2 June 2005
Thursday 2 June 2005 21:30-22:00 (Radio 3)
In 1959 a new film exploded onto French screens, creating a whole new chapter in the history of cinema. Film-maker Roger Graef joins Isabel Hilton to explore Francois Truffaut's enduring masterpiece Les Quatre Cent Coups .
Programme Details
Before embarking on a career in cinema, Francois Truffaut was an acerbic, polemical voice in film criticism, earning the description of 'the gravedigger of French cinema'.
So when Truffaut embarked on a life of film-making, he turned his back on traditional French cinema, with its polished dialogue, elaborate film sets, ornate photography and movie stars. Instead, he started making films which took bold chances and told personal stories, which often took place on the streets.
This highly personal style of film-making was to become the Nouvelle Vague , or the French New Wave, along with like-minded writer-directors including Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Louis Malle.
In tonight's Night Waves: Landmark, Isabel Hilton is joined by the film-and-documentary-maker Roger Graef, the film writer Chris Darke, and the French film critic Agnes Poirier, to discuss and dissect Truffaut's first feature film, the classic masterpiece Les Quatre Cent Coups (or The 400 Blows ).
Truffaut based his gritty, urban 1959 film on his own life, the story of a teenage boy getting into trouble at school, running away from his cramped apartment home, and ending up in a centre for juvenile delinquents, misunderstood and let down by the adult world.
The 400 Blows immediately established Truffaut as the New Wave's most commercially successful director. In many ways it is a coming-of-age film, a portrayal of innocence lost, which has lost nothing of its power or relevance over the last 45 years.
Join Isabel Hilton and guests as they discuss, dissect and deconstruct one of the greatest films in the history of cinema.
Night Waves: Landmark, at 9.30pm here on BBC Radio 3.
Presenter: Isabel Hilton
Producer: Jerome Weatherald
