the second film to feature Doinel. It paints a portrait of young, unrequited love, as 17-year-old Antoine pursues an icy high-school student, Colette (Marie-France Pisier). Léaud brings emotional depth to his memorable performance.

Stolen Kisses (Baisers volés) (1968) continues the Antoine Doinel story as the perpetually love-struck Antoine begins his relationship with violinist Christine Darbon (19-year-old Claude Jade). Having returned from military service, Antoine works a series of jobs (hotel night clerk; detective; TV repairmen) before ending up in bed with Christine (after trying to fix her irreparable TV). The film ends with the recently engaged Antoine and Christine strolling in the park, when a stranger declares his love for Christine. Stolen Kisses has been praised by critics all over the world.

Bed and Board (Domicile Conjugal) (1970) follows the married life of Antoine and Christine. While Christine gives violin lessons to children in their apartment, Antoine dyes and sells flowers beneath their window. They read in bed together, and Antoine teases Christine about her breasts. (He wants to name them Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.) When Christine becomes pregnant, Antoine starts an an affair with a Japanese beauty (Hiroku Berghauer), and Christine then leaves him. When they later reconcile, Antoine tells Christine: "You are my sister, my daughter, my mother." Christine replies, "I'd hoped to be your wife." This film offers a bittersweet look at young married life and the line between adolescence and adulthood.

Following Antoine's infidelity, Love on the Run (L'amour en fuite) (1979) concludes the Antoine Doinel cycle eight years later. Divorced and now in his thirties, Antoine works as a proofreader while writing his autobiographical novel. Believing that without love, one is nothing, he falls in love with a record seller, Sabine (Dorothée), before reuniting with Colette (Marie-France Pisier), who is now a lawyer. After taking a journey by train with Antoine, Colette meets Christine. The series ends with Antoine fervidly believing that because he is still in love, he is still alive.

Funny yet heartbreaking, playful yet melancholy, Truffaut's films are among my all-time favorites. This first-rate Criterion five-disc set offers a crisp digital transfer with a clear soundtrack.

G. Merritt

The New Wave's Hero.......2007-07-19

In the early Fifties, Francois Truffaut and other important critics and soon-to-be-filmmakers (such as Godard and Varda) contributed to the film journal "Cahiers de Cinema". But in 1958, Truffaut decided to put up or shut up (as the ancient axiom is "those who can't do, criticize"). What resulted was a series of films so breathtakingly new, so odd and yet moving, that this box set collects them brilliantly.

Antoine Doinel (as played by Jean-Pierre Leaud through four films and one short) is Truffaut's alter-ego, a disruptive but good-hearted young boy who matures into a hopeless romantic of an adolescent and adult. In "The 400 Blows" (1959), he escapes the clutches of his negligent family and the boundaries of his state prison, only to be left alone on the beach. In the short subject "Antoine et Collette", he is older but not wiser, as he falls for a girl way, way out of his league (her parents warm up to him, however, especially when he moves across the street).

In "Stolen Kisses", made during the turmoil of Langlois's dismissal from the Cinematheque in 1968 (just prior to the May riots that would sweep Paris out of the comfort of bourgeois existence if only briefly), we return to Doinel as a recent "dishonorable discharge" from the Army, and he finds work and time to be with the charming older wife of an employer as well as his soon-to-be wife, Christine Darbon. But in "Bed and Board" (1970), the happy family is shattered when Antoine falls for another impossible woman. Though he returns to Christine at the end of the film, in "Love on The Run" (1979), they have seperated, and the film finds Doinel reflecting on his romantic past and trying to preserve his possible future with a young record store clerk.

That, in a nutshell, is the story. But there's so much more going on in each film, and Truffaut doesn't so much focus on the stories of each film as the way his character Antoine navigates the events. The only one of the series that fails is the last, which feels a lot like a "greatest hits" wrap-up of the series, and because Antoine's love interest isn't nearly as interesting as the returning Collette (who reappears in Antoine's life and would have made a more interesting reward for all of his romantic angst over the years, if you ask me).

I came to Truffaut thanks to seeing the work of his cohort, Jean-Luc Godard, in a class last spring, and I have to say both revolutionized the way I see movies. I wasn't a philistine when it came to foreign films, I had just never bothered to examine why they're worth studying. Now I get it: apart from surrendering to the Germans, the French are also good at film-making.

Seek this box set out, it's worth your time if you're well-aware of the French New Wave or if you're new (and you get it mixed up with the musical "new Wave" of the Seventies). There's nothing wrong with expanding your cinematic horizons

Collector 'must have'.......2007-01-21

I was a bit concerned about paying the high price for films I've never seen before. But without a doubt I can only describe this series as "excellent." The caveat would be for those viewers expecting high drama.

I was surprised to learn Francois Truffaut was disappointed with Love on the Run as the finale to the adventures of Doinel. For the period in France, the series was befitting of family struggle post war reconstruction, and the new socialism of the 1970s. I also appreciate how French films seem to allow women to pursue the same sexual desires Hollywood likes to reserve for men.

Character Doinel is stuck, (which seems to have bothered Truffaut most,) but he gets away with what most men probably wish for -- being a silly prankster boy who ends up never having a shortage of women in his life as an adult.

As with many French 'people' films, this series is not for those who wouldn't appreciate the lifestyle and culture and storylines simply about 'average.' One could draw a comparison between what films were being produced in the USA during '59/'62 -- '79 to see the difference from being entertained (by John Wayne) to spying on a character's real life saga via story telling.

Antoine And The Art Of MovieMaking.......2006-10-02

For my money, "The Adventures of Antoine Doinel" might be my favorite Criterion release. Period. One of the reasons I respect Criterion (and not every choice is a slam dunk) is that it allows regular people to really learn about cinema. As someone who attended graduate school in film, I feel as if my education and appreciation has never waned due to the influx of great choices on DVD. The constant improvement of special features and supplemental material adds a new level to the movie going experience. This set alone has scores of pertinent interviews, commentaries, a short, promotional art and a 72 page book of contemporary essays and Truffault's own notes.

Now, I had seen "The 400 Blows" several times--but I had not been introduced to the other 4 films that represent the saga of Antoine Doinel. And like some other reviewers, I will not dissect each disc--but leave some overall impressions. "The 400 Blows" is considered one of Truffault's masterpieces--not only was it instrumental in initiating the French New Wave movement, it's just a great entertaining film!

And it doesn't stop there. Every film, to me, succeeded on the level of entertainment. Some people think that the later films are lesser works--and surely they are less significant on an individual basis than "The 400 Blows." But I loved them. Any one of them, taken out of context, is worth seeing--if for no other reason than entertainment value. There is much humor, sweetness, romance, and trouble to be had in the misadventures of Doinel.

Taken together, however, I think this set is a towering achievement! It's a real pleasure to spend 20 years with the same director, the same actor and the same character! You see how these components interact and evolve. How often do you get a chance to sit down and live a life with someone? By compiling the set together and watching it together--you are experience history. A good story and entertaining films, YES--but you are also growing and aging with a phenomenal director, his iconic antihero, and the film movement. The whole experience was magical and enthralling and I definitely recommend it to anyone who really loves film! KGHarris, 10/06.

A Unique serie in the history of Cinema.......2005-12-05

Antoine Doinel is filmed as a troubled child in 400 Blows, as an adolescent in Antoine & Colette, and as young man in love in Stolen Kisses, as married man an a father in Bead & Board and as a divorced, yet-trying-to-reconstruct-himself man in Love on the Run. The actor Jean-Pierre Leaud gets older during the films, still he is the same person, dealing with the same unresolved conflicts, defending the same values, entonating the same voice, 5, 10, 15, 20 years later ... as in real life. Each movie is a jewel on its own, however seeing the whole serie and getting the full, coherent picture is a unique exercise, as when you know a person from childhood from adulthood, you know what will happen, and it just happens.

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Stolen Kisses
A charming comedy from Truffaut
Charming romantic comedy that really is funny
Stolen Kisses, Wasted Time
~Lovely and Delightful~

Stolen Kisses
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud , Delphine Seyrig , Claude Jade , Michael Lonsdale , and Harry-Max
Director: François Truffaut
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00000JLTR
Release Date: 1999-08-24

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Eight years after the wry romantic sketch Antoine and Colette, François Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Léaud reunited to catch up with Truffaut's cinematic alter ego, Antoine Doinel, the troubled adolescent of The 400 Blows. Stolen Kisses opens with the now-grown Doinel sprung from military prison with a dishonorable discharge, drawn directly from Truffaut's own history of delinquency, but the parallels end there. Lovesick Doinel woos the perky but unresponsive object of his affections, Christine (Claude Jade) while he engages in a series of professions--hotel night watchman, private investigator, TV repairman--with mixed success and comic entanglements. But when he falls in love with the elegant wife of his client (Delphine Seyrig at her most beautiful and charming), Christine realizes she misses Antoine's persistence and clumsy passes, so she embarks on a seductive plan of her own. Truffaut's comic confection is full of deadpan gags and screwball chaos, a world away from the heavy seriousness of The 400 Blows, and Léaud is endearingly naive as the determined Doinel, forging ahead with more pluck and passion than aptitude. It may be Truffaut's most sweetly romantic film, a knowing man's embrace of eager innocence and storybook sentiment. Doinel returns two years later in Bed and Board. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

Stolen Kisses.......2007-06-28

Filmed during the 1968 riots in Paris, François Truffaut's endearing, soufflé-light romantic comedy continues the saga of Antoine Doinel, played by a grown-up Jean-Pierre Leaud, who first appeared in the director's semi-autobiographical classic "The 400 Blows." As the boyishly inept Doinel, Leaud is effortlessly charming, while the radiant Seyrig is marvelous as a smoldering seductress married to a neurotic shoe salesman. Witty, touching, and studded with gorgeous views of the City of Lights, "Stolen Kisses" is one of Truffaut's sweeter confections.

A charming comedy from Truffaut.......2005-11-02

This is Truffaut's third movie in his ANTOINE ET COLLETTE series, which began brilliantly with THE 400 BLOWS. It begins with Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) being dishonorably discharged from the army and eventually getting a job with a detective agency. He's not very good at it, though he tries hard, and on one case, while working as a stockboy in a shoe store, he has an affair with the owner's wife Fabienne, (played by Delphine Seyrig).

In addition to all this, Truffaut explores Antoine's relationship with long-time girlfriend Catherine (Catherine Lutz) - the ambiguities and confusions that go along with young love. The best scenes by far are those between Antoine and Fabienne - they are vibrant and compelling. Too much of the rest, though good, seems inconsistent. Antoine's character is maddening to watch and is perfectly played by Leaud: he can't quite grasp life around him, yet he can shrug it off as if lost in a fog he's unaware of. Truffaut has made better movies than this one, but it's not bad at all. Worth a watch.

Charming romantic comedy that really is funny.......2004-05-31

This is a delightful Truffaut movie starring Jean-Pierre Leaud who played Antoine Doinel, the running boy in Truffaut's famous Les Quatre cents coup (1959). He's a young man now just discharged from the army bouncing from one temporary job to another, from being a night watchman to being a TV repairman. He gets into scrapes and gets fired, but presses on (in-between impulsive liaisons with ladies of the evening).

He gets his big chance when he lucks into a job with a private detective agency. After some mishaps he is called upon to take a job (within a job, as it were) at a shoe store to find out why the owner is not liked. There he meets the owner's wife, Fabienne Tabard, played by Delphine Seyrig (Last Year at Marienbad 1961; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972, etc.). He is immediately smitten by her. In typical French cinematic fashion it is not clear whether she is a goddess or a maternal figure for the thoroughly bewitched Antoine.

Meanwhile there is Christine Darbon (Claude Jade) who plays Antoine's real love interest. What makes this film so thoroughly agreeable is Truffaut's light-hearted wit and his studious avoidance of cliche in a genre (the romantic comedy) in which cliches abound. The humor is often tongue-in-cheek, and as subtle as a diplomat's compliment. Leaud's charm and his oh so earnest style make him the perfect foil for life's little jokes. Along the way detective agencies are satirized as are its clientele, including a guy who wants his magician boyfriend tailed only to find that he is--horrors!--married, or the aforementioned shoe haberdasher who hires a private eye (not a shrink!) to find out why he is not beloved.

Bottom line: see this for Francois Truffaut, whose keen sense of humanity's foibles and unique style, sometimes playful and sometimes penetrating, have made him one of cinema's greatest directors.

Stolen Kisses, Wasted Time.......2003-12-28

The 400 Blows is deservedly one of the best movies of all time. Stolen Kisses, a continuation of the Antoine Doinel character, could possibly qualify as one of the worst (okay, a bit of an exaggeration, but it is bad). Truffaut obviously decided to go for a farcical Antoine, which proved to be a big, big mistake. Antoine is no longer that edgy, rebellious character struggling with the constraints imposed by authority. Remember how he reacted when he got slapped in the face? Very little reaction, which was perfect and believable. In Kisses, you have an Antoine who is more fawning than stoic, more mimicking than reserved. The result is this viewer's disappointment. In addition, the plot is haphazard, breezy, and meaningless. The ending is forgetful, in complete contrast to that of The 400 Blows. Do yourself a favor: instead of wasting your time watching this, watch The 400 Blows again.

~Lovely and Delightful~.......2003-04-30

"Stolen Kisses" is also one of those films that I can watch over and over again without getting bored. This film is charming and funny. Jean-Pierre Leaud's exaggerated expressions (his "declaration of love" for Madame Tabat scene and the "Chiquitita banana" scene) certainly contribute to the film's charm. I adore the characters Antoine and Christine very much. The film is very well made; like all Truffaut's films, the music, sceneries, casts, lighting, landscapes, angles etc all fit in like a perfect jigsaw puzzle. I feel that the best scene is the beginning of the movie where Truffaut shoot scenes of moving cars on the street and then slowly moves on to shoot the entrance of a cinema. It is also then the music fills in the background. I agree with one of the reviewers that this film makes good use of Charles Trenet's song "Que Reste-T-Il De Nos Amours". Simply delightful!

Baisers Voles / Stolen Kisses (Original French Version with English Subtitles)

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Baisers Voles / Stolen Kisses (Original French Version with English Subtitles)
Director: François Truffaut
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000BONXKY

Product Description

Region 1 DVD - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Antoine Doinel joined the army but has just been discharged. The film tells his reunion with Christine Darbon, the girl he was in love with before the beginning of the film, and his adventures in his jobs : first as a night watchman, then as a private investigator, especially during one investigation within Mr Tabard's shoes-shop... Mme Tabard is so fascinating...

Stolen Kisses (Baisers volés) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]

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Stolen Kisses (Baisers volés) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]
Director: François Truffaut
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: French (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Subtitles), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (1.85:1), SYNOPSIS: Antoine Doinel joined the army but has just been discharged. The film tells his reunion with Christine Darbon, the girl he was in love with before the beginning of the film, and his adventures in his jobs : first as a night watchman, then as a private investigator, especially during one investigation within Mr Tabard's shoes-shop... Mme Tabard is so fascinating... SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu,

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Stolen Kisses
A charming comedy from Truffaut
Charming romantic comedy that really is funny
Stolen Kisses, Wasted Time
~Lovely and Delightful~

Stolen Kisses [Region 2]
Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud , Delphine Seyrig , Claude Jade , Michael Lonsdale , and Harry-Max
Director: François Truffaut
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( S ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B00005JDIT

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

Stolen Kisses.......2007-06-28

A charming comedy from Truffaut.......2005-11-02

Charming romantic comedy that really is funny.......2004-05-31

Bottom line: see this for Francois Truffaut, whose keen sense of humanity's foibles and unique style, sometimes playful and sometimes penetrating, have made him one of cinema's greatest directors.

Stolen Kisses, Wasted Time.......2003-12-28

~Lovely and Delightful~.......2003-04-30

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