Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) (1959)
Before I went to see this New Wave gem from director François Truffaut, my mom asked me what it was about. I fumbled for a while and eventually came up with, "A 12 year-old boy." That was it. Thank goodness I've had blinders on about this one because I know others that have been spoiled by its reputation. Honestly, it's a shame. For them. The first half is as charming as the second half is maddening, and the combination is devastating. The title comes from a French idiom that translates "to raise hell," and that's exactly what Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) sets out to do. Léaud is a wonder of a child actor, a kid who plays a kid all the way through, never grows up, never has the world on his shoulders, never does much of anything that any kid wouldn't do. The exact same excuse you apply to his earlier indiscretions (Well, he's 12) becomes your whimper as life heaps greater and greater punishment on him (But he's 12!). Guided by Jean Constantin's glorious score, it's a paean to childhood and innocence lost, and the indefatigable spirit that can carry us through if we let it. A
The Graduate (1967)Alright, I watched. Maybe I come from the wrong time/place, but I don't get it. I get it at when Ben (Dustin Hoffman) is just drifting and when Ben submerges in the middle of the party. I get why Ben would have an awkward affair with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). But then Elaine (Katherine Ross) is introduced and, for me, the whole thing comes off the rails. Why in the world would Elaine be interested in Ben? He slept with her mom, he stalks her, and he's annoying and clingy. I get why Ben's doing all this, but we have no insights into why Elaine would want anything to do with this schmuck. Maybe there's more to her in the novel, but here it's just . . . unbelievable. Still, that final scene? That I get. B
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956)
I somehow got it into my head that this was the first movie to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder in WWII vets, and that probably unfounded idea coloured my opinion of the movie while I was first watching it. I kept waiting for the moment when Tim Roth (Gregory Peck) would flip and, like, try to murder his wife (Jennifer Jones) because he thought she was a Nazi or scale his employer's sky scraper thinking he was a sniper, but nothing like that ever happens. It's more like post-traumatic laconic staring, where Peck spends a lot of time gazing out windows lost in not at all violent memories of the war. If anything it's more about the inherent difficulties in dealing with bureaucracy and with being honest in your home life. Fortunately, that movie's elegant, quiet, and smart, and writer-director Nunnally Johnson won me over by the end. B+
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