The New Wave

Do I really want to write about a sort of obscure French film (I saw it a few years back) from the 1950's? (Actually, I guess, not so obscure, since it was one of the key films of the French New Wave). Yes, well, sort of reluctantly, yes I do. The movie is Francois Truffant's 'The 400 Blows,' and the reason I want to write about it, is one scene, the last. One great scene can make a movie. In fact, one great image is all it takes. In the case, of 'The 400 Blows,' an autobiographical movie of Truffant's reform school years, we follow a young lad through a strait-laced, confining existence, his life smacks of existential 'alienation' (oh lordy, where is my beret and pack of Gitanes?). Most of the movie traces this path of alienation, until, finally at the end, the character (I've forgotten his name: Jules, Jacques - anyway, he is the Truffant stand-in) starts running; he runs through the streets, (we don't know where he's running to, maybe he doesn't either) he just keeps running until finally he arrives at the waterfront (I remember a beach). The camera pans back, (this is how I remember it) and reveals a vast, expansive horizon of water (it must be the ocean) and sky. It is the one moment in the movie of freedom and possibility. Plus, it holds a contradiction: the waterline suggests a larger more profound world, the boy is small and expectant, but he is bounded by the water. It is a breath-taking image, and then a blast of music, the closing credits, done. So anyway, this 'horizon image' re-emerged at the 'Ending and Beginnings' session we attended a few days back. It has become a key image in my own mythology. It's like I rediscovered it and re-integrated it into myself. I am now that 'boy,' running (Carla lately has been asking me, totally unaware my 'secret image,' 'where are you running?') to the waterline. The horizon is expansive, thrilling, 'where do I run to next?'