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The release of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows 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 not only introduced the world to Truffaut—it also unveiled his most 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. This box set presents 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 short subject Antoine and Colette.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
4K digital restorations of all five films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
New 4K restoration of Les mistons, Truffaut’s 1957 short film, with commentary by Claude de Givray, Truffaut’s then assistant director
Two audio commentaries for The 400 Blows, one featuring film scholar Brian Stonehill and the other Truffaut’s lifelong friend Robert Lachenay
Archival interviews with Truffaut and his collaborators, including actors Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, and Marie-France Pisier and cowriters de Givray and Bernard Revon
Video essays by film historian Serge Toubiana for Stolen Kisses and Les mistons
Introducing My Father, François Truffaut, a 2019 interview with Laura Truffaut by filmmaker Daniel Raim
Trailers
PLUS: Essays by Annette Insdorf, Kent Jones, Andrew Sarris, Noah Baumbach, and Chris Fujiwara, and a 1971 piece by Truffaut
Covers by Lucien S. Y. Yang
François Truffaut